In early June of last year SNK announced two new entries in their venerable Metal Slug series, one new mainline entry for consoles and PC and one new mobile spin-off that was said to be a hybrid side-scrolling action/card game. Both titles were being developed internally at SNK. Then, later that same month, SNK announced a third new Metal Slug game in the works, this time being developed in partnership with TiMi Studios, a subsidiary of Tencent Games and the studio responsible for such hits as Honor of Kings/Arena of Valor and Call of Duty: Mobile. After going years without any new Metal Slug games, we suddenly had them coming out of our ears. I’m not complaining.
Anyway, while details are still scarce on the internally developed Metal Slug mobile game, today TiMi and SNK have released a new gameplay trailer for their refreshed take on this classic series, which is tentatively titled Metal Slug Code: J. Check it out.
Like the trailer that accompanied the original announcement last June, this new trailer showcases TiMi’s vision of the series’ iconic characters and locales in full 3D. As someone who absolutely adores the phenomenal pixel art from the Metal Slug series (and most of SNK’s library for that matter) I’m actually really liking this 3D interpretation. It does a great job at capturing the personality the series is known for as well as remaining true to the original character and enemy designs even though they’re 3D models now. Will the game itself be good? Who knows, and all we do know at this point thanks to the press release accompanying this new trailer is that this new Metal Slug mobile game “will feature different game modes, epic boss battles and meaningful progression systems that encourage exploration and collection for players."
TiMi has proven they’re able to create an extremely compelling free to play mobile experience using a well-known IP, and knowing that there’s a proper new mainline Metal Slug in the works alongside this new mobile iteration makes me feel confident I should be able to have my cake and eat it too when it comes to Metal Slug gaming in the future. Unfortunately there is no release window announced for Metal Slug Code: J but we’ll continue to keep an eye on how it shapes up.
