A week ago, Platinum Games launched the Kickstarter campaign for its remaster of The Wonderful 101, its superhero-laden adventure from 2013. Since that time, it’s become highly successful, making over $1.5 million thus far. People want these heroes back.
But the developer never really explained as to why it chose to revisit the game, especially now when it’s hard at work on other games like Babylon’s Fall and Bayonetta 3. Speaking with Nintendo Everything, game director Hideki Kamiya had a reasonable explanation.
When The Wonderful 101 initially released on Wii U, it “wasn’t a successful business endeavor for us.” Though “various reasons” were noted for it, the low user base probably didn’t help. (Only 13.56 million Wii U consoles were sold in its lifetime.)
Kamiya continued, “(Studio head Atsushi) Inaba and I have since lamented that not many players were able to experience the game.”
So the developer set out to get the re-release ball rolling—though it did face a particular challenge with the game’s original publisher, Nintendo. “When we sat down with them, we explained our situation: how the game wasn’t successful upon release and how we wanted to bring it to modern consoles,” he said.
Kamiya brought up how the original game didn’t sell as well as expected and was hoping for it to have a better chance at reaching an audience. “So as a result of our negotiations, the kindness of Nintendo has made both the ports and this campaign possible.”
And here we are. The game will arrive on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC sometime this year. What’s more, it still has over three weeks to go on its campaign so that it could meet more stretch goals in that time frame, including a new side-scrolling mission and a remixed soundtrack.
If you’re interested in taking part, the campaign is still live here. Check out the original Wii U trailer below.
Published: Feb 11, 2020 12:54 am