The now 27-year-old 2D platformer from Disney Gargoyles will apparently be getting a remaster at some point in the very near future. The news comes from the recently held Disney & Marvel Games Showcase at the latest D23 Expo in Anaheim, California. Similar to the sidescrollers based on Aladdin, The Lion King, and of course The Jungle Book, Gargoyles will be getting re-released as part of the Disney Classic Games Collection, described as the “latest and greatest compilation of classic Disney games based on some of the most beloved Disney movies of all time.”
Gargoyles was a platformer developed by Disney Software and published by Buena Vista Interactive for the Sega Genesis in 1995. The game was an adaptation of the eponymous animated series produced by Disney, a show that ran for three seasons between 1994 and 1997. The game loosely followed the plot of the animated series, pitting the player character, Goliath, against the primary antagonist, Demona. Falling under the influence of a magical talisman called the Eye of Odin, Demona becomes a being of unspeakable evil who must be stopped.
The game was a sidescrolling platformer that saw Goliath fighting his way across five different levels, each one of which featured a short cinematic with a little bit of story content followed by a boss encounter. Goliath could hit, grapple, throw, and jump. The character could also pump his wings to perform a sort of double jump in addition to climbing along walls and ceilings. Gargoyles featured a number of well known actors including Keith David, Clancy Brown, and John Rhys-Davies along with Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis, mostly known for Star Trek: The Next Generation. The person who programmed the game, Chris Shrigley, released all of the source code to the public in 2012.
Gargoyles will be remastered by Empty Clip, a studio known for producing the 16-bit brawlers Dead Island: Retro Revenge, Streets of Kamurocho, and more. “Despite remaining a small operation, we’ve released 32 games on multiple platforms for a total of over 63 SKUs in the last 13 years, mainly using our proprietary multiplatform RapidFire Engine,” Empty Clip explains on its website. “We've created eight original titles, some for the biggest names in entertainment such as Final Fantasy and Ghostbusters, as well as our own fully original award-winning indie game Symphony.”
The remastered version of Gargoyles does not yet have a release date, but Disney noted how the “classic platformer is coming to modern consoles and PC with updated visuals and controls,” making this a better time than ever to pick up this cult classic.