Tomba! Special Edition

Tomba! Special Edition is the remastered version of Tomba!, developed by Limited Run Games using the Carbon Engine.

Announcement

On July 12 2023, a remaster was announced by Limited Run Games through a post on Twitter, alongside a promotional trailer on Youtube. The game would be developed using the Carbon Engine, a type of emulator designed for re-releasing older games with modern features applied. The trailer consisted of a remastered version of the intro cutscene from the original, uncompressed video source.

On May 31 2024, the release date of August 1 2024 was announced and promoted through an interview with creator Tokuro Fujiwara on the PlayStation.Blog website, the official PlayStation news branch of Sony Interactive Entertainment. The interview goes into the history of the game, Fujiwara's thoughts on game design, and includes never seen before concept art. It also confirms the game's name as Tomba! Special Edition. The game's Steam page got activated at the same time.

Earlier attempts

The possibility of a possible revival of the Tomba franchise was first raised by an article on Exputer which noted trademark registrations in Europe and the US of the word mark "TOMBA!" by mobile game developer BBG Entertainment. This implied that a transfer of rights to the Tomba franchise from Whoopee Camp to BBG had occurred in 2021, but no announcement confirming or following up on this was ever made on the BBG website or to the press. Whoopee Camp's own US trademark had been considered abandoned since the year 2000 and had not shown signs of life since the studio's closure.

Following the remaster's announcement, Summitsphere studio owner Tony Grayson tweeted that they were briefly working on a full remake of the game. Since they could not secure the rights, they were not able to obtain further funding, and so the project did not go beyond the initial stages. He also noted that the intellectual property rights seemed to be "split up" at the time and included a party that did not seem like the rightful owner, and which Tokuro Fujiwara was not aware of. By Grayson's recollection, Fujiwara ended up putting a stop to misuse of the property, but by that time Summitsphere had already moved on to its own original project, Antonblast.

The only published content of Summitsphere's remake was a 3D model of Tomba with idle animation, tweeted out by Grayson.

Content

As this game is a remaster of the original Tomba!, most of the content is the same.

External links

• Limited Run Games announcing that the game can be wishlisted on Steam
• Tomba Special Edition Finally Lands a Release Date. The Escapist, 2024-05-01.
• Limited Run Games announces TOMBA! remake for Switch. Reddit (/r/Games), 2023-06-13.