Rhythm Heaven Groove dated

Nintendo sat on this one for more than a year, then dropped the date in a phone app: Rhythm Heaven Groove hits Nintendo Switch on July 2, 2026, according to Nintendo’s new post and store page. That quiet rollout stands out because the game was first announced on March 27, 2025, during a Nintendo Direct presentation that gave it only a 2026 window. Rhythm Heaven is Nintendo’s series of tiny music challenges where one song usually means one joke, one pattern, and one timing test. Nintendo’s official description for Groove still uses that same formula, promising “eclectic rhythm games” built around original music. The long gap is why fans cared about a plain date post this week. The last fully new Rhythm Heaven before Groove was Rhythm Heaven Fever on Wii in 2011, while Rhythm Heaven Megamix on Nintendo 3DS in 2016 mostly remixed older stages from across the series. Nintendo used the date reveal to spotlight one new stage called Slice N Dice Kitchen. In the new footage, players chop and catch vegetables to the beat, which is exactly the kind of absurd one-minute premise the series has always lived on. One name that keeps returning with this series is Tsunku, the Japanese musician and producer behind much of Rhythm Heaven’s music. Nintendo’s official pages say Groove again includes tracks by Tsunku and credits TNX as a co-developer. The platform matters too: Nintendo’s store page lists Groove for the original Nintendo Switch, not as a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. That puts it in the same late-cycle lane as other cross-generation Nintendo releases that arrive after the next machine is already in view. So the update this week was small, but it answered the only missing question that had been hanging since March 2025: not whether Rhythm Heaven was back, but exactly when. Now the series has a fixed summer date, a fresh gameplay clip, and Nintendo’s first brand-new Rhythm Heaven in 15 years lined up for July 2.