New Akira Toriyama Game Sand Land Gets a Release Date

Sand Land, the game from the mind of the legendary manga artist Akira Toriyama, finally has a release date. And in true Bandai Namco fashion when it comes to the publisher's anime-centric games, the release date isn't far away at all from this week's announcement. Bandai Namco and developer ILCA announced this week that Sand Land will be out on April 26th for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms. A new trailer for the game was released today, too, to coincide with the release date announcement alongside news of the anime series that'll accompany the game.

Like many other adaptations Bandai Namco has handled, Sand Land was a manga first that first started releasing over 20 years ago, and now, it's finally being turned into a game among other projects. The video game adaptation was first shown off in detail this year during Summer Game Fest with the latest look at it revealed this week.

Sand Land Release Date & New Trailer

If you've not seen much on Sand Land before, the new trailer for the game shown above offers a broad overview of the story and some of the characters you'll meet. Beelzebub is our protagonist in Sand Land who joins humans and demons alike in the search for the coveted Legendary Spring.

"Follow the unlikely group of humans and demons of Beelzebub, Rao, and Theif as they search for the Legendary Spring – a prophesied body of water that would provide drinking water to the entirety of the desert wasteland and save its inhabitants from the greed of the water-hoarding King of Sand Land."

Looking at characters like Beelzebub, Rao, and Theif as well as the way the desert setting in the game is portrayed, it'd be easy to pick this out as an Akira Toriyama game. The characters look like they could've been pulled straight from Dragon Ball Z or one of its other series that Toriyama is best known for, and it's that kind of style and influence that's gotten people interested in Sand Land even if they weren't familiar with the manga.

And if you like the idea of the game after seeing the trailer, there's more to check out beyond that and the manga, too. There's a movie that's already been shown in one way or another at events and regionally, though it's not yet gotten a wide release in North America just yet. There's also an anime series that's coming out to offer yet another version of Sand Land to experience. That anime adaptation got a trailer today, too, though it doesn't yet have a release date and is expected to air on Hulu later this summer in Japan with a wider release to follow afterwards.