Publisher Warner Bros. Interactive has announced a reboot of 1985 multiplayer dungeon crawler Gauntlet by developer Arrowhead Game Studios, one year short of its 30 year anniversary. Releasing this summer via Steam, with support for SteamOS and the upcoming Steam Machines.
“Gauntlet is one of the original and best known video game properties and we are looking forward to creating a fresh, yet true to the original, take on a multiplayer masterpiece,” said Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt.
This reboot will feature the same original classes, warrior, wizard, valkyrie, and elf. Every class has its own strengths and weaknesses: Warrior is known for the most melee damage, Valkyrie is heavily armored, Elf is the fastest, and Wizard has the strongest magic. The dungeons will have as many as four players going through, where you fight monsters, unlocking places, and looting treasure like relics and new weapons. The enemies are a vast assortment of fantasy-based monsters, including ghosts, demons, spiders, sorcerers and skeleton warriors. The players will have to leap over gaps or blow up walls to get to some secret areas.
With this first digital-only release for this reboot, the game will have online capabilities and offer local multiplayer, plus the dungeons will be procedurally generated. It’s the first of a planned direct-to-digital portfolio of games called “WB Games Vault,” that aims to “deliver paid games based on popular Warner Bros. and Midway brands, plus original IP, across multiple networks”.
The original Gauntlet had two more Atari arcade releases, 1986’s Gauntlet II and 1998’sGauntlet Legends. The following year, Gauntlet Legends was released for N64, PS2 and Dreamcast. Gauntlet Dark Legacy was released in 2001 for PS2, and 2002 on Xbox and Gamecube. Check out the announcement trailer below for the upcoming PC reboot.