Once Upon a Katamari revealed to be rolling into October

Break time’s almost over for The Prince. After 14 long years, Bandai Namco has revealed a new mainline Katamari series entry with Once Upon a Katamari. The game, developed by RENGAME, was announced with a classically strange and colourful gameplay trailer during the July Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase.

In Once Upon a Katamari, The King of All Cosmos is clearly back on his usual cosmic-scale nonsense. This time around, he’s gone and fiddled with a mysterious scroll. Obviously, this has managed to obliterate both the Earth and all the stars. It’s now up to The Prince to roll it back together, one object at a time. You’ll be peddling your katamari of mass destruction through different time periods, like the Jurassic period, the Ice Age and historic Japan, rebuilding the stars with an interesting range of items, from philosophers, wheels of cheese, mummies, cacti, dinosaurs and more.

While you can play as The Prince in Once Upon a Katamari, you’ll also be able to play as one of the other 68 cousins. Furthermore, if you wanted to get more creative, you can also customise your little guy too! You’ll be able to tweak the face, colours, body and name of your Katamari OC (original cousin), which will let you stand out against your friends in the new online multiplayer mode, KatamariBall. 

Whether you’re a long time fan or new to the joy of collecting everything from beachballs to buildings, Once Upon a Katamari looks like a classically bizarre return to form for the beloved series. Just seeing The Prince running around to the beat of the fantastic new music brings a genuine smile to my face. Thankfully, we’ve not got too long to wait, with Once Upon a Katamari launching on October 24 this year on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.