After the announcement back in May, Earthworm Jim 4 is officially revealed to the public eyes. Interplay has confirmed that although the game is an Intellivision Amico exclusive, it will not be a part of the six launch titles for the Android-based console. Interplay also promised Earthworm Jim 4 will ship with a multiplayer feature, a first for the series.
In case you forgot about Intellivision Amico, yes, the ’80s home console Intellivision is making — or trying to make — a comeback in the gaming industry. They were planning to launch Amico on October 10th, but it got pushed back by COVID-19 pandemic to April 15, 2021. Unfortunately similar to how Intellivision hasn’t shown off anything of note regarding their new console, there’s still not much information surrounding Earthworm Jim 4.
So far, all the video teaser below showed off is just a half-minute animation of Jim walking around a beach “within the game engine.” The hand-drawn animation does look nice and seems to capture the ‘spirit’ of the classic titles, though.
The series’ signature absurd sense of humor and the surrealist art style is missed by many platformers and/or adventure games fans since the last two decades. Earthworm Jim was first released for the Sega Genesis in October 1994. It gained enough following and eventually got ported to various other platforms including SNES, Game Boy, and PC. Earthworm Jim 2 later released in November 1995, followed by Earthworm Jim 3D on N64 in October 1995 with much disappointment from fans. A spinoff, Earthworm Jim: Menace 2 the Galaxy, was made for Game Boy on November 1999. While HD re-release of the original game was released in 2010. The space-suit wearing worm also got a cartoon series that ran for 23 episodes from 1995 to 1996.
Interplay first declared that they were working on Earthworm Jim 4 back in 2008. But finally, after 11 years of silence, a new entry for the series was confirmed to be in the works. Intellivision said that the “original Earthworm Jim 1 and 2 team” is on board for this project. Although they did not specify the team members, it includes co-creator David Perry, composer Tommy Tallarico, and animator Doug TenNapel, based on the 2019’s announcement.
