It’s took a good five minutes of me watching the video below before I finally remembered reading about HardCore when I was at university and had an Amiga. The game was being developed by Digital Illusions, the team behind the excellent Pinball Dreams series, and was meant to be released by Psygnosis for the Amiga and Sega Megadrive.
However, the game was cancelled as the hardware it was to be released on was coming to the end of it’s lifecycle, and that was the last we ever saw of HardCore. Since then, Digital Illusions has becoming EA Dice, Psygnosis was swallowed up by Sony, and the code for the games was thought to be lost.
However, developers and ‘digital archaeologists’ Strictly Limited have managed to find a copy of the original code and have got it up and running on Sega Megadrive development kit. The game is then going to be ported to PlayStation 4 and PS Vita, and twenty five years since it was originally announced, HardCore, or Project Hardcore as it now known, will be released.
“I know the care, love, sweat and hard work that went into creating Hardcore it in the first place by all involved parties. Thus, I think it is fantastic that this product finally gets to see the light of day and for people to be able to play it finally,” commented Fredrik Liljegren, founder of DICE.
The game is a Metroidvania style shooter but with European influences, so it it looks a little more like the awesome Turrican. Twenty year old me is very, very excited!
Source: Project Hardcore
lambchop
I think that I shall purchase a copy of this