If I were a betting man, I’d put good money on an Ape Escape revival being announced any day now. It’s been well over a decade since the last entry in the fondly-remembered PlayStation series, but it looks as if Sony is gearing up to bring it back.
The rumours first started last week, when a mysterious Twitter account with the handle @piposaru20th appeared and sent out a message asking if there’s anyone out there still chasing apes. The account was only created in the past few weeks, and is being followed by Sony Japan Studio, who worked on the original Ape Escape games.
The reports of further monkey mayhem are now reaching fever pitch, as Sony’s President Shuhei Yoshida has taken to Twitter himself to congratulate Ape Escape on reaching its 20th anniversary, via the aforementioned mystery account. Check it out above.
As if that wasn’t enough of a tease for you, Yoshida is wearing a Peak Point Helmet in the video, which fans will know is the device used the control the ape’s minds in the Ape Escape games. It’s also worth noting that back in the day, Yoshida helped build the team who create Ape Escape.
Yoshida said in the video (as translated by GameRevolution):
Congratulations on your 20th anniversary! Thank you. I was involved, so it’s strange to celebrate. As a producer of the first Ape Escape, the development team still started with a few people I’ve always said that Ape Escape is the most important part of my life in producing games, so I think the first Ape Escape in the Ape Escape series is the best. I think it’s an overwhelming difference (laughs).
It’s unclear what exactly Sony would plan to do with Ape Escape to mark the 20th anniversary, but I feel like the stage is set for a remaster of the original game, rather than an entirely new entry. The company has shown it’s willing to revisit classic franchises with remasters of MediEvil, Wipeout, and PaRappa The Rapper.
Ape Escape first launched on the original PlayStation way back in 1999, and combined platforming, light puzzle solving, and combat, as players raced to reclaim a number of captured apes. We got two sequels and a handful of spinoffs, but while Ape Escape 4 was announced back in 2006, nothing ever came of it.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.