Spongebob Seems to Be Having a Major Gaming Moment

For 25 years, people across the globe have been gleefully entertained by the wacky adventures of the sponge living in a pineapple under the sea, SpongeBob SquarePants. Over 300 episodes of the hit Nickelodeon animated series have told the tale of the undersea fry cook and his friends, but SpongeBob SquarePants‘ adventures weren’t limited to television. Multiple films, TV spinoffs, stage adaptations, books, comics, and, of course, video games have kept people enthralled with the snail-owning sponge over the years. However, video games based on SpongeBob’s world solely seemed to lessen dramatically in the 2010s. That was until the surprise release of multiple SpongeBob games in the early 2020s, including one announced for 2025.

SpongeBob SquarePants’ Modern Video Game Resurgence

For players who grew up in the early 2000s, many probably have fond memories playing Nickelodeon video game classics such as The Fairly OddParents: Breakin’ Da Rules, Nicktoons Unite!, and SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom. It was thanks to nostalgia for this era of games that THQ Nordic tasked Purple Lamp Studios to develop a remake of Battle for modern audiences and platforms in 2020 called SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated. While Rehydrated received mixed reviews, it was a financial success selling over 2 million copies by 2021. This success inspired THQ and other game companies to develop more SpongeBob games and include the icon in several other games.

This resurgence of SpongeBob in video games first continued with his appearance in 2021’s Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, a Super Smash Bros-like fighting game featuring all kinds of Nickelodeon characters, new and old. SpongeBob would go on to be featured in Hot Wheels Unleashed, Minecraft, Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway, and Fall Guys. In 2023, THQ Nordic and Purple Lamp Studios released a spiritual sequel to Rehydrated in the form of the new game SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake. Like Rehydrated, Cosmic Shake was a third-person platformer that received mixed reviews but saw lower-than-expected sales, far below sales seen with Rehydrated.

SpongeBob SquarePants’ Latest Video Game

Despite the poor sales of Cosmic Shake, Nickelodeon continued to approve new video game developments of the world of SpongeBob, resulting in the October 2024 release of SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game. A third-person physics-based sandbox game, The Patrick Star Game stars SpongeBob’s loveable, goofy, best friend Patrick as the protagonist, a first for the video game medium. Here, Patrick can complete a variety of mini-games and short quests in order to earn sand dollars and enter The Fry Cook Games. However, like Cosmic Shake, The Patrick Star Game has so far received mixed to poor reviews.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game
was released on the same day as Patrick’s voice actor Bill Fagerbakke’s 67th birthday, on October 4, 2024.

SpongeBob SquarePants’ Future in Video Games

While SpongeBob’s recent resurgence in video games has been mixed overall, that hasn’t stopped the jellyfishing fan from being the star in upcoming games. In a recent trailer, a sequel to THQ Nordic and Purple Lamp Studios’ Cosmic Shake was teased, seemingly completing a trilogy starting with Rehydrated. Little information is known about this upcoming Spongebob game, but it does have a release date of 2025. It’s expected that this game will be a third-person platformer and will play similarly to both Rehydrated and Cosmic Shake. Only a few clips of gameplay were shown, depicting Spongebob walking around as a skeleton and as his normal self in the dark, deep-sea city of Rock Bottom.

In terms of the story, this new SpongeBob SquarePants game appears to have the Flying Dutchman ghost as the main antagonist, as he is seen repeatedly throughout the trailer. The trailer was also titled an “Official Halloween Gaming Trailer” and features many spooky scenes, so having the Flying Dutchman being an antagonist could work. A mysterious pink portal opens up and drags buildings and buses into itself and seemingly strikes residents with bolts of lightning. Bosses from prior games also appeared such as Squidward turning into a giant octopus and Miss Shell appearing as a witch. Both SpongeBob and Patrick appear as small ghosts at the end of the trailer, and they’ll likely have to use these forms to help save Bikini Bottom once more.