JAPAN GAMING & ENTERTAINMENT 
There is no first place in Hello Kitty Party Land. On the board playable at a June hands-on preview, up to four players take turns moving their pieces around the same board, earning flowers by landing on spaces and playing minigames between turns. Once they have gathered enough, they take the flowers to Marroncream, who waits on the board. There is no goal square, and several routes run across the board. As of TOKYO GAME SHOW 2026, three boards have been announced.
Each player collects a different color of flower. Once players have gathered all the flowers of their own color, any extra flowers can be converted into a color someone else still needs and handed over.
Hello Kitty Party Land launches worldwide on October 29, 2026, for Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. One to four people can play on a single console, and online play is supported as well.
On-screen text is in English; nothing has been announced yet about voice languages. Bandai Namco Entertainment is publishing the game in North America in three editions: Standard Edition, Day 1 Edition and Premium Edition.
Peeling apples with Hello Kitty, hitting Cinnamoroll’s pitches
More than 45 minigames are played between turns, picked from about 100 prototypes. At SANRIO FES 2026 in June, demo stations were set up for the game, with both the board and the minigames available to try.
In Hello Kitty’s Speedy Peeling, an apple-pie-making game, everyone works together to peel apples, and Hello Kitty hops each time one is done. In Cinnamoroll’s Home Run Derby, Cinnamoroll deftly throws the ball with his fluffy ears, and players time their swings to hit it back. Partway through, several balls fly at once, and the gaps between pitches get shorter.
In the Pompompurin minigame, players bounce on top of a pudding while catching magical konpeito, a type of Japanese sugar candy. The pieces floating up high are within reach if players work together. Marroncream’s sewing game has everyone moving the fabric at once, guiding it under the sewing machine without letting the stitching run off the edge.
Sixteen characters can be picked as a partner, and the breakdown of those sixteen has not been published yet. The characters named so far in minigames and elsewhere are Hello Kitty, Kuromi, Cinnamoroll, My Melody, Pompompurin, Gudetama, Little Twin Stars, Ahiru no Pekkle, Patty & Jimmy, Goropikadon, Marroncream and Pokopon’s Diary.
Away from the board and the minigames, players can create an avatar to represent themselves, choosing the eyes, upper eyelashes and hairstyle and selecting a color for each; they can change any of these options later. On a farm up in the sky, they can grow crops, pick fruit and catch fish at a fishing pond.
The first title from Sanrio Games, and a spotlight for characters that rarely get one
In April 2026, Sanrio announced the launch of its own game brand, Sanrio Games. Hello Kitty Party Land is its first title. In its English announcement that April, Sanrio listed Sanrio Party Land as the title in Japan and said the title for regions outside Japan would be announced later. That title, Hello Kitty Party Land, was revealed on June 9.
Sanrio president Tomokuni Tsuji named wider character recognition in North America as a key theme in April. He also said Sanrio wants to use games as a new way to connect with people and deliver value, including to those who have never encountered Sanrio before.
In the United States, Sanrio aims to expand Hello Kitty’s presence while promoting its other characters, particularly Kuromi and Cinnamoroll. Kuromi is positioned as the character second only to Hello Kitty.
The manager in charge of the game business at Sanrio Games explains that running a game brand in-house lets the company shine a spotlight on characters that have had a hard time getting one.
Defining how characters look from behind, in consultation with Sanrio
More than 145 characters appear in the game, many of them as 3D models for the first time. The development lead at G-STYLE, the studio building the game, says details that had never been defined, such as what a character looks like from behind, were worked out in consultation with Sanrio. Cinnamoroll throwing a ball with his ears is one of the examples given.
Those 145-plus characters were selected from Sanrio’s roster of more than 450. The lineup spans generations, from Hello Kitty, who debuted in 1974, to Hanamaruobake, who debuted in 2023.
The development lead also says co-op was central to the design, so that everyone can enjoy it together even when their skill levels differ.