The Wonderful 101: Remastered gets May release date

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The Wii U's quirky cult darling is finding new life on modern hardware

(Image credit: Platinum Games)

The Wonderful 101: Remastered is coming to Steam, PS4, and Nintendo Switch May 19 in North America and May 22 in Europe.

The colorful, fast, and frenetic Wonderful 101 first landed on Wii U in 2013, attracting a cult following in the years since. Looking back, I can understand why it has loyalists. Beneath its shimmering cartoon visuals, there's a steep but rewarding learning curve at The Wonderful 101's core, even if the weapon I scribbled into the Gamepad's touchscreen didn't always manifest in-game as planned. Pair that with a pervading sense of humor and unique visual style, and it's easy to see why fans are excited for a wider release and remaster seven years after launch.

Over on the official site for The Wonderful 101: Remastered, PlatinumGames Chief Game Designer Hideki Kamiya wrote about his quirky game's limited success on the Wii U and how the remaster has been improved from the original. "Unfortunately, I can’t say it was much of a success [on Wii U], from a business standpoint," Kamiya admits.

"But I’ve also never thought of it as a failure. I didn’t back then, and I don’t today. That’s because, to a game creator, a game is only a failure if it disappoints the gamers who play it. From the start, The Wonderful 101 didn’t quite reach a large enough audience for me to clearly call it either way."

The remaster has been polished up and tweaked for a better framerate, but there's more to the remaster than a fresh coat of paint. "We’ve tuned the controls for each new platform and made several adjustments that should make it easier to grasp and play," writes Kamiya.

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick
Staff Writer

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.