THQ Nordic Showcase Spongebob

THQ Nordic Showcase presents SpongeBob but none of its exciting franchises

The THQ Nordic Showcase SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake reveal was a big deal, but the rest of the announcements were underwhelming. With such major titles as Red Faction: Evolution, Gothic, Kingdoms of Amalur, and especially TimeSplitters 4 being rumored for THQ Nordic’s first big E3-like showcase for its 10th anniversary, it was surprising how niche the reveals were other than SpongeBob SquarePants. Here’s the full THQ Nordic Showcase games list of titles revealed.

THQ Nordic Showcase Spongebob and other announced games list

THQ Nordic Showcase Spongebob

Here are all six games revealed at the first THQ Nordic Showcase:

  • SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake — a semi-sequel to SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom from the developers behind the recent Rehydrated remake, it’s a platformer-action game featuring seven fantastical worlds, all the original voice actors, and doesn’t seem to have a PS5/Xbox Series X version planned for now.
  • Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed — the remake of PS2 classic Destroy All Humans! 2 has been teased for most of this year before being outright leaked by PlayStation this week, the sequel is once again being made by the last remake’s Black Forest Games so it’s in safe hands.
  • Jagged Alliance 3 — the original Jagged Alliance games were basically XCOM with mercenaries, which is exactly what the new game seems to be like, made for PC only by Tropico and Surviving Mars developer Haemimont Games.
  • Outcast 2: A New Beginning — it’s been a long time since the original open-world sci-fi adventure Outcast, which received a few remakes over the years but no sequel. The original wasn’t that great so it’s a surprise to see the sequel, complete with the universe’s most boring protagonist Cutter Slade.
  • Superpower 3 — a PC-only strategy game sequel based on global conquest, it’s been years since the last game, but it has the original developers GolemLabs in control at least.
  • MX vs. ATV: Legends — the next game in the racing series, and the first on PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Other than the highly-teased SpongeBob and the leaked Destroy All Humans! 2 it’s certainly a surprising list, but not altogether an exciting one. The Outcast franchise didn’t really require resurrecting as there’s basically nothing recognizable left anyway, except for the nondescript Cutter Slade who should’ve been replaced with a character creator. Plus, the few remaining Jagged Alliance fans have been disappointed so many times by the franchise it’s hard to get too excited about a sequel, even a numbered one.

The biggest surprise was the omissions since THQ Nordic has a lot of exciting franchises with games already confirmed but not revealed. A new Red Faction game, Darksiders 4 (which was basically confirmed in 2018), and the long-overdue TimeSplitters 4 are the biggest examples, but even a new Gothic or Kingdoms of Amalur game would’ve been welcome. Still, as long as the games are quality and fun to play then that’s all that matters — whenever that happens, since THQ Nordic didn’t announce a single tentative release date for any of them.

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