Summary

• Nintendo Switch 2's anticipated 2025 release could overshadow the next Professor Layton game.
• The Professor Layton series is endlessly charming, but it's had a long hiatus during the Switch era.
• The New World of Steam could be great, it just has some significant obstacles to overcome.

Despite the lack of an official reveal, the Nintendo Switch 2 is widely expected to release in 2025, and it might just make it to market before the Switch game that I'm most excited about does. Seven years out from its launch, the Switch has had a long and healthy lifespan, and the games that have released in that window include some of my all-time favorites, like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. One franchise that means a lot to me, however, has spent most of that time waiting in the wings.

The series in question is Professor Layton, which is set to finally receive a new Switch entry in 2025. Although Professor Layton games came out at a steady pace for a good portion of the DS and 3DS's lifespan, things dried up once the Switch hit the market, and the only Layton game to release on the console to date was a port of the 3DS spin-off Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy. Professor Layton and the New World of Steam was finally announced in 2023, but developer Level-5 has still barely shown any gameplay.

The Professor Layton Series Is Like Nothing Else

Endlessly Charming & Just Odd Enough

My love for the Professor Layton games started with the first entry, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, which my mom somehow learned about upon release and bought for me before I had ever even heard of it. In this instance, her curation couldn't have been better. The intriguing town of St. Mystere drew me in immediately, and the variety of puzzles and fascinating ensemble of off-kilter characters kept me hooked.

Professor Layton games don't operate quite like any other puzzle titles on the market, although they've had some decent enough imitators. On a surface level, the formula could easily be clunky. The overall structure resembles a marriage between visual novels and point-and-click adventures, but there isn't much challenge to be found in navigating their rich environments. The meat of the series lies in the brain-teasers that pop up in absurdly shoe-horned ways, whether NPCs throw them at the Professor, or something simply reminds him of a puzzle that he can use to challenge his young apprentice.

I, for one, am always happy to suspend my disbelief for the sake of Professor Layton's charms. The franchise knows that it's absurd and revels in it. Every game has a plot twist or grand reveal that ranges from mildly silly to ambitiously delirious, and some of the big ones come to my mind unbidden at regular intervals. Professor Layton is never afraid to completely commit to an idea, and it makes it impossible for the series to ever feel milquetoast or phoned in.

I Want To Believe In The Next Professor Layton Game

New World Of Steam Has Some Challenges To Overcome

So far, I really have no idea if I should actually be excited for Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. The game faces several uphill battles, perhaps the most obvious of which is the transition from the DS to the Switch. Although Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy made the leap, there's no denying that the franchise was perfectly suited to the dual-screen format in a way that few things were, and the belated arrival of an original Switch title feels like a concession to the post-DS market rather than a natural evolution.

There's also the question of whether the team behind the game can write a story and craft puzzles that reach past heights. Diving back into another story with the Professor does dredge up a narrative that was already essentially completed, and a jump to a fictionalized American setting runs the risk of losing some of the charm. The original puzzle master Akira Tago ed away in 2016 at the age of 90, and his exemplary work was a lot of what made the original two trilogies so great.

This time, the puzzle group QuizKnock is taking the reins, a change from Akira Tago's successor Kuniaki Iwanami in Katrielle.

All the same, I can't help but be optimistic about a seventh mainline Professor Layton game. It's something that long seemed like it would never happen in any grand form, especially when a "Layton 7" was once in development as a loosely related mobile title, a project that never actually came to fruition. Despite the change in consoles, the brief snippet of gameplay that's been shown does more or less stick to the familiar winning formula, so Level-5 isn't attempting to make the series into something it's not.

More than anything else, I'm just a sucker for Professor Layton. I have every game, a Japanese art book for Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and a promotional Rubik's Cube for Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (an official Rubik's, no less, without the cheap feel and scratchy turns found in my off-brand Mario Kart 8 Deluxe one). A new title is obviously an inevitable addition to my collection, and one that I'll be jumping into the moment it's made available.

The Switch 2 Could Come Out Before New World Of Steam

2025 Will Be A Busy Nintendo Year

Professor Layton has a ton of fans, but it isn't one of the biggest franchises out there, and I am a bit worried that its release could end up being lost in the shuffle next year. If the Switch 2 does hit the market first, new first-party titles for the system are bound to draw more attention. Plenty of people will stick to the original Switch for a while, and reported backward compatibility should make it playable on both systems, but it's not going to face off very well against something like a new 3D Mario platformer.

Whether Professor Layton and the New World of Steam manages to revive the series for another trilogy or not, I'm happy enough to take what I can get. Indie games tend to keep things fresh, but genuinely off-beat titles from mid-sized to major studios can be harder to come by these days, and there are none that I love more than Professor Layton. It's just a little wild that it's taken this long, especially if the Nintendo Switch 2 beats it to store shelves.