Advance Wars: Re-Boot Camp Release Date, Trailer And Gameplay - What We Know So Far

At Nintendo's E3 2021 Direct, the company revealed "Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp," a welcomed return of the classic strategy RPG. This new remake for Nintendo Switch combines "Advance Wars" and "Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising" into a single package, similar to "Tony Hawk: Pro Skater 1+2."

From its trailers, "Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp" sticks with the Saturday morning cartoon visual style of the original while also giving it a fresh take that looks more modern. The tactical military game involves navigating troops, tanks, and other military vehicles across grid-based maps, aiming to take down opponents and capture buildings. The reboot also features a returning cast of commanders that look like they could have been pulled from Cartoon Network prior to their time in the army. This is the first "Advance Wars" game to release in over a decade, with the last game being the 2008 Nintendo DS game "Advance Wars: Days of Ruin." 

While this isn't exactly the "new" "Advance Wars" game that fans were hoping for, it's a step towards getting a brand new game.

"Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp" was originally announced as coming to Nintendo Switch on April 8, 2022. Being a remake and not a brand new release, it got a release date less than six months away from its initial announcement. Unfortunately, due to some horros in the real world, that release date was not met.

In March 2022, Nintendo announced that it would delay the release of "Re-Boot Camp" as a sign of respect following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The company tweeted, "In light of recent world events, we have made the decision to delay Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, which was originally scheduled to release on Nintendo Switch on April 8th." Nintendo ultimately deemed the game's narrative to be too close to real world events to release the collection at this time.

During a Nintendo Direct in February 2023, the publisher revealed that "Re-Boot Camp" was finally on its way once more, with a final release date of April 21, 2023.

Nintendo put together a blowout trailer for the announcement of "Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp" offering over a minute of gameplay and returning characters. While a minute might seem short in most circumstances, that's pretty long for a Nintendo Direct trailer, especially during the E3 2021 showcase. The trailer shows off brand new graphics and the modern designs of the Orange Star nation's commanding officers, including Andy, Max, and Sami. From the trailer, it appears that both the original game and the sequel will have the same redone art style in "Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp." The trailer was a short montage announcing that the game was a remake of the first two "Advance Wars" titles, while showing the new design for some of the commanding officers. The trialer also offered glimpses of troops, tanks, planes, and boats in combat sequences.

For those people who want a tactical military game that's somehow kid-friendly, this seems to hit that mark. Despite being about war and defeating invading armies, the game is still rated E10+, presumably thanks to the cutesy art style and lack of graphic violence. One of the things missing from the announcement trailer was any footage of the four-person multiplayer mode also included in the game.

After the E3 2021 Nintendo Direct, Nintendo showed off about 30 minutes of gameplay footage of "Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp" during its Treehouse Live show. The gameplay primarily showed off some of the early campaign missions, letting the hosts navigate the very simply designed overview map as they battled for supremacy. The preview also showed off the commanding officers' abilities, like Nell's Lucky Star ability, which gives all available troops on the battlefield a temporary luck buff, increasing how much damage they can deal.

The Treehouse demonstration also showed off the classic battle screen, which zooms towards whatever environment the troops are currently in and shows them dealing damage to one another, adding a little more visual stimulation to the game. The updated trailer for the February 2023 Nintendo Direct showed that there were no changes made during the title's extra time on the shelf. Despite the new graphics, "Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp" is still, at its core, two classic Game Boy Advance games packaged together. 

The gameplay is fairly simple, but still offers enough strategic elements to make for an excellent game. Anyone that enjoyed the original games will most likely be happy to re-experience "Advance Wars."