A couple of hours ago, Square Enix revealed NEO: The World Ends With You – an official follow-up to the Nintendo DS cult-classic RPG The World Ends With You. As fans continue to gush over the announcement they’ve been waiting over a decade to hear, one of the game’s character designers has shared a special bonus to celebrate the occasion!

Square Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura himself recently shared a beautiful sketch of both the game’s new protagonist Rindo and the first game’s hero Neku together! Along with this, he shared the a message asking fans to continue lending their support to the series next year – which you can check out below (translation by Gematsu):

ゲームの公式Twitterがないのでお邪魔します。来年４月放映が決まったアニメの続編となるゲームは来年夏となります。続編主人公のデザインをした時にはマスクが普通の世界になるとは思わず。後謎のスマホの記号はNEOという意味でした。では来年 #すばせか をよろしくお願いします。良いお年を＠野村 pic.twitter.com/sZuf0SiCpc

— すばらしきこのせかい 公式アカウント (@TWEWY_PR) November 23, 2020

“There’s no official Twitter account for the game, so pardon my intrusion (i.e. on the anime account). Next summer we’ll release the game that follows up on the anime set to air in April. When I designed the sequel’s protagonist, I didn’t think wearing masks would become the norm. The mysterious symbol that appeared on the smartphone (i.e. on the teaser website yesterday) meant ‘NEO.’ In any case, please give The World Ends with You your support next year. And have a wonderful New Year.”

NEO: The World Ends With You will be hitting Nintendo Switch in Summer 2021. We’ll report back as we hear more in the future!