Today, it was revealed that Takara Tomy will release Zoids Wild for Switch on February 28th. The game is part of Takara Tomy’s Zoids Wild multimedia project, aiming to revive the Zoids franchise, and will feature 1 Vs 1 battles, with gameplay inspired by Virtual-On.
The Zoids Wild project was announced back in February 2018 along with a Zoids Wild anime, a manga adaptation, and a phone application. The Zoids Wild TV anime started back in July and is ongoing. Until now we had very few information on the game, besides a “Winter 2019” planned release and the Zoids official Twitter account scarcely tweeting screenshots.
The Zoids franchise was initially a line of original model kit toys launched by Tomy in 1983. (Tomy merged with Takara in March 2006). It was created by Mitsutoshi Tokuyama, and its core concept back then was to only make a toys line, mixing dinosaurs and mecha. Not creating any kind of TV adaptation made it so Zoids‘ popularity wasn’t tied with a TV show, making them timeless, universal toys. It also allowed children playing with Zoids to let their own imagination create their own stories and settings.
When the eighties ended, Zoids declined in popularity, until it came back with its first anime adaptation in 1999, beginning what we can call the second wave of Zoids, but at the same time alienating itself with the original concept. Zoids Wild is trying to start a third wave. More details on the game will be revealed later.