Forget Pokémon, There’s Only One Game I Care About in the Upcoming Nintendo Direct

September 11, 2025, 10:30am

There’s a ton of speculation about the upcoming Nintendo Direct, from Pokémon Legends: Z-A to a potential new Animal Crossing reveal, but I don’t care about any of those games. Sure, I’m really looking forward to getting back to Kalos, and I wouldn’t say no to another Animal Crossing to obsess over, but the game I really want to see in this quarter’s Nintendo Direct is Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. After its mention in two of this year’s previous Directs, it’s high time we hear about everyone’s favorite professor of archaeology.

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The Professor Debuted On the DS to Great US Success

The first game in the Layton series, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, was released in the US for the Nintendo DS in 2008 and quickly became a success. It was the top-selling DS game for the three weeks following its release, partially for its unique flair as well as for its blend of puzzles, minigames, and intriguing storyline. While some players and reviewers didn’t enjoy the mix of puzzle and story, claiming the game’s mystery was “solved for you,” for visual novels, Curious Village does very little hand-holding.

Regardless, the rest of the Layton series received even higher praise than the first game, and went on to become one of the most successful DS exclusives of all time. By June of 2018, Level-5 estimated that they had shipped over 17 million copies of the six games, making it their most successful game franchise ever. While interest in the series petered out over the years, with each game making less of a splash than the one before, they retained a fanbase of relatively die-hard players, including myself.

I first played these games when I was nine, and they were just right for me. I remember being enthralled by the strange, just-left-of-real reality that they took place in, blending the fantastical with the real in a way that feels grounded but whimsical. The following five games were just as engaging, and now that I’m twenty-four, it’s finally time to play a new Layton game again. If only Nintendo and Level-5 would confirm a release date.

Layton Was Left off the Switch, It’s Time For Him to Return

Despite its success on the DS and 3DS, there were no new Professor Layton games on the Switch. Since 2017, after Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy, not a single Layton game has been teased, much less released, and many fans like myself didn’t even consider the possibility of another one. Katrielle was a disappointment for many thanks to its rather unengaging, lackluster story and characters, and we all thought Level-5’s Layton tank was empty.

That was, until Level-5 announced the development of the seventh mainline game in the series, New World of Steam, in a Nintendo Direct on February 8th of 2023. This Direct revealed the game without a release date, and the following Direct in March of the same year explained a bit more about the setting, premise, and characters that players could expect to see return. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much news beyond that until November, when it was announced that the game would be coming in 2025. As we approach the end of 2025, it’s finally time to see Professor Layton return to a Switch 2 near you.

With the Direct Set To Run for an Hour, Layton News Is Likely

As it was announced, September’s Nintendo Direct will run for an hour, giving plenty of time for any Professor Layton-related news. I’m hoping for a full release date and gameplay trailer, and with the release supposedly coming before the end of the year, my hopes have a great shot of coming true. We’ve already seen Layton twice this year, and a third time would be the icing on the cake.

This is a game I’ve been hoping for since I finished, well, didn’t finish Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy, and it’s my most anticipated game of the year by a mile. I think Legends: Z-A will be great, any other announcements will be exciting, but for me and others who’d given up on this amazing but relatively unknown series, the real golden ticket of this Direct is Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. My big dream is a Silksong-style release date that’s sooner rather than later, but I’ll take any Layton news I can get.