The newly revived Nintendo World Championship is nearly upon us, and Nintendo has released a video sharing a few more juicy details in the quirky, low-budget, self-aware style that we have come to expect from Nintendo of America.
Nintendo had already revealed that the original Legend of Zelda would be one of the eight games featured in the competition, spanning from retro classics to more recent titles. How recent? As recent as Nintendo releases get, because Splatoon will also be part of the competition, in the new shooter’s official tournament debut. The other six titles are still a mystery, but the safe money would be on two of them being iterations of Nintendo’s main competitive franchises, Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart.
The video also confirms that gaming TV personality Kevin Pereira will be hosting the tournament. Pereira is perhaps best known as the longtime host of G4’s Attack of the Show! Color commentary will also be provided by gaming luminaries djWHEAT, Andre (of Black Nerd Comedy) and Justin Flynn.
Lastly, the video announced the eight invited gamers who will compete alongside the winners of the recent Best Buy store qualifiers. Most of them are listed as Speedrunners — people who try to complete (often classic) games in as little time as possible. These elite competitors are introduced by their online handles, like ’90s movie hackers: Sinister1 (Speedrunner), Cosmo (Speedrunner), TheMexicanRunner (NES Completionist), Bananas (Speedrunner), Essentia (Speedrunner), Trihex (Speedrunner), Jovenshire (Smosh Games), Arin (Game Grumps).
Even if you can’t make it out to Los Angeles, you will be able to watch these titans of gaming duke it out on Nintendo’s live stream of the event here. The 2015 Nintendo World Championships will be held on Sunday, June 14, at 3 p.m. PDT (6 p.m. EDT). That’s just a few short days away from now — just enough time to squeeze in one last training montage. Good luck, champions!
