Professor Layton was back once again at the Level-5 booth on the Tokyo Game Show 2025 show floor. While we got to check out the game last year on the Nintendo Switch 1, this year the company brought a Nintendo Switch 2 build of the game. Let’s get into the demo.
Background on Demo & Story
The New World of Steam depicts the world one year after the events of Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (Nintendo DS, 2008 for Japan, 2010 in English territories). This new story takes place in an American city called Steam Bison, a steam-powered massive city that’s technical prowess has eclipsed London’s own technical development. The professor and Luke are tasked with checking out a mysterious incident that took place in the city.
The demo starts off with a letter from Luke, who is waiting for Layton to arrive. Taking on the role of the professor, you are tasked with tracking down Luke. Players were given a ten minutes time limit to explore and solve puzzles. The setup here had the game running in 4K, 60 fps on Nintendo Switch 2. Japanese and English (and possibly a few others) were available for text, but for now, Japanese was the only option for voice.
Gameplay
Although I did get a chance to play New World of Steam on the original Nintendo Switch at Tokyo Game Show 2024, this new demo is mainly a way to showcase one of the new features of the Switch 2 - mouse controls. As soon as Nintendo revealed that this mouse functionality would be coming to their new system, this game was the FIRST thing that came to mind (followed by Famicom Detective Club…but that might not be happening any time soon). The demo area where I was at had the right Joy-Con 2 on the table only, with the left Joy-Con 2 tucked away. There were some moments throughout the demo where using both Joy-Con could have been beneficial. For example, you could press X for access to a menu, however, this could also be accessed with a simple click of the icon on screen.
Mouse controls felt very responsive and easy to control. I only came across three puzzles in the demo, but each of them used this control setup in interesting ways. The second puzzle I came across was a little bit frustrating. It asked you to take a look at a suspicious looking statue and to point out the area you thought was strange. The answer ended up being the face area, which is what I chose at first, BUT, after using some hint coins, the game guided me to poke at the statue. This causes it to jiggle and to reveal that this thing is actually alive. After poking it a few times, THEN you were to choose the face.
The last puzzle I came across seemed the most interesting, but my demo counter was under one minute left, so I couldn’t properly think about how to tackle it. This puzzle tasked you with moving some repair parts across a small river via a ferry. From the description in the game:
“You can load up to two parts onto the ferry at a time. When unloading, always start with the top part. A larger part cannot be placed on a smaller one. Try ferrying some parts across!”
I ran out of time before I could complete it, unfortunately, as this one looked interesting. Regardless, I really enjoyed this look at the game. The mouse controls fit the series very well.
Visuals & Audio
Even when I played New World of Steam last year on the Switch 1, I was impressed with the visuals, and this is no different on the Switch 2. Playing in 4K gave the character models even more detail, the colors are still rich and the framerate rarely, if ever, skipped a beat. Even with menus pulled up, you could still see the townsfolk moving around slightly, with the world remaining alive. Character animations look natural and the cutscenes look great. The voice work is also well done and the music is fantastic.
Booth
Level-5 are known for their gorgeous, meticulously crafted booths, and TGS 2025’s Layton booth was no different. While I thought their booth for the game last year was great, this one took it to another level, both figuratively and literally. There were two staggered floors filled with monitors and game stations for fans to play the game. All around were “buildings” and other elements that were pulled straight out of the game world. Before getting into that section, there was even a photo spot with the game logo in Japanese, Layton, Luke and a little device pumping out a subtle amount of steam. Kudos to the company for their attention to detail, and a huge thank you for the support of the staff and development team for giving us access. They were awesome!
Conclusion
This small look at Professor Layton and the New World of Steam was pretty fun. The addition of mouse controls are a great fit for the series and just might be the optimal way to play. It’s too bad that the game has once again been delayed, this time into 2026 on both the Switch 1 and Switch 2, but hopefully that is giving Level-5 more time to craft something special for fans.
But, let’s turn things over to you. Are you looking forward to playing this new entry into the series? What do you think about the mouse controls? What platform do you plan on picking this one up on? Sound off in the comments down below. We’d love to hear from you!
by Danny Bivens
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