Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp dev explains how the parntership with Nintendo came to be

A new Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp developer interview gives us insight as to how the partnership between Nintendo and WayForward came to be.

This was a milestone release for a number of reasons. WayForward, best known for its Shantae series, was finally able to work with a Nintendo IP. Advance Wars was also dormant for about 15 years, as Days of Ruin was the last entry having hit the DS in 2008.

Now in a podcast from Fragments of Silicon, director James Montagna spoke about the project’s origins. It seems that the relationship between Nintendo and WayForward had been building after multiple E3 meetings over the years, and eventually the Big N came to the studio with its idea to reimagine Advance Wars.

Montagna shared the following:

“It was something that started because we’ve been talking to Nintendo for many, many years. I think it might have been to the tune of 7-8 years where every E3, we’d make it a point to meet with Nintendo and just kind of chat with them and talk about potential things we might be able to do together. Every year we’d come with a new proposal to delight, entertain, and impress them, and we’d make sure the meeting is always something where we’d have a lot of fun together. They associate us with having a great time laughing and chatting about games, and just appreciating the games as the art form that it is.

After many years of this sort of interaction with Nintendo, they came to really look forward to the ‘WayForward Meeting’ as they put it, and we’d keep that going and bring something interesting for them. Just building a genuine connection. They’re such awesome people and they have such a passion for games, and you could just feel it talking to them. I think for us, we were able to meet them in that passion because of course we at WayForward, we love games too. I think it was just a really good match and a good fit for us to do something together, and so when the opportunity came around where they were thinking about creating something like Advance Wars and bringing that back, they thought, ‘who could we do this with?’ They reached out about it and it was something that we all love very much.

… For a lot of us where we have played Advance Wars back in the day, the moment they brought it up, our jaw hit the floor. Like ‘Of course we’d love to help you create a reimaging of Advance Wars.’ So that’s kind of what got the project started, and it was an incredible experience.”