Where 3D platformers are concerned, is there a studio as committed to the craft as Vienna’s Purple Lamp? The Austrian studio burst onto the scene in 2020 with a compassionate remake of 2003’s SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, earning the trust of Nickelodeon to produce a standalone successor — 2023’s The Cosmic Shake. While reception was generally positive, neither game set the world on fire.
Despite growing up during the heyday of 3D platformers (and SpongeBob Squarepants), I found that the nostalgia factor wasn’t enough to propel me through the remake, and as much as I wanted to like it, its successor felt a bit too scrappy and rigid next to more imaginative games like Astro’s Playroom and It Takes Two. I’ve been waiting a long while for an undeniably brilliant SpongeBob game to smush together my affinity for 3D Platformers and Bob Esponja — which is why I locked in an appointment at gamescom to check out SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide.
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If The Cosmic Shake could be lambasted for a lack of mechanical innovation, then Titans of the Tide quickly ripostes in the direction of that criticism. The central thrust of this game involves continuously swapping between SpongeBob and Patrick via a ‘BFF Ring’ to navigate platforming obstacles that leverage their localised abilities. In motion, it’s more demanding and satisfyingly kinetic, but also makes sense in context, because the dynamic duo have both been turned into ghosts as the result of a feud between The Flying Dutchman and King Neptune.
Despite the Flying Dutchman-shaped parallels, Titans of the Tide is not based on the upcoming movie, Search for Squarepants, and is more about the duality of “scurvy pirates versus high-brow aristocrats,” producer Martin Kreuch told me during my preview, after acknowledging the ‘happy accident’ of Titans of the Tide releasing a month before the sponge’s next big screen romp. “SpongeBob and Patrick have the very hard task of making two old guys apologise to each other,” he continued.
Immediately, I could spot upgrades in SpongeBob’s animation tree as he smashed boxes with spin-induced smear frames and clambered to the top of the Krusty Krab. Squidward was moaning in the background, as always, before The Flying Dutchman burst through the doors, expressing his opinions with flailing flair. Credit has to be given to Purple Lamp for the gorgeous lighting in this game. Where previous titles have looked a bit flat, Titans of the Tide is overtly cinematic, with subtle blurring on windows and reflective hues adding greater visual detail to most scenes.
As you may expect, the inciting argument of this entire ghostifying charade is wonderfully silly. It ends in an enormous mushroom cloud that obscures the Krusty Krab, which nods to Bikini Bottom’s real-world inspirations. Cut to Patrick, who is outside of the blast radius and simply looking to enjoy a half-off deal at his favourite fast food restaurant. Here is where we see the oblivious starfish’s new moveset in action.
Mr. Star can now burrow and grapple, which brings a wealth of reactive dynamism to his combat and platforming, as evidenced in creative subterranean bouts with gloopy ghosts. Naturally, Titans of the Tide is still designed to be accessible to kids, though Game Director Adam Khoury noted that skilled players can flex their skills, too. “If you learn the move sets, you can kind of skip a lot of the basic platforms and figure out the ‘pros’ way across the level,” he said.
After the introductory levels, we were transported to Goldfish Island, a much larger, more open-world proposition than the linear opening, and a good test bed for the swapping mechanic that defines Titans of the Tide. Players will have to tap one of the shoulder buttons to switch between SpongeBob and Patrick during a course of platforming, and it’s easy to see how this can grow to greater, Celeste-like complexity. It is immediately attractive, but Kreuch mentioned a ‘Magic Lantern’ mechanic that rears its head later and shifts platforms between the ethereal and the living plane, creating more fun wrinkles for your platforming progression.
Where in previous games vehicles were locked to static challenges, here we see the duo riding a surfboard around the broader reaches of the level (Patrick rides it backwards in a constant state of fear). A stronger focus on exploration and unlockables feels sensible given the detailed and referential approach Purple Lamp always tends to take. The developers provided a glimpse into some hidden interactions and collectables along the way, with costumes and memorabilia items on the menu for curious players, and optional challenge levels accessible through a sinister portal created by series antagonist Plankton.
Furthermore, if you’ve seen the initial trailer for Titans of the Tide, you will have heard David Hasselhoff singing a shanty, but the developers mentioned that his involvement doesn’t stop there. “I don’t want to spoil it completely,” Kreuch said. “But if you’re thorough, and if you do the collecting right, you will also have a little interaction with him as well in the game.” There’s also boss battles, of course, with Purple Lamp teeing up fights with a Jack in the Box Dutchman, a possessed statue of Neptune and Hibernation Sandy, from that beloved old episode.
While hands-on, I asked Kreuch about the relationship Purple Lamp has with Paramount and how much freedom the studio feels it has with the IP. “It’s very, very collaborative,” Kreuch said. “We have a lot of freedom to pitch things and bounce back and forth … we work with the writers and the head script editor, and she knows exactly what is allowed, what kind of jokes are okay. It’s immeasurable to have somebody who can tell you little details, or ask if you’ve thought about a certain episode.”
Purple Lamp clearly lives and breathes SpongeBob by this point, which is why the game looks like it could be ripped straight from the cartoon. The cutscenes were sharp and chuckle-worthy, with gags appreciable by all ages about one-star ‘Kelp’ reviews and underwater unions. One of my favourite touches is that, like The Cosmic Shake, Titans of the Tide features ‘Gross-Ups’ in the middle of cutscenes, those flashes of highly detailed, often purposefully ugly pieces of art that did so much for episodes of the show — by spawning countless memes. According to Khoury, this art is now being produced by the internal team, often with minor changes requested from the Paramount side, which is a source of pride for the SquarePants apostles at Purple Lamp.
Having spent time exploring Goldfish Island as the indomitable sponge and his salmon sidekick, it feels like the third time may well be the charm for Purple Lamp. Oodles of confident style complement Titans of the Tide’s enhanced mechanical substance and careful polish, and I’m stoked rather than sceptical. Finally, we may have a brand new SpongeBob game that can potentially stand up to the likes of Astro Bot and Donkey Kong Bananza when it lands on PC and consoles this November 18th.
