While gamers today are probably more familiar with the plethora of battle royale games or multiplayer shooters being the most common genre, in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s 3D platformers were just as common. Of course you had your big players – Mario, Banjo-Kazooie, Ratchet & Clank, etc. – but you there were also quite a few obscure series with their own quirky mascots. One such series, Kao the Kangaroo from Tate Multimedia, has just been revived by its developers with an impending PC port of Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2.
To be fair, I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of Kao the Kangaroo before. This was a series of fairly obscure series of platformers that started with a Dreamcast game, peaked with the multiplatform release of Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2, and ended with an Australian and European-exclusive PC game. The games were fairly standard 3D platforms inspired by the likes of Crash Bandicoot and Rayman 2, and featured the titular Australian kangaroo with boxing gloves.
He remained quite obscure and forgotten for some time, though his notoriety and popularity has increased recently due to modern nostalgia culture, a series of reviews from YouTuber Nitro Rad, and the #BringKaoBack hashtag on Twitter. Tate Multimedia has held onto the IP for all this time and after a tease in 2018’s Steel Rats they have decided to bring the series into the modern era with a PC port, which was revealed yesterday through the following Tweet:
#BringKaoBack fans! You spoke – We listened!
Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 is coming straight to #Steam on 1st of June 2019!Let’s bring back all the good memories of the incredible, brave and lovely Kao the Kangaroo. Follow us for new updates!#gameing #platformer #gamedev pic.twitter.com/1d0v0VtFFt
— Kao the Kangaroo (@Kaothekangaroo) May 21, 2019
While it isn’t a new game, it shows fans of the series that Tate Multimedia is listening, cares, and is even taking steps to expose the games to a new audience. According to various tweets and Discord posts by the developers, the game has been updated to support modern computers and screen resolutions, though the engine and game itself hasn’t changed. The port is also based on the EU release and dub, so fans in the USA may notice a few changes. Interestingly, the port will only cost $1.99 as the developers want to thank the fans for their support of the series in recent years:
Guys, the price is so low, because we wanted to thank to the community. Also I think that it’s not fair to charge you $20 for a game that you and your friends probably played before and paid the full price for it.
It’s going to be a decent digital version of well known Kao2— Kao the Kangaroo (@Kaothekangaroo) May 21, 2019
While there is no video of the PC port yet and its Steam page isn’t live, we can expect Tate Multimedia to release Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 for PC on June 1, 2019.
The post Kao the Kangaroo is Coming Back With a PC Port of Round 2 in June by Tomas Franzese appeared first on DualShockers.