WayForward Technologies has officially announced and revealed details for the next DLC expansion to Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, titled “Friends to the End”, and it will revolve around playing as the characters of Sky, Bolo, and Rottytops.
Friends to the End stars Shantae’s friends at a point towards the end of Half-Genie Hero’s plot, where Shantae is overcome by a dark and sinister force that is keeping her mentally and physically incapacitated, and they are tasked with running through her memories — consisting of re-worked levels from the game of course — in order to break through the dark magic and free their friend. This will fill in a missing piece of the narrative that was addressed in the base game of Half-Genie Hero, but was kind of glossed over.
Each of the three characters will have completely different mechanics and play-styles, and the player has a great deal of liberty in how they’d like to approach each level and who with. On top of this, the design structure of Friends to the End is rather different from either of the play-styles shown off in Half-Genie Hero so far. The Kickstarter update for the expansion goes into some detail about the differences, stating that:
From a design perspective, Friends to the End differs from Shantae and Risky’s modes in that the power up system exists “in the field”. There are no menus or inventory to manage. Collecting Gems will cause a hero to LEVEL UP, increasing their attack speed and damage dealt. Getting hit by enemies incurs a penalty, dropping the power level. Enemies and Bosses have been tailored around these new concepts, dropping health and Gems to feed the player’s needs. You could say that “Friends to the End” is part puzzle game, part action game, and part player management.
In terms of release date or gameplay footage we didn’t get much information. We do know for sure that the development of Friends to the End is complete, and that the game is currently under review for release by the people at Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Valve, which may see it releasing some time this Holiday season. We also know that like the previous DLC expansion, Pirate Queen’s Curse, Friends to the End will be free to all Kickstarter backers of the game and will be paid content for everyone else.
As it stands right now, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is available now on PC, Xbox One, PS4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, and Nintendo Switch. If you are interested in learning more about “Friends to the End” then click here to view the update on the game’s Kickstarter page.
