Most gamers nowadays might be familiar with DICE, the developers of the still on-going Battlefield series and the newly released Star Wars Battlefront games. What people might not be familiar with though is this platformer, titled Hardcore, that they developed for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis in 1994 to be published by Psygnosis, which was never released. However it seems Strictly Limited Games have taken it upon themselves to finally release this lost gem to the world under the title Project Hardcore.
The eurostyle platformer, which has been described as somewhat of a Metroidvania style shooter is coming exclusively to PS4 and PS Vita in the first half of 2019. According to Strictly Limited Games, the release will even feature vertical scrolling shoot’em up stages that were planned for a Sega Mega CD release. The game was allegedly abandoned in favor of shifting focus to the new generation of hardware coming out, presumably such as the PlayStation and Sega Saturn.
The game was long believed to have been lost, though thanks to some friends, in 2017 the original source code was unearthed, allowing this lost game to finally see its release, 23 years after its originally intended release date. The team working on the project consists of the two founding members Dennis Mendel and Benedict Braitsch, who have been working on restoring the game for modern platforms. Among others who have been involved, there is long-time DICE employee Mikael Kalms, as well as members of the original 1994 dev team, Fredrik Liljegren, and Joakim Wejdemar. Mega Drive and 68000 coding expert Matt Phillips from Big Evil Corporation is also providing support, as well as Steve Snake (emulation), Mathew Gambrell (porting) and Gerhard Weihrauch (level design).
Fredrik Liljegren, one of the four founders of DICE, commented on the project:
“I know the care, love, sweat and hard work that went into creating Hardcore it in the first place by all involved parties. Thus, I think it is fantastic that this product finally gets to see the light of day and for people to be able to play it finally.”
Strictly Limited Games will be hosting a panel at Gamescom 2018 on August 22 where they will be discussing game archeology as well as provide more details on Project Hardcore.
More information can be found at the official website. And in the mean time, make sure to check the announcement trailer: