Little Big Adventure classic remasters to be rolled out in 2024

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Series reboot pushed back, with remakes to mark 30-year-anniversary of Adeline's original debut

There's good news and bad news for fans of the Twinsen series. The bad news is that the recently announced series reboot will be shelved for a while longer than originally anticipated. The good news is that in its place we're going to get remasters of the first two classic games in the series in time to mark the franchise's 30-year-anniversary.

Citing the need to "prove to publishers" that there's still an appetite for the unique brand of gaming provided by the Little Big Adventure titles, the indie studio co-founded by LBA's original art director Didier Chanfray has decided to focus first on bringing the classic titles back in remastered form. Rather than merely splash a new coat of paint over a decades-old foundation, the two isometric action-adventure games will be "faithfully rebuilt ... from scratch" in Unreal Engine 5 with remastered music and a new look with fluid animation in high resolution. Among the other enhanced features promised will be a "new follow camera," while "new tricks like evade [and] the ability to change weapons instantly open up new avenues for inventive speed-running." An analog control scheme will also be introduced, though the option to use the original keyboard controls will remain for those who prefer the familiar old-school play style.

Released in 1994, the first Little Big Adventure (aka Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure) saw players assume the role of a young Quetch on the planet Twinsun get thrown into an asylum to be cured of his "strange dream of the destruction of the planet and the forbidden goddesses Sendells." Upon his escape, Twinsen was hunted but was aided in his quest with the discovery of "a strange magic tunic and a magicball" that let him fight back. Three years later, Little Big Adventure 2 (aka Twinsen's Odyssey) forced the ponytailed protagonist to leave his happy life on Citadel Island to face a new threat that would take him to the planet Zeelich in an attempt to ward off an invasion of his homewold.

There is no target release date just yet, but the plan is to launch the remasters of both Twinsen’s Little Big Adventure 1 and Twinsen’s Little Big Adventure 2 sometime next year on Steam for Windows PC, thirty years after the series debut. In the meantime, the developers are planning a demo of the first game in time for the weeklong Steam Neo Fest, which begins June 19th.