The production of the most recent game in the Earthworm Jim line has officially been canceled. According to Timeextention, the fourth installment in the Earthworm Jim franchise has had a tough time getting off the ground, especially when the console it would have appeared on, the Amico, has been in production limbo for about three years. However these production issues are nothing new, as the Earthworm Jim as a franchise has always had a rocky history.
Created in 1994 by Doug TenNapel under the developer Shiny Entertainment, the original Earthworm Jim was released on Sega Genesis, SNES, Game Gear, Sega CD, and on the PC with CD-ROM. The original Earthworm Jim came out to critical praise, scoring a 100% in a review on GamesMaster magazine, and similar scores from various other reviewers at the time according to the Earthworm Jim Wiki. Following the success of Earthworm Jim, Shiny Entertainment went on to make a sequel game that, while not performing as well, still lived up to the name Earthworm Jim, scoring an average of 7/10 on both IGN and Nintendolife.
This is where things become slightly complicated. Shiny Entertainment was sold to Interplay Studios in 1995, under which they were still able to make their sequel Earthworm Jim 2, released in 1996. According to Destructoid, by this point however, Shiny Entertainment was done with making sequels to the Earthworm Jim franchise, which caused Interplay Studios to pass off the rights for game development to Vis Interactive. After three years of troubled development, Earthworm 3D released to mixed, though positively leaning, reviews in 1999 on the N64.
By this point, Shiny Entertainment was tossed to multiple different companies over the course of around five years. According to the Audiovisual Identity Database, in 2002, Shiny Entertainment by Interplay Studios to Infogrames Entertainment, however by 2006, Infogrames (now called Atari SA) was already selling Shiny Entertainment to Foundation 9 Entertainment, which merged with the company The Collective to make Double Helix Games.
Amid switching between companies, the property of Earthworm Jim was in limbo for about twenty years, until in 2019, TheGamer reports that the original creator of Earthworm Jim, TenNapel, wanted to make new sequel to the game that would come out on the newly announced Amico gaming console that would be released by Intellivision. Unfortunately, the Amico never got off the ground, remaining in limbo to this day, which Amico reports, could be a major reason why Earthworm Jim was recently discontinued, as reported by Aroged.
However, if people are missing Earthworm Jim and are disappointed by the lack of a game coming up, there are graphic novels that came out as recently as 2019, and a new tv series apparently on the way. With the crowd-sourcing for the graphic novel raising almost 1 million dollars, it seems that the love for this series is still strong, and with more content being released, it seems that although the games are in limbo, the franchise still maintains its staying power.