Roll7 has announced that Not A Hero will be released on February 2nd for PS4, but has also confirmed that the Vita version has been cancelled. A reason for this cancellation seems to be that porting the game to Vita was more difficult than initially realised, though that is to be properly confirmed by either Roll7 or publisher Devolver Digital. Originally Not A Hero wasn’t even planned for PS4 since the game tool used by Roll7, Clickteam Fusion, doesn’t support the console but the team made it work.
Not A Hero follows a time travelling mayoral candidate rabbit and the people he brings on board to clear up the city and reduce crime. You can read Miguel’s review of Not A Hero which he wrote when the game released last year for PC.
Amphlett
This gen of PS will be remembered as the generation of ‘retro’/’indie’ and ‘HD Remaster’s efforts. Watching this seemingly endless torrent of retro games makes me want to be a Man United fan watching a Van Gaal game, I’m that bored of it.
DividSmythe
Do it’s looks like an 8 bit game and it comes out the first Tuesday next month, so that’s one of the Ps+ titles sorted by the looks of it.
Avenger
Oh come on, are they honestly telling us they couldn’t port that onto Vita. Have pixel games now had enough of the Vita too, I wonder.
Stefan L
That’s not what they’re saying. Every port takes time and money to do, but depending on what you do to start off with, it will take less time and money. When a lot of developers pick popular cross-platform game engines such as Unreal Engine or Unity, they come with the benefit of already having been engineered to support a wide array of different platforms.
In Not A Hero’s case, they didn’t originally plan for a PS4 or PS Vita port, and so they used an engine that worked for them at the time but has ended up meaning that they could only bring it to the PS4 with the resources to hand.
Avenger
We’re not really talking about a game built on UE/Unity. It’s not a massive open world game nor a graphic heavy FPS, it’s a pixel 2D shooter. They’d hardly have problems meeting a performance budget (surely?). Vita’s architecture isn’t that abstract, and Roll7 have experience with the platform. Coding-wise they’ve got the game already done and dusted. I know it’s not that easy with the engine they’re working with, but how much more does it take to make the changes when they’ve managed it with PS4.
I can’t help but think it’s confirmation that even indie devs are thinking twice about Vita. I’m wondering if the cost vs reward is becoming not-viable anymore. It’s certainly not the first time an indie dev has abandoned a Vita version of a game.
TSBonyman
I’m not a huge fan of 8 bit games, but this looks pretty good with it’s OTT humour and twitch gameplay.
Eldave0
Looks fun. Just not sure I can stomach another 8-bit side scroller at the moment