Eccho The Dolphin is coming back. The original development team is remastering the first two games in the series (Ecco The Dolphin and The Tides of Time) and creating a brand-new third entry in the series.
The news was revealed via an Xbox Wire blog post, with series creator Ed Annunziata announcing that the development staff that worked on the original games released in 1992 and 1994 respectively would be making a return to work on remastering both.
Once those projects are completed, they'll start development on the third entry in the franchise, taking into account "contemporary play and GPU sensibilities."
Ecco The Dolphin is a storied franchise tied to the SEGA Genesis and Dreamcast, with four titles launched between 1992 and 2000. Following the release of Tides of Time in 1994, a spin-off for younger audiences, Ecco Jr, was released in 1995. A full reboot of the series, Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, launched for the Dreamcast in 2000.
click to enlargeAll of them but Defender of the Future were developed by Novotrade, with Ed Annunziata at the helm. The Dreamcast reboot was created by Appaloosa Interactive. So, when Ed refers to a third game in the series, it's likely not taking into account Ecco Jr (which is technically a prequel) and the reboot which Novotrade had nothing to do with.
If you've never played Ecco The Dolphin, they're some incredibly surreal experiences. You might think it's a straightforward fun adventure game designed for kids to enjoy, in reality, Ecco is a time-traveling dolphin set to combat aliens and creatures roaming the depths of the ocean, trying to save the world in the process.
I, for one, would love to see what a third Ecco game would look like in modern times and I'll be extremely excited to hear news from the development team in roughly a year's time, at least that's what the timer on the Ecco the Dolphin website states.
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