2024 marks the 30th anniversary of Earthbound and there will be several campaigns, some involving exclusive limited-time merchandise, available throughout the year as celebration.
You can keep track of the Earthbound 30th Anniversary campaigns via the official website or on Twitter (X). As of the time of writing, the website is a page with the logo for the anniversary, as well as the same text as the press release. To summarize it, there will be commemorative merchandise, events that Nintendo and Hobonichi have never done before for Earthbound, and collaboration events. The team doesn’t know all the details just yet, in the sense that they’re still coming out with new ideas. They’ve finished planning out some, whereas they’ve only just secured permissions for others. So they cannot say anything for sure just yet.
Earthbound (or Mother 2 in Japan) first came out in 1994 on the NES. It plays like a standard or traditional Dragon Quest-like RPG but set in a modern (for the 1990’s) USA parody. The plot of the story revolves around a boy named Ness who, with his friends, discover that the Gigyas, an alien race, have filled the world with hatred. They travel through many strange lands and meet new allies to defeat the Gigyas and save the world.
Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings are available on the Nintendo Switch if you have Nintendo Switch Online.
