Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated gets new gameplay

The yellow sponge makes his return.

Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom is one of the most beloved games from the PS2 era. It captures everything people loved about the Nickelodeon cartoon during its prime and packed into a fun platformer. Now, it’s coming back later this year with a full-blown remaster.

This past weekend, people went hands-on with Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated at PAX East. The demo featured the game’s iconic Jellyfish Fields level near the start of the game and is pretty much exactly how you remember it but spruced up with prettier visuals.

Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom has had a complete visual overhaul with a colorful, saturated look, as you’d expect given its nearly 20 years old. It has been noted that all of the original voice-over remains the same, though. That means pretty much the entire cast from the show still voices their respective characters with the exception of Clancy Brown not voicing Mr. Krabs.

You can check out some direct-feed gameplay of the yellow sponge’s iconic remastered adventure below.

You can also take a look at the video below from YouTuber RidersDX who saw an extended demo of the game and noted some specific things like a level select map amongst other things. RidersDX also noted that the May 2020 release date leak has some truth to it and that the game will probably launch around that time.

On top of faithfully recreating the game in its current state, developer Purple Lamp Studios will add a multiplayer mode and content cut from the original version such as a boss fight with a robot version of Squidward. Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated will release in 2020 for Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.