Many years ago, a little game called Spelunky graced the Xbox 360. It was actually a remake of a more visually-primitive 'roguelike' that was released on PC back in 2008. The upgraded version was an immediate hit, though, and later ported to the PlayStation 3, PS Vita (my personal favorite way to play) PC and PlayStation 4. A sequel was announced in 2017 and given a tentative “2019” release date the following year. It was then delayed due "to the density and detail of the game," developer Derek Yu explained in a tweet last August. Now, however, we have a new trailer and, more importantly, release date for the PlayStation 4 version: September 15th.
The game is coming to Steam, too. In a follow-up tweet, Yu said it would be released "shortly after" the PS4 version. "After Steam, we'll look into other platforms," he teased. "We are excited for as many people to play as possible." The original Spelunky challenged you to explore a multi-level cave and do as much as possible -- grab treasure, save damsels, buy upgrades and so forth -- before inevitably perishing. The levels were randomly generated, so each run posed a slightly different challenge. The game was brutally difficult but the diverse threats, hidden secrets and seemingly-infinite replayability appealed to diehard 'spelunkers.'
For the sequel, Yu is promising online multiplayer (the original only had couch co-op), a more diverse underground world, branching paths and new ways to traverse the map, such as mountable turkeys. "And there are lots of new things to play with that I hope players can use to push past the boundaries that we, the developers, know about the game," Yu teased in the new trailer. There will also be some kind of subterranean town where the characters you find and save can hang out. Spelunky's creator has hinted in the past that the world will have a mysterious "second layer," too, that can be accessed via hidden gates. We can’t wait to get stuck in.