Shin'en's Art of Balance revealed

The secret Shin'en game for Wii U has been revealed as Art of Balance, which will be available on the Wii U eShop in Q2.

Last fall, Shin'en Multimedia announced what was an open secret, an F-Zero style game for Wii U in the form of Fast: Racing Neo. But the German studio are also working on another title - Art of Balance - for the Nintendo console, and just before it became common knowledge, the studio has shared some notes exclusively with Gamereactor.

As they always try to squeeze the Nintendo hardware, and now they also want to take that philosophy into the multiplayer experience and push boundaries in that area. Fast: Racing Neo is a futuristic racing game with online multiplayer, and now we also know that Art of Balance also has an online mode and online leaderboards. The studio acknowledges that "the implementation of online modes and leaderboards is time consuming, but we think our fans will appreciate this option."

There'll be both local and online multiplayer, with both competitive and co-operative options. Five players will be able to play at once using a combination of GamePad and Remotes.

With that level of engagement against other players, what instruments/tools will be on hand? Regarding the controls, the Germans say their new game will work with "virtually any control configuration", either with the Wii U GamePad (including Off-TV mode), and there's the aforementioned Wii Remote, Nunchuck, traditional Classic or Pro as alternatives.

Finally, with regards to the technical side of things, which is key for the studio, Shin'en recalls that both projects have been built with the next-gen engine that they developed last year, leaving a curious and unprecedented open door "with the development of our new engine it's now also possible to use other platforms other than Wii U or 3DS." Remember that the Munich-based company has always worked exclusively on Nintendo consoles.