Windjammers, an arcade game originally released in 1994, will be re-released on August 29 of this year on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, according to a blog post on the official PlayStation blog.
“As gamers and retro lovers ourselves, Windjammers is a legendary title that we at DotEmu hold dear to our hearts,” said Arnaud De Sousa, marketing manager of DotEmu on why the developers held back the games release date in the blog post. “So of course we wanted to deliver the optimum experience. This meant not rushing things, taking our time, and doing it right.”
A closed beta for the game was held from June 8 to June 12 to test out the new game mechanics that were put into this arcade game remake. Over 40,000 beta keys had been given out during the closed beta according to the blog post.
Throughout the development of Windjammers for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, De Sousa said that DotEmu wanted to involve the Windjammers community in making the re-release.
“But just like every great game, this simplicity masks a deeper complexity. Similar to Street Fighter, Windjammers is one of those rare titles where a combination of skill, experience, and strategy is essential for victory,” said De Sousa in the blog post. “And as a competitive fighting game player myself (play Third Strike, it’s a good game), it was obvious and mandatory that Windjammers France, the French Windjammers community, had to be part of the development process. I mean, these guys are masters of their craft, so we had to give them what they wanted: an arcade-perfect port. And with their help, we pulled it off.”
Along with thanking the closed beta players, De Sousa says that they are also keen on focusing on creating an e-sports community for Windjammers, since the game is basically a competitive frisbee tournament.
“What was also clear from your feedback is just how essential esports is to your expectations for the game. As an arcade and multiplayer game, we knew that Windjammers already had that built-in competitiveness, but you confirmed that it’s more than that,” said De Sousa. “It’s also a fun and engaging game to play, not just for the the French Windjammers community and pro players, but for everybody.”
Originally being previewed at PlayStation Experience 2016, Windjammers is a sports game where two players throw a frisbee back and forth until one of the players manages to throw the frisbee past the other player to score. It looks like a combination of tennis, volleyball and soccer, except instead of a ball, players throw around a frisbee.
One of the newest features of the game is online multiplayer. Using PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita’s online services, matchmaking is available for players who don’t want to sit around and wait for their friends or have to play the game against a CPU. The one feature that was kept the same in Windjammers is game design. Windjammers sticks to it’s old-school ’90s aesthetic with bright colors, pixelated graphics, and characters geared up in work out clothes.
No price has been listed for the game yet aside from the fact that it will be released on August 29. Along with the Windjammers re-release, DotEmu is creating a merchandise line for the game that includes a frisbee, a cap, a pin, and two t-shirts (one of the t-shirts is available in both black and pink). For more information on the upcoming release, fans can check out Windjammers’ official page on the PlayStation official website. A character trailer that shows off the game design, gameplay and (of course) characters has been made available to watch on the PlayStation official YouTube channel.
Featured image via Flickr/BagoGames.
