Once Upon a Katamari: Everything New in the First Katamari Game in 14 Years
Fourteen years between mainline Katamari games
Once Upon a Katamari arrived on October 23, 2025, across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. It’s the first new mainline entry in the Katamari Damacy series since Touch My Katamari on the PlayStation Vita in 2011. In the years between, the series existed mainly as a remaster (Katamari Damacy Reroll in 2018) and an Apple Arcade title (Katamari Damacy Rolling Live, April 2025). No new console game. The return has been well received.
For anyone who hasn’t played the older games
Katamari Damacy started on PS2 in 2004. Keita Takahashi designed it at Namco with a deliberately simple premise: roll a sticky ball called a katamari around the world, collecting anything smaller than it. Objects initially too large to pick up become collectible as the ball grows. A katamari that starts smaller than a thumbtack can finish a level having swallowed entire buildings. That growth arc — combined with an eccentric, genuinely great soundtrack — is what built the series’ fanbase.
We Love Katamari (PS2, 2005) is still the entry most fans consider the best. Me & My Katamari launched on PSP the same year. Katamari Forever came to PS3 in 2009. Then releases slowed sharply, ending with Touch My Katamari in 2011.
What Once Upon a Katamari actually adds
The central concept this time is time travel. Each stage sends the Prince into a different historical era — ancient civilizations, medieval settings, and others — rolling up objects from that period. It keeps level variety high without requiring an entirely new set of mechanics to justify it. Stages feel distinct from one another in a way the earlier games sometimes didn’t manage.
Three changes stand out specifically:
- KatamariBall: The series’ first competitive multiplayer mode. Up to four players race to roll the largest katamari within a time limit, then convert their total into points. Online and local play are both supported. The same spatial logic that makes the single-player levels satisfying translates well — when someone else is also consuming the map, decisions about what to collect shift fast.
- Character customization: You can collect cosmetic accessories scattered through levels and apply them to your playable cousin. It’s not a deep system, but it gives players a reason to cover every corner of a stage rather than barreling for the exit.
- Power-ups: New to this entry. They don’t rewrite the core loop, but they add a decision layer on top of it in certain stages.
Critical reception landed strongly positive. Reviewers pointed to the time-travel concept as a clean way to refresh level variety. The core mechanic — rolling things up, getting bigger, rolling up bigger things — came through as satisfying as it’s always been. Updated visuals and a tighter narrative over the older entries were both cited as genuine improvements over what came before.
The Nintendo Switch 2 version and Rolling LIVE Highlights DLC
On October 8, 2026, Once Upon a Katamari gets a Nintendo Switch 2 release. The Switch 2 version adds mouse controls (a natural fit for rolling a ball), runs at a higher frame rate, and delivers higher-definition graphics. Players who already own the original Switch version receive the frame rate improvements and mouse controls as a free update — no re-purchase needed.
That Switch 2 launch is paired with new paid DLC: Rolling LIVE Highlights. It pulls content from the Apple Arcade game Katamari Damacy Rolling Live — ten new quests, twelve new songs, six new cousins, and eighteen new accessories. The DLC is available across all platforms, not limited to Switch 2 owners.
Where to get it
Once Upon a Katamari is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam. At launch, Bandai Namco offered a Standard Edition and a Deluxe (King of All Sounds) Edition that bundles the game’s soundtrack. The Switch 2 version and Rolling LIVE Highlights DLC both arrive October 8, 2026.