Croc — one of the only 3D platformers to grace the Saturn library — is coming to modern platforms, according to one of its original executive producers.
Jez San said on Tuesday in a tweet that “it’s a little premature to announce” but that “Croc HD” has started early development.
San was replying to a contributing writer at retro gaming website Time Extension who published an interview with Croc lead designer Nic Cusworth earlier that day. The writer, James Batchelor, tweeted out his story by declaring that it’s time to campaign for a Croc remaster.
Perhaps Batchelor was being facetious, but San took the opportunity to let the reptile out of the bag. He gave no other details, so it’s still unclear whether the project is an upscaled remaster or a full-on remake, or even who is developing it.
That’s despite several people asking on Twitter who the developer is, including Croc character designer Simon Keating, who said he wasn’t “invited to the party.”
Keating may not be in the loop, but if anyone would be, it’s San. He answered a person asking who owns the intellectual property of Croc by saying “I do.” He also founded the now-defunct Argonaut Software, the original developer of Croc.
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos hit the Saturn fairly late in the console’s life, releasing in October 1997 in Europe, November 1997 in North America and March 1998 in Japan. It originally came out on the PlayStation in September 1997 and also got a PC port in November that year.
The franchise was short-lived. It went on to get a single mainline sequel in 1999 for the PlayStation that was ported to PC the following year. 2D reimaginings of the first and second games came out on the GameBoy Color in 2000 and 2001, followed by three cell phone spin-offs in 2005 and 2006. The Croc franchise hasn’t been seen since then.
Croc’s Sega iteration notoriously shipped in the West with a bug in which nontextured polygons — including Croc’s own head — would not appear on screen. According to Sega Retro, North American copies were recalled, while European ones came with a slip of paper telling players to work around the bug by turning on the Saturn without the game inserted, then putting the disc in the tray and launching the game from the multiplayer menu. The problem allegedly was fixed in the Japanese version and did not plague the PlayStation and PC versions.
Despite that problem, Croc remains remembered fondly for being one of the few Saturn platformers that allows movement in any direction, even making use of the 3D analog controller.
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