Aussie indie game sequel coming soon

A new sequel to the hit Australian-developed Golf Story has been announced for a December release.

Brisbane indie game developer Sidebar Games has announced that a follow-up to the hit Switch game Golf Story will be launching exclusively on the Nintendo Switch in December.

Sports Story has been announced to be coming exclusively to the Nintendo Switch next month. The game was announced during Nintendo’s recent Indie World presentation, which covers a variety of independently-developed games headed to the console.

Sports Story, unlike its predecessor Golf Story, will feature more than just golf, with the game said to be adding tennis, soccer, volleyball, cricket, fishing, and more to the mix. According to the game’s Nintendo of America store page, players will be able to travel around the world via train, helicopter, and houseboat, and explore dungeons, abandoned ruins, and more in their pursuit for sporting greatness.

Sports Story was initially announced back in 2019 after the release of Golf Story, with Sidebar Games planning to release the title in mid-2020, but it has suffered numerous delays since then. The studio published an update on its Twitter account in June of 2021 asking players to look forward to more updates going forward, but news on the title has been sparse until now.

Golf Story released on the Nintendo Switch in late-2017 and was immediately met with praise from players and press alike. The game carries a metascore of 78 on score aggregator site Metacritic, and was even named as Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa’s favourite game in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Sports Story is a follow-up to the popular Golf Story from the same developer. Picture: Sidebar Games

Sports Story’s Nintendo Switch exclusivity comes as a $100b Microsoft deal faces an in-depth investigation, as the company attempts to acquire major publisher Activision Blizzard in an attempt to secure more exclusive content for its Xbox platform. The European Commission, charged with investigating and regulating competition within the European Union, has moved to an in-depth second phase of its investigation of the merger, which is expected to close by the middle of 2023.

As part of the acquisition, Microsoft has said that it wants Call of Duty on the Switch, as Xbox CEO Phil Spencer tried to assuage fears the company might make the popular franchise exclusive to Xbox consoles. Spencer said that he’d “love to see [Call of Duty] on Switch”, and that Microsoft intends to keep the series available on as many different platforms as possible.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.