Sanrio Games, the company's first official in-house game brand, is making its debut with a bang. Hello Kitty Party Land is a co-op party game for Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, launching October 29, 2026, and it just got its first public hands-on at Sanrio Fes 2026 in Yokohama's Minatomirai district this past weekend.
If you're already into Meow Match and the broader wave of Sanrio-flavored casual titles, this one is worth watching closely.
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Build your own Sanrio character before the party starts
The game opens with a full character creator, and it goes deeper than you might expect from a party title. You pick eye shapes, eye colors, hairstyles, hair colors, eyebrow shapes, skin tones, and outfits to put together a custom avatar that fits the Sanrio art style. The result is a character that looks like it belongs alongside Hello Kitty, My Melody, and the rest of the roster, not just a generic placeholder.
After building your avatar, you also choose a Sanrio partner character to accompany you through the game's hub world, Party Land. The lineup includes Pompompurin, Cinnamoroll, Hello Kitty, and My Melody, among others. Your chosen partner follows you around, reacts to what you do, and even hands you collectible stickers when you first arrive. It's a small touch, but it does a lot to make the world feel alive.
What the mini-games actually play like
Three mini-games were available at the event preview, out of the 45+ variations confirmed for the retail release. All of them are co-op, built for up to 4 players.
Pompompurin's Bouncy Trampoline is the most immediately readable of the three. You jump on a trampoline version of Pompompurin to collect star candies falling from above. Landing on other players launches you higher, which is how you reach the candies in harder spots. The preview session ended with 261 candies collected and a GOLD rank clear.
Little Twin Stars' Twinkling Star Fishing Challenge features Kiki and Lala and asks you to cast a fishing rod with precise timing to reel in stars drifting between clouds. Here's the thing: it sounds straightforward, but the timing window is tighter than it looks. Stars move fast, and mistiming your cast is easy. The payoff when a giant star hooks on and you button-mash it in is genuinely satisfying. The preview group hit 365 stars for a PLATINUM rank.
Cinnamoroll's Home Run Derby is a rhythm-adjacent bat-swinging game where Cinnamoroll pitches balls and you hit them back. Home runs turn into fireworks overhead, and the pitch tempo escalates as the game goes on. Players can choose to control either their custom avatar or a Sanrio character directly in the mini-games, which is a nice flexibility option for fans who just want to play as their favorites.
Pre-orders open, special editions confirmed
Pre-orders are live now for both physical and digital editions. The physical version comes with a limited-quantity Hello Kitty mini MASCOT holder as a bonus, while the Sanrio Shop and Sanrio Online Shop Exclusive Set includes a set of five character figures.
The game supports 1 to 4 players, covers both Switch hardware versions, and has a Japanese retail price that converts to roughly $43 USD. No Western pricing has been confirmed yet.
For players who want to get ahead of the launch, the Meow Match guides collection offers a good reference point for how Sanrio-adjacent casual titles tend to structure their progression and scoring systems. If you're newer to this style of casual games on Switch, Hello Kitty Party Land looks like one of the more polished entries in the genre arriving this fall.
