Ring Fit Adventure is a Wii Fit slash RPG hybrid from Nintendo, and we're here for it
Last week, Nintendo teased a "New Experience" along with an admittedly bizarre looking hoop controller of sorts. At the time, it seemed like any typical Nintendo foray into the market of perphirals, a staple for the company for as long as they've been making consoles. Last week's teaser looked similar to something you'd see in the Wii era, a new sort of Wii Fit successor would have been a safe guess of sorts. Who knew what we were actually looking at was Nintendo's next RPG? I'm not joking.
Today, Nintendo unveiled Ring Fit Adventure, a maddening sort of Wii Fit slash RPG hybrid, that also involves a unique periphiral, the Ring-Con. Make it past the two-minute mark in the video below, and you'll see that this is actually an RPG disguised as a fitness game. Or maybe it's the other way around? This is kinda uncharted territory.
While Ring Fit Adventure does feature a sort of quick play mode, the main draw here is a full-fledged adventure that almost looks like something you'd see out of bizarro-world Dragon Quest. Here's a little bit about the premise from Nintendo:
Ring Fit Adventure turns a typical adventure game on its head as players squat, press and flex their way through challenges designed for a wide range of body types and levels of fitness experience. To play the game, players attach the Joy-Con controllers from their Nintendo Switch system to the included accessories – one to the Ring-Con and one to the Leg Strap. The Leg Strap is attached to the player’s upper left leg, while the Ring-Con is held in both hands. The Ring-Con is a flexible electronic device that provides resistance, and uses the Joy-Con to respond to the player’s movements. Ring Fit Adventure can be adjusted to the player’s level of skill, so even if players don’t have experience with fitness, they can change the exercise intensity to suit their ability. This will let them continue every day at an activity level that’s comfortable for them.
Throughout the adventure, enemies will appear, ready for battle. Players can attack and defend using more than 40 Fit Skills, which are exercise moves. The game provides direction to players about how to perform movements correctly in order to deal more damage to enemies. Actions that the player performs in-game will earn experience for their character, with level-ups boosting stats and unlocking new Fit Skills that can be used in battle. Adventure mode is designed as a natural way to keep players motivated to play and get exercise regularly as they progress through the game world and defeat enemies.
The Ring-Con accessory is the key component of this experience. It and the paired Leg Strap will each holster one of half of a pair of Joy-Cons. While the Leg-Strap is simply strapped to your thigh, the Ring-Con itself is a flexible device that provides resistance, and respond to the player’s movements and seems to record any pressure applied to it. With these two pieces of hardware in place, players will then seek to squat, stretch, and jog in place to defeat the bodybuilding dragon Dragaux.
Ring Fit Adventure releases on October 18, it will retail for $79.99 and include the Ring-Con and Leg Strap accessories. We've got screenshots and lifestyle photos (a first) in the gallery below.
