Spike Chunsoft announced that Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island will not only be coming to the West, but also that it’s set for release on February 27, 2024. The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island — what a mouthful — will be the 6th game in the mainline Shiren the Wanderer series. The last new entry we saw in this series was The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate, which came out back in 2016.
The announcement trailer gives insight into what this iteration of Shiren the Wanderer entails. Supposedly, a vast treasure lies in wait in the dungeon of Serpentcoil Island, and who else deserves to claim it than Shiren and Koppa? It’s adopting a chibi-fied, cartoonish aesthetic, which lines up perfectly with the “back to basics” concept the trailer mentions.
As with many other roguelikes, this is a game where you will die (a lot). And, if and when you do die, you also lose everything you have gathered during that run. So strategy and careful movement becomes incredibly important for your survival. Especially with procedurally generated, turn-based dungeons that reset every run. I can see several scenarios playing out in my head that would make me panic beyond imagination.
For those unfamiliar with Shiren the Wanderer, it’s the main pioneer of the Mystery Dungeon franchise. Western gamers likely know this better for its spinoffs like the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and Chocobo Mystery Dungeon series’. So, if you’ve experienced either of those, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect here. But if not, you can take the leap of faith when Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island launches exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on February 27, 2024.
