Advance Wars 1 + 2 Re-Boot Camp Finally Has A New Release Date
After missing its planned launch in December of 2021 and being pushed back to a vague "spring 2022" launch, Advance Wars 1 + 2 Re-Boot Camp has a new release planned for this Spring. It's unclear what exactly the necessary "fine tuning" Nintendo claimed was the reason for the setback involved, but as Shigeru Miyamoto's popular quote goes, "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
Since its debut in North America on the Game Boy Advance over 20 years ago, in September of 2001, Advance Wars has offered a more modern and less fantasy-based tactical experience for players who enjoy strategizing but might not have had much interest in similar series like Fire Emblem. And while the former has produced a number of games over the past few years — most recently with 2019's Three Houses — the US has only seen four Advance Wars games over the past two decades. And even then, the most recent one (Days of Ruin) came out in January, 2008.
What's included
The new date was revealed in Nintendo's recent Direct presentation, along with a subsequently released trailer, which covers most of the details about the upcoming collection. It also reveals that voice actors have been brought in to give the various playable and non-playable generals more life and personality — a first for the main series, though its Battalion Wars spin-off from 2005 did include character audio.
Additional features for the updated collection, not being produced by WayForward (the Shantae series, River City Girls) instead of original developer Intelligent Systems, include up to 4-player local or online multiplayer in Versus mode, and high score chasing via the War Room. Or, if you want to design your own theaters of destruction, you can use the Design Room to create and share your own custom maps. Which is all in addition to the two separate single player campaigns already found in Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising.
Eager Advance Wars fans might have been disappointed at the news of the initial delay, but if things stay on track they won't have to wait much longer when it releases (provided there are no more unexpected delays) in two months on both the Switch eShop and as a physical cartridge for $59.99. The release date for Advance Wars 1 + 2 Re-Boot Camp is now planned for April 8th, 2022.