We haven’t seen a digital N64 re-release for a while, so it can only be good news to hear Acclaim’s early N64 tunnel shooter Forsaken is receiving an Xbox One remaster next week.
It’s available to pre-order now for £15.99.
Nightdive Studios are behind the re-release. Their recent Turok remasters went down rather well, praised for being handled with care, so we’re expecting a similar attentively put together package.
The features list mentions online play and new custom stages, along with split-screen play and a wealth of multiplayer modes. It’s Xbox One X enhanced too, boasting 4K visuals.
The N64 original (also released on PC and PSone) gained a cult following upon release, gaining favourable comparisons to Interplay’s Descent. Unlike Descent, however, it didn’t sell well enough to warrant a sequel.
We blame a botched marketing campaign – looking back at the differences in box art across all three regions, it’s clear Acclaim struggled to market a space shooter on consoles come 1998, resorting to using female models in the US.
It looks like Shadowman is the next N64 re-release on the agenda. We can also look forward to WARP/Acclaim’s horror adventure D: The Game receiving a digital dust off, although it may be some way off – Nightdive aren’t best known for speedy turnarounds.
I was under the impression that Forsaken was originally developed for PC. Is the remake going to be based on the N64 code?
Both Turok titles were remastered using Nightdive’s custom KEX engine, which I imagine they’re using again here. The product description mentions levels from the PC and N64 versions, so it’s likely they’re sourcing code from console and PC. I hindsight, I should have probably played the down the N64 references in this piece seeing it was multi-format originally.
The work Nightdive did on both those Turok remasters is by all accounts excellent, so this should be no different. Insert the obligatory “hope this comes to Switch” here. To be honest, I’m more looking forward to see what they plan to do with Kenji Eno’s D. I can’t imagine high resolution sources of the original FMV even exist.