Onion Games’ Stray Children finally has a release date for Japan

Onion Games has announced that their anticipated joy-maker, Stray Children, is set to release (in Japan) on Switch December 26, 2024. We Canadians call that “Boxing Day.”

As someone who is unreasonably affectionate toward Chulip, I’ve followed Yoshiro Kimura for some time now. While I really enjoyed Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada and Black Bird, I’ve wanted to see him revisit the themes that made me fall in love with his work. Stray Children is definitely more in that direction, copping more than a little from Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, a game he worked on during his time at Love-de-Lic.

In fact, the story is somewhat similar to Moon, as they both have you getting sucked into another world through a TV screen. Also, like Moon, there’s an RPG aspect, but in something that sounds similar to Undertale, you don’t have to actually participate in combat but can instead talk your way out of situations with avoidance mini-games to keep things challenging.

Unfortunately, the date was given during the Japanese Nintendo Direct and it is, presumably, only for the Japanese release of the game. Onion Games has confirmed that it will be working on an English localization, but have stated that it’s likely going to come later. Hopefully, that plan has changed and this is a worldwide release date. I just wouldn’t bet your last donut on it.

Stray Children is coming to Switch on December 26, 2024. In Japan, at least.