A new gameplay trailer for Ruffy and the Riverside has been released, showing off some of the imaginative touches we can expect.
It’s a 3D platformer featuring a 2D bear protagonist, in which it’s possible to swap textures to assist in traversal and puzzle solving. A waterfall, for instance, can be swapped with vines in order to be climbed. Lava can be switched with ice, water with stone, and so forth. There’s no single way to get around the colourful world; it’s ripe for experimentation.
Ruffy being a 2D sprite isn’t just an aesthetic choice either, able to leap into walls and such to carry on platforming from a side-scrolling perspective.
It’s looking very fun and playful, and that’s before factoring in the ability to roll around on hay bales. There’s a world to explore, and more crucially save, too – one populated by oddball characters, and filled with creatures to rescue.
Ruffy and the Riverside is being developed in Germany and has existed, at least in a prototype state, since 2017. It’s scheduled for release Q1 2025 on all formats, including (quite possibly) both the Switch and its successor.