After several days of speculation, we have official confirmation that the light-gun arcade shooter, House of the Dead, will receive the remake treatment. The Polish website, Graczpospolita first spotted this news; the site reported that House of the Dead and House of the Dead 2 would receive remakes.
As you would expect, the two forthcoming remakes will be remade to adapt to modern gaming standards with the gameplay seeing some slight adjustments. However, both titles are confirmed to stay true to the original source materials. Both will be developed by Forever Entertainment, the same development team currently working on remakes for the original Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei.
As far as what gaming system(s) both House of the Dead remakes will receive, several sites mentioned they would both be “Switch exclusives.” While other websites reporting the remakes will be coming out “in the coming months” with reports claiming they could launch as early as next year.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the timing, neither of those reports were confirmed. While Forever Entertainment tweeted out today to confirm that they signed an agreement to remake both games, there was no official confirmation as to when both remakes will be out or which systems will receive the games.
Hi Guys! We confirm the signing of the agreement regarding remakes of the games “The House of the Dead” and “The House of the Dead 2”. No platforms or release dates have been confirmed, and unfortunately we can’t say anything more for now. Please keep fingers crossed for us and..
— Forever Entertainment (@ForeverEntert) October 3, 2019
The House of the Dead series made its debut in the mid-90s, with the first installment in the zombie franchise appearing in American arcades in 1997. The first House of the Dead game was then ported onto PC and the Sega Saturn one year later with no further ports released after Sega lost the original source code.
House of the Dead 2 was released in arcades in late 1998 with a Sega Dreamcast port coming less than a year later, and would become one of the most ported entries in the series. Additional versions of the second game included a PC version as an unlockable bonus for beating House of the Dead 3 on your first playthrough, and most recently for the Nintendo Wii via House the Dead 2 & 3 Return, a game compilation featuring the titular titles.
The last new entry released on consoles was House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut in 2011 while House of the Dead 3 and House of the Dead 4 saw a digital version re-released on the PlayStation 3 back in 2012. The most recent entry in the series, House of the Dead: Scarlett Dawn, was released in Arcades in October of last year.
