Update (April 12): Nintendo announced during a Nintendo Direct presentation that Bye-Bye BoxBoy! will be released today, April 12, in the Nintendo 3DS eShop in North America. You can see the launch trailer above.
Update (March 24): Turns out that Bye-Bye BoxBoy! didn’t actually launch on Nintendo 3DS yesterday. In fact, Nintendo has since deleted the tweet that we originally cited in this article, as you can see below.
Asked for comment, a Nintendo representative told Polygon that “incorrect information about an upcoming game for Nintendo 3DS was posted on Nintendo of America’s social media channels.” The spokesperson added, “Nintendo will provide additional updates once the information has been corrected and confirmed.”
So for now, there’s no word on when Bye-Bye BoxBoy! will actually be released in North America.
Original story: Bye-Bye BoxBoy!, the third entry in HAL Laboratory’s beloved series of box-based puzzle platformers, will be released March 23, Nintendo announced today.
Like its predecessors, Bye-Bye BoxBoy! will be available exclusively on Nintendo 3DS in the Nintendo eShop. The game is already available in Japan, where it launched Feb. 2 under the name Goodbye! BoxBoy! for 680 yen (about $5.93). Nintendo has not yet announced a price for the U.S. eShop.
BYE-BYE BOXBOY!, the third game in the BOXBOY! trilogy, is angling its way exclusively to #eShop on #3DS on 3/23. pic.twitter.com/qkOGfdeC0b
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 9, 2017
In its announcement today, Nintendo referred to the BoxBoy! series as a “trilogy,” which suggests that Bye-Bye BoxBoy! will be the final game in the franchise. (Of course, the title of the game hints at that fact, too.) The series began in 2015 with BoxBoy! and continued with BoxBoxBoy! last year.
Both of those games launched in Japan well before they were released in the West — there was a lag time of about two and a half months for the original game, and nearly six months for the sequel. So Bye-Bye BoxBoy! will have the shortest gap between its Japanese debut and its arrival stateside.
It looks like one element of the BoxBoy! experience may never make it out of Japan, though. Nintendo released an amiibo for Qbby, the player character in the BoxBoy! games, alongside Goodbye! BoxBoy! in Japan last month. The amiibo is available in a bundle with all three BoxBoy! games for 3,456 yen ($30.13). Nintendo has given no indication of plans to bring the Qbby amiibo to the West.
We’ve asked Nintendo for details on the Qbby amiibo and the price of Bye-Bye BoxBoy!, and we’ll update this article with any information we receive.