SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated

Rehydrated includes additional features such as a brand new multiplayer horde mode for up to two players, offering either PvP or co-op, which is playable online and offline.

The game was first revealed on June 5, 2019, in the days leading up to E3 2019.[3][4][5] The game was not playable until Gamescom, which started August 20 that year, where visitors could get their hands on it at THQ Nordic's booth.[6][7] On April 16, 2020, it was announced that the game will be released on June 23, 2020.[2]

The game is available in two limited editions on all platforms. The Shiny Edition includes wall stickers, six lithographs, special SpongeBob SquarePants tennis socks, and a figurine of SpongeBob with a flexible tongue and a golden spatula in his hand. In addition to that, the F.U.N. Edition also comes with two similarly-sized figurines of Sandy Cheeks and Patrick Star, as well as a set of five tiki keyrings.[8]

The game also features the original archived and new never-before-seen recordings from the English voice cast, as well as brand new recordings from the French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Japanese voice casts. It also supports text and subtitles in Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Malay, Thai, Korean, and Simplified Chinese alongside the 7 mentioned languages.[9]

The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4 and supports 4K resolution on the enhanced PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X models.[10][11]

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated received "mixed or average reviews" according to Metacritic.[12][13][15][14] Although the game’s colourful graphical update and faithfulness to the original received heavy praise, the game also received criticism for failing to correct many of the original game’s flaws such as inconsistent controls and slow-paced gameplay, while its newly-added online multiplayer was considered disappointing and dull. Some reviewers noted the game felt a lot closer to a HD port than a true remake.

IGN gave the game 5/10, saying that it "sinks under its reverence to nostalgia" and wrote, "There are bright spots that remain fun almost two decades later, and there are pops of ingenuity in its reworking, but it does little to stand alongside the best, or even the pretty good, platformer remakes and remasters we've seen this generation."[17] In its 2/10 review, GameSpot wrote that "remasters, ports, and remakes are nice because they make games more accessible to new audiences, and the ones that excel understand that some features from the game's era are antiquated and should be updated or removed. SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated flops like a fish out of water when it comes to this."[16]