Nintendo Direct Mini Round-Up: Everything New Today

As promised, Nintendo debuted a new Direct Mini today, with this new livestream focusing entirely on upcoming games and content from third-party developers. As the name suggests, this Direct Mini was indeed a short one, clocking in at just over eight minutes long. Still, there were a handful of announcements worth talking about, so if you didn't catch the Direct Mini when it was published earlier today, here's everything you missed.

Nintendo opened the show by announcing three new DLC packs for Cadence of Hyrule, the Zelda-themed rhythm game from the folks behind Crypt of the NecroDancer. The first is the Character Pack, which adds Impa, Aria, Shadow Link, Shadow Zelda, and Frederick to the game as playable characters. Then we have the Melody Pack, which adds 39 new songs to the game. Finally, we have the Story Pack, which adds new story content centering around Skull Kid as the main character.

The Character Pack is available today, while the Melody and Story Packs will be released at a later date. The Character and Story Packs will cost $5.99 each, while the Story Pack will set you back $9.99, but if you want to own all three, you can pick up the Cadence of Hyrule season pass (which is also available today) for $14.99. The patient gamers among us will be able to pick up a retail version of Cadence of Hyrule, which includes all of the DLC, for $39.99 on October 23rd.

Rogue Company is a game we've known about for a while, as the multiplayer shooter from First Watch Games and Hi-Rez Studios was first revealed back in 2019. The trailer that we saw today introduces a new character – Glitch – and confirms that the Switch version will feature cross-platform progression and multiplayer, which are always nice things to have.

Are YOU ready to go rogue?

Grab a weapon, rock your favorite style, and join the ranks of #RogueCompany today! pic.twitter.com/Xw2iBIPfrr

— Rogue Company (@RogueCompany) July 20, 2020

At the end of the trailer, we're told to look for more information from the Rouge Company Twitter account. Heading over there shows that the game is now available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch, so those who have been looking forward to this title can download it and take it for a spin today.

WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a title that was born from the very negative reaction to last year's WWE 2K20. Instead of putting out a new entry in the mainline WWE series this year, 2K Games is instead putting out Battlegrounds, a game that takes a more arcade approach to pro wrestling. The trailer shows the game running on what is presumably the Switch with some WWE superstars behind the controllers, but aside from that, we don't glean anything new.

Today's Direct Mini wrapped up with a pair of announcements for JRPG fans, with the first being that Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne is getting an HD remaster for the Nintendo Switch. Nocturne was first released for the PlayStation 2 way back in 2003, so it's certainly in need of some updating. Nocturne was also the first Shin Megami Tensei game released in the west, which means that it has a lot of fans on this side of the world and is therefore a solid candidate for an HD remaster. We'll see this one launch in spring 2021.

If an HD remaster of Nocturne isn't enough to sate your need for Shin Megami Tensei, then good news: the reveals didn't stop there. Atlus also confirmed that Shin Megami Tensei V will be heading to the Switch in 2021 with a cinematic trailer that capped off the Direct Mini. By the time Shin Megami Tensei V lands next year, it'll have been eight years since Shin Megami Tensei IV and five since Shin Megami Tensei VI: Apocalypse, so expect hype for this one to be high.

If you missed the show earlier today, you can watch the entire presentation in the video embedded above. Nintendo says that this is just the first Partner Showcase it plans to publish, so we'll keep an ear to the ground for more on that front. We'll also be keeping our fingers crossed for a full-length that reveals some upcoming first-party Switch games, so stay tuned.