Well, we all know that Earthworm Jim 4 is being developed — Shiny Entertainment founder David Perry has been dropping hints about it since 2007 and Interplay has been doing its best to stay in the headlines with its “revival.” When series founder Doug TenNapel let it be known that he’d be consulting Interplay on the project, Earthworm Jim 4 was good as announced, except there hasn’t been the slightest hint of an update in over a year.
Yesterday Gameloft and Interplay announced that the Annelid Avenger would be coming to digital download services on the three major systems, with Xbox Live Arcade getting a month of exclusivity. The fact that both Earthworm Jim 1 and 2 are already on the Virtual Console led some people to hope that we might be seeing an all new Earthworm Jim game, daring to dream that Interplay had taken a page out of Mega Man 9‘s book.
Well, it’s my displeasure to announce that those (admittedly naive) hopes were summarily b*tchslapped today by Gameloft: speaking to G4, they made it clear the game in question is a remake of the first EWJ that hit the Super Nintendo and Genesis in 1994.
Don’t get me wrong, Earthworm Jim one of the best games of the 16-bit era, but I’ve already played it about a dozen times, fifteen years ago. No word yet on an HD graphics upgrade or anything of the like, and who knows how Gameloft will handle the fact that it’s already on the Virtual Console. To boot, Earthworm Jim has been removed from a Sega-sponsored poll about which game they should bring to XBLA next.
If you’re excited about playing EWJ again, then I’m excited for you. Call me when Shiny lets me play something new.
[Via GoNintendo]
