The first trailer for the sequel to Super Meat Boy — an endless runner with similar mechanics and difficulty titled Super Meat Boy Forever — was shown off at the start of the Nintendo Summer 2017 Nindies presentation earlier today.
Super Meat Boy was an indie platformer from 2010 developed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes of Team Meat. It starred the titular Meat Boy in an quest to rescue his girlfriend Bandage Girl from the spiteful and jealous Dr. Fetus. The game is both acclaimed and infamous for being both extremely difficult, but also fairly designed by giving the player full control of the character, as well as providing a large quantity of levels.
Super Meat Boy Forever seems to be attempting to take that same design philosophy in a new direction. The game picks up some time after the events of the first Super Meat Boy, and shows both Meat Boy and Bandage girl once again up against Dr. Fetus, this time attempting to save their baby named Nugget. Like the first game, Super Meat Boy Forever is a tough-as-nails platformer with simple controls and one-hit deaths, but this time with a twist, as the game takes the format of a “runner” style of game.
Edmund McMillen has been quick to identify Forever as a true sequel to the original game and not just some sort of simplified spin off. On the Super Meat Boy website he said:
To describe Super Meat Boy Forever as an auto-runner would be a disservice. It’s like saying that Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a game about a swordsman. Meat Boy / Bandage Girl do always run, but there is so much more to the game than running. They can attack enemies, they can dash through the air, there are tons of levels, there are bosses, there are secrets, and there is a surprising amount of difficulty that doesn’t feel unfair. It’s everything you would expect a Super Meat Boy sequel to be. Super Meat Boy Forever is a Super Meat Boy game that you can play anywhere on pretty much any device that’s powerful enough to run it!
Super Meat Boy Forever will launch first on Nintendo Switch some time in 2018.
