We’ve seen a fair bit about the upcoming Switch release of Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution, and now we’re going to see even more. And this newest bit of news is something that western gamers have been waiting for since the new card game was announced earlier this year. That’s because we finally know when the new Switch game will be coming out.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution is the first game based on the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise to release on Nintendo Switch. It originally launched in Japan on April 26th. The previous version of Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist launched digitally for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on July 30, 2015, and on PC via Steam on December 7, 2016.
The original game ran up through the first portion of Arc-V storylines of the anime, featuring more than 6,600 cards. That version was released over the course of multiple years to PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The primary unique rule feature in that game was Synchro Summons and Pendulum Summons. The newest version, which will be exclusive to the Switch, takes all of this a step further by including thousands more cards and some new rulesets. And sadly, the new Switch rules won’t be ported back to the old games.
For one thing, the Switch game will have more than 9,000 cards on offer for gamers to build decks with. In terms of new rules there’s the new Master rules which drastically alter fields and other game mechanics, although other areas like the basics of dueling and summons will remain as fans know them now. And in terms of story, Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution will include story missions and cards up until the first few duels of the Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS anime.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution is currently available for pre-order digitally on the Nintendo Switch eShop for $39.99. It will launch digitally in the west on August 20, 2019. If you can’t wait that long and what to go through the trouble of switching regions to a Japanese account on the shop, the Japanese release does have English support.