Narrative noir game Backbone is sneaking its way onto Switch

Being a depressed raccoon detective has never been so convenient

After its release in October 2021, Backbone was making headlines with its wacky premise, gorgeous art style, and unique characters. Keeping up with the trend of neo-noir games featuring anthropomorphic animals, players take on the role of Howard Lotor, a racoon and private eye who solves cases in a dystopian version of Vancouver, Canada. If you were waiting for a wider console release, or just simply haven’t gotten a chance to play it yet, I have good news for you, because Backbone is coming to Nintendo Switch on February 9, as was announced on the game’s official Twitter today.

In lieu of another normal, boring game announcement, Backbone‘s Twitter account decided to do something a bit more fun in allowing Howard to tell us himself through the medium of an Animal Crossing fanart. What really gets me about this is the swearing, because there’s nothing funnier to me than people corrupting the usually pristine world of AC.

https://twitter.com/backbonegame/status/1483857345725751310?s=21

I can’t know for sure, but I get the strange feeling that Howard and Tom Nook would get along just fine, considering they are a racoon and a tanuki respectfully. That and they can both kind of be hardasses sometimes (but we still love them anyway).

Given the nature of Backbone‘s gameplay, it should feel great to play on the Switch, and of course it now has the added bonus of being able to take it wherever we want. There’s also the sequel to look forward to, which was announced at the end of December and is set to release sometime this year. According to the game’s developer Eggnut, they’re a no-crunch studio (yay!), and hopefully that doesn’t change as the new release gets closer.

I will be waiting patiently until then, and I can always start another playthrough — but on my Switch this time.