New Samba de Amigo game revealed at Nintendo Direct

Samba de Amigo
(Image credit: Sega)

Update: Confirmed! A new Samba de Amigo game has been revealed at Nintendo's latest direct with a swanky trailer to boot, which you can watch below. You can play it when it releases this summer. 

Original story: We're in the final hours before today's Nintendo Direct live coverage, and while it's been relatively light on major leaks, there's one early reveal I never would've seen coming: a new Samba de Amigo game.

If you weren't an arcade fan or Dreamcast owner at the turn of the century, Samba de Amigo is a Sega-developed rhythm game originally released in 1999. The game had you shaking maracas along to the beat of a number of popular Latin songs, and while a Wii version was released in 2007, the series has been pretty much dead over the past few decades - despite bona fide cult classic standing.

But word of Samba de Amigo: Party Central for Switch hit the internet ahead of today's Nintendo Direct courtesy of tech leaker SnoopyTech. It's an extensive leak with screenshots, store descriptions, and more. While you should take any rumor with a grain of salt, there's too much smoke here to ignore the possibility of fire. And, well, who's gonna make up a new Samba de Amigo?

Party Central appears to be taking a broader approach to its stylings, seemingly in the vein of Ubisoft's Just Dance series. The game (or rather, the leak of the game) promises 40 tracks from genres including EDM, pop, and Latin music. There will be minigames, and online features including an 8-player mode.

Samba de Amigo: Party Central is reportedly set to launch for $39.99 on June 30. No word yet on whether any custom maraca controllers are coming out to brighten the occasion, or if we're just dealing with normal joy-con motion controls.

That's one more for the big list of upcoming Switch games.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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