Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4 Coming to Steam, Original Trilogy Could Follow
(Image by Krome Studios)
After nearly ten years without a major release, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger returns with his boomerang for more action.
The Australian-based Krome Studios announced that Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4 will release for Steam on Sept. 18, with the company publishing the game. Ty 4 is a 2D side-scrolling platformer, a different style from the first three games in the series.
Ty 4 looks to be a rebranding of the original Windows 8-exclusive game that released in July 2013 for Microsoft’s desktop and tablet platforms called Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. It appears the Steam release will be an almost identical port of the Windows 8 version that’s optimized for PC players, including adding Steam Achievements, Trading Cards and cloud saves.
Ty 4 follows the events of the third game and features 40 levels, several single-player game modes, different playable characters and a variety of boomerang attacks. The PC version will come bundled with the game’s soundtrack. The game’s price wasn’t announced, but the Windows version costs $6.99.
Krome Studios also teased that the original Ty the Tasmanian Tiger (2002), Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue (2004) and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 3: Night of the Quinkan (2005) could release for PC on Steam in the future. The developer posted a screenshot on their Facebook page of all three games running on PC that said, “We’re getting the band back together…”
Steve Stamatiadis, co-founder of Krome Studios, its creative director and artist behind the Ty character, said the PC ports are possible but depends on the reception to Ty 4 considering the games still need a lot of work to be playable for a modern release. In response to fans’ comments on its Facebook page, the studio said that it would also like the three games to appear on other platforms besides Steam.
The Tasmanian Tiger franchise started in September 2002. Ty was a mascot-driven 3D platformer for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube in the vein of others from around that time period like Spyro the Dragon, Banjo-Kazooie and Ratchet & Clank. Ty’s main weapon throughout the series is a boomerang. Electronic Arts published the first two games, with Activision releasing the third.
The franchise sold a combined few million copies. There was even supposed to be a cartoon series based on the character that never happened. The last game in the series released in November 2012 on iOS called Ty the Tasmanian Tiger: Boomerang Blast. It featured first-person boomerang-throwing levels instead of platforming.
Krome Studios was founded in 1999 and is still independently owned. Once the largest developer in Australia with hundreds of employees, the company was rumored to be shut down after repeated layoffs, the closure of two of its three offices in the country and then the release of most of its staff in 2010 due to financial difficulties. Today it’s a much smaller developer that operates with limited resources.
Krome also developed The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, a 2006 reboot of Insomniac Games’ franchise from the original PlayStation, and its sequel The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night in October 2007. The company made the PS2, Wii and PlayStation Portable versions of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed in September 2008, which was one of the best-selling versions of a Star Wars game.
The studio’s recent console games continued a downward trend with poorly received license titles like a few Star Wars releases on the PS2 and Wii, Hellboy: The Science of Evil (2008), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010). The Game Room, an application featuring arcade and early retro titles for the Xbox 360 that Krome developed, was also received negatively. The studio’s last console release was Full House Poker, a downloadable Xbox Live Arcade game for the Xbox 360 in March 2011.
Its most recent original IP was Blade Kitten (2010) for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. Originally planned to be an episodic game before troubles hit the company, the second chapter only just released earlier this year.
Watch the trailer for Ty 4’s gameplay from its original 2013 release:
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