Yesterday’s Nintendo Direct was full of surprises, and just one of them was a complete remake of Advance Wars 1 and 2 from the Game Boy Advance. Called Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp, the new title combines both games into a single cartridge and remakes them for the Switch’s far more advanced hardware.
As shown in both the Nintendo Direct and subsequent Nintendo Treehouse livestreams, Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp retains much of the original game’s design. It’s the same characters, same units, same story, and same maps, but all of it has been given a modern facelift. Everything has been visually redesigned, from new animations for the units and commanding officers, to new textures for maps. Cutscenes have been redrawn and reanimated so Advance Wars looks like a modern strategy game for the Switch.
As for new features, Re-Boot Camp will come with up to four-player online multiplayer in versus mode–a significant step up from the original. Back in 2001, you actually had to pass your Game Boy Advance to your teammate or opponent if it wasn’t your turn. Re-Boot Camp will let everyone with a Switch play on their own console while filling in the distance between players with fog of war.
Battle environments have also been redone. In Re-Boot Camp, soldiers will actually ford rivers or shoot from high cliff tops when firing from certain terrain squares. There are also new weather effects and a new fast-forward button to speed up the animations in case your short on time. Or if you want to play Re-Boot Camp at lightning speed, you can just turn the animations off entirely in the game settings.
Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp is available to pre-order now for an expected release date of December 3 on the Nintendo Switch.
