Parisian indie studio Lizardcube and publisher DotEmu are teaming up to deliver a remastered version of Sega’s influential platformer Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap for modern consoles and PCs.
Lizardcube notes that it has enlisted the help of members of The Dragon’s Trap‘s original development team to ensure that the upcoming remake meets fan expectations.
Released for the 8-bit Sega Master System in 1989, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap is a side-scrolling action-RPG with a main character who suffers from a transformative curse. Throughout the quest, players earn the ability to transform into different creatures, who each boast their own unique abilities.
The resulting gameplay blends action with exploration, as new areas become accessible after players obtain new traversal-oriented capabilities. The Dragon’s Trap‘s open-ended gameplay setup was innovative in its time, predating genre-defining classics like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
The remastered version of The Dragon’s Trap offers six playable forms, and features hand-drawn artwork that replaces the original game’s 8-bit backdrops. Lizardcube assures that the game’s original interconnected world will survive the jump to modern consoles and PCs fully intact.
Lizardcube founders Omar Cornut and Ben Fiquet previously worked together on the Nintendo DS puzzler Soul Bubbles, and the pair’s credits include projects like Tearaway, PixelJunk Shooter, and Les Chevaliers de la Chouette. Cornut is also a proponent of retrogame preservation, paying tribute to the Sega Master System’s legacy with his emulator Meka and history-oriented website SMS Power.
The upcoming remake will feature input from Westone co-founder Ryuichi Nishizawa, who previously directed and programmed a Sega Game Gear adaptation of The Dragon’s Trap. The game’s original Shinichi Sakamoto soundtrack will also return in Lizardcube’s remake with live instrumentation courtesy of musicians Michael Geyre and Romain Gauthier.
A release date for Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap is not yet known.
