Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced this morning that Gauntlet, the legendary 1980s dungeon crawler, will be rebooted. The title will launch for Windows PC via Steam at a later point in 2014.
Looking very much like the older titles in the franchise, this version of Gauntlet will be completely rebuilt to take advantage of modern technology. Players will still get to choose between the traditional classes of Warrior, Elf, Wizard and Valkyrie, as they journey through a series of randomly generated dungeons, fighting off hordes of enemies and searching for treasure and food.
Developed by Arrowhead Game Studios, the team behind Magicka and Helldivers, Gauntlet is the first title in the new WB Games Vault plan, which is an initiative by WBIE to take advantage of the properties that the company acquired from former gaming giant Midway back in 2008. Some of the other properties that could see future reboots include Spy Hunter, Robotron and Joust.
Originally released in 1985, the Gauntlet series has laid dormant for almost ten years now. The previous release in the franchise, Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, was also an attempted reboot of the franchise, but was largely considered a failure upon release.
As someone who greatly enjoyed the previous Gauntlet games (except for Seven Sorrows), I’m cautiously optimistic about this reboot. Arrowhead Game Studios’ previous titles share similar traits to this franchise, and the debut trailer reminded me of the series’ classic gameplay. My one hope is that the game eventually comes to consoles though, because part of the charm of the series is playing it locally with a group of friends.
We will continue to have coverage of Gauntlet in the lead-up to its release later this year.
Anyone excited for this reboot? Or do you think time has passed the series by? Let us know in the comments section below.
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