Take the ballroom scene from Disney's Beauty And The Beast, swap the wailing utensils for an army of chibi cats, endow Belle with low-key Doctor Manhattan-grade powers of matter transformation, and you're perhaps beginning to approximate the experience of Infinity Nikki - an open world dress-up adventure from Singapore-based Infold and former Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild developer Kentaro Tominaga.
Trailered this week at Gamescom 2024, it's the fifth installment in the hitherto mobile-focussed Nikki series and it's seemingly going down a storm, with over 12 million pre-registrations so far (albeit, many of them motivated by the prospect of collectively unlocked in-game bonuses). It's also a free-to-play game, and I have the usual unanswered questions about currencies and gacha, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for the minute, because I have not spent nearly enough of my life considering the tactical applications of ballgowns. Here's that trailer.
