Long-Lost DICE Metroidvania HardCore Coming to PS4 and Vita

This story is awesome. A long lost DICE relic called HardCore has reappeared, and it is coming to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in 2019.

Back in 1994, a developer named Digital Illusions created a game for publisher Psygnosis called HardCore. Of course, now Digital Illusions is DICE, a studio famous for EA‘s Battlefield series. Hardcore was a European-style Metroidvania game well before the genre was coined of course), planned to release for the Sega Genesis, the Sega CD, and the Amiga.

Plans fell through due to looming console upgrades, and HardCore was canceled. Now it’s back, and German publisher Strictly Limited Games is releasing it in 2019 for the PlayStation 4 and the Vita.

HardCore, known now by its new working title, Project HardCore, was thought to be lost. DICE itself no longer had any documentation or data left for the canceled side-scrolling shooter. Thanks to some outside assistance, Strictly Limited was able to obtain a copy of the original build, and a team comprised of people who originally worked on the game back in the 90s are working to restore the build and make it playable on today’s hardware.

As part of unearthing this long-lost treasure, Strictly Limited plans to to run a talk at gamescom 2018, called Games You Can Touch—More Than a Niche. During the talk, founders Dennis Mendel and Benedict Braitsch will not only discuss the concept of “game archaeology,” but also give more details about Project HardCore specifically.

Project HardCore will be on the PlayStation 4 and Vita in 2019.