If you’ve felt like there haven’t been enough games about capturing evil monkeys lately, then we may have some very good news for you.
Ape Escape was one of the more unique and beloved game series from the glory days of the Playstation and Playstation 2. These were games in which your character was tasked with capturing escaped monkeys who were planning on doing things like rewriting history using a time machine, or conquering the world using a laser beam that made people lazy. You know, typical stuff.
However, despite the series being critically acclaimed, there hasn’t been a new Ape Escape game since 2005’s Ape Escape 3. There have been spin-offs, and some incredibly random guest appearances in other games (like Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for example), but other than that it’s seemed like Sony hasn’t been interested in any monkey business for quite some time.
However, if this kind of creepy tweet is anything to go by, the long-dormant series may finally be making its return. Now, we don’t speak Japanese, but when roughly translated it reads, “Twenty years from that. I’ve been running around for a long time, but I wonder if there are any guys out there to chase …?”
The tweet comes from a user called piposaru20th, and “piposaru” roughly translates in English to Pipo Monkey, aka the antagonistic monkeys of Ape Escape. The Twitter page also displays artwork that seems to indicate something is happening for Ape Escape’s 20th anniversary, and to give it all just a little bit of legitimacy, the account is followed by the official Twitter account of Sony Japan.
There are a couple of things that this tweet could be hinting at. The first and most likely possibility is that an Ape Escape remake or remaster is on the way. In fact, considering how well received the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro The Dragon trilogies were, it’s very possible that we may get all 3 Ape Escape games packaged together in a similar bundle.
That’s probably what the tweet is alluding to, but it could also mean that an entirely new Ape Escape game is being developed. There have been rumors in the past that Ape Escape 4 was either being worked on, or was being planned for the future, and this could be a tease that a new game is coming. Considering that Sony is remaking MediEvil of all games from their back catalog, a new Ape Escape is definitely not out of the question.
Beyond this Twitter account we don’t have any verified proof that the Ape Escape series is coming out of retirement. However, whether we simply get remakes of the original games, an entirely new adventure, or maybe even both, it’ll certainly be nice to have these wacky monkeys back in action after all these years.
