This Open World Action Game Was The Final Release For The Wii U

The Wii U was not a huge hit for Nintendo. According to the company's own sales numbers, it only sold 13.56 million units, compared with 101.63 million for the original Wii and 68.30 million units for the Switch so far. There are myriad reasons why, including marketing snafus and a lack of third-party support. In the end, the console lasted about five years, until the Nintendo Switch was released in early 2017. 

Nintendo then quickly retired the Wii U, making The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild its last first-party game for the system. However, Breath of the Wild, released simultaneously on both the Wii U and the Switch in March 2017, didn't turn out to be Wii U's last game — though it was definitely some people's last purchase for it.

In fact, several other games followed the latest Zelda game onto the Wii U, including Just Dance 2018, Shovel Knight: King of Cards (scheduled for 2018 but not released until 2019) and memory game Dying is Dangerous from May 2020. The actual honor for the final game released for the Wii U belongs to Shakedown: Hawaii, which came out in August of 2020.

Shakedown: Hawaii is a bit of an outlier in that it not only released on the Wii U in 2020, it also launched on the Wii, the PlayStation 3, the PS Vita, and the Nintendo 3DS, as well as more current consoles. Clearly, developer Vblank, which did make a limited amount of physical copies to sell, had retro systems in mind for this title.

The game is a 16-bit open-world adventure in which players build a corporation by completing missions, acquiring companies, sabotaging competitors, taking over land, and shaking down small business owners. Players take on the role of an aging CEO with questionable morals, who uses sneaky tactics from propaganda to hidden service fees and unnecessary "best by" dates to further business goals. There are two other protagonists, too: the CEO's DJ son and his right-hand man, the one who does the dirty work. This game comes complete with different game modes, many customization options, and multiple environments with vehicles, boats, and more than 200 enterable buildings.

In case you're wondering if it's any good — the Wii U version doesn't have any Metacritic scores to date, but other versions of the game have Metascores in the 70s.