Star Wars Episode I: Racer, a full remaster of the classic N64 and PC game from 1999, has been delayed again. The game originally debuted in 1999 and found a surprising amount of success in that time period. Perhaps due to the fact that the resurgence of the Star Wars franchise led to a glut of mediocre games, and some really good ones, but at that time there were only a handful of really excellent Star Wars tie-ins.
The original game took the pulse-pounding action of the one scene in Phantom Menace that was any good, the pod racing, and made it into a shockingly fun game. The racing was fast and fluid, reminding many players of the likes of WipeOut and F-Zero, with plenty of courses and interesting racers to fool around with.
The remaster of Star Wars Episode I: Racer was in development with Aspyr Media, which announced today, via Twitter.
The studio said, “We are so excited to share Star Wars Episode l: Racer with you soon! Unfortunately, due to the ongoing work from home requirements across the industry, the game will be further delayed on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. We’ll be back with an update as soon as possible.”
Aspyr Media’s primary output has been ports, primarily for the Mac, of a variety of games. They got their start in 1998 with the Mac port of Tomb Raider II, and more recently worked on the PS4 and Switch ports of Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy and Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. So if there was a studio that could probably handle this job, they would be a prime choice.
The original plan seemed to be to drop the remastered version as a staggered release on PS4 and Switch. The game had already delayed from May 12 to May 26 for the PS4, with the Switch variant still scheduled for today. That will obviously no longer be happening.
