Nintendo showcased a completely new game in the Yoshi series, simply known as “Yoshi for Nintendo Switch” on their Treehouse Live E3 2017 Stream.

As soon as they started playing they showed off that a big part of the gameplay includes throwing eggs into the background or foreground, hitting enemies and objects to find secrets. Once again, the developers at Good Feel went with a diorama aesthetic for the game. Gazing through the level you can see grazing cows in the background made of construction paper. Deep in the horizon the paper plate hills have eyes... and also big smiles on their faces. It seems that everywhere you can look shows a lot of effort went into the design of the levels. (At one point you can actually see Milk cartons that are branded “Moo Moo Meadows Milk”.)

The new hook in this Yoshi game is the depth throughout all of the level design and gameplay, as the player is constantly moving forward and back through the side scrolling levels. All levels have 2 sides to them, with tons of secrets to explore and discover. Once the frontside of a stage is completed, you can play through the level again, this time with a completely different view from the backside.

During the stream, one of the backside levels shown fully realized that Yoshi is actually adventuring around in someone’s house, adding to the playful arts-project aesthetic. Playing through the level, the presenters commented on how the player is rewarded for paying close attention to the world around you, and using your knowledge of the frontside section with the backside section. Further on in the level you find out that the moving platforms you jumped on earlier in the stage were actually being pushed and pulled by a pair of adorable little Shy Guys, and if you swallowed them it would permanently make the platforms stick out and not move anymore. Moving on through the level also showed that there are many areas that could only be accessible from the backside version of the level.

The collectathon elements that we’ve known from previous Yoshi games still seem to be present, with coins and red coins making a comeback (instead of the beads from Yoshi’s Wooly World) and the classic 5 hidden Flowers for each level.

2 player co-op was also showcased in the Nintendo Treehouse Live stream. Each player gets to control their own Yoshi, and when playing together can access a new mechanic only playable in co-op mode. If both Yoshis execute a ground-pound simultaneously they can actually make the level flip, going from the frontside angle to the backside angle, and you can do this at any time. This comes into play to help get around obstacles and solve miniature puzzles throughout the levels. If a player loses their life they become an egg with wings, floating into the fore and backgrounds, and to get them back they need to be popped.

Hopefully we will know more about Yoshi for Nintendo Switch soon, which will release sometime in 2018.