Forget everything you saw at last night - the true bombshell PlayStation announcement of the week is the return of Tomba, the -published platformer that's spent the past few decades gaining a cult following. Tomba: Special Edition is officially set to hit PS5, Switch, and PC on August 1, with a PS4 version to follow some time later. The new edition will offer analog control options, a rewind feature, the ability to save anywhere, and a robust museum section filled with old advertisements, packaging materials, and dev documents.
The release is being handled by Limited Run Games, whose in-house emulation efforts have been very well-received up to this point. The 1998 release of Tomba was led by Tokuro Fujiwara, a veteran developer who directed some of the publisher's most notable '80s classics, including Ghosts 'n Goblins and Commando. He's also known for directing the 1990 NES game Sweet Home, which is one of the earliest survival horror games.
A few years later, Fujiwara pitched a remake of Sweet Home - a project that eventually morphed into the original Resident Evil, a game that Fujiwara would serve as producer on. After Resident Evil, Fujiwara left Capcom to form an independent studio called Whoopee Camp, where he led development of Tomba. It was a 2D platformer in an era that had gone all-in on 3D action, but its open-ended exploration and wide variety of side quests helped it stand out in a genre that was then looking dated.
In fact, to this day Fujiwara reckons Tomba mi.
