WayForward Technologies, the developer of many games including the hit Shantae series, recently announced a remake/enhanced port of the innovative survival horror classic Clock Tower. Many consider the game, originally developed by Human Entertainment, to be the first true survival horror game ever developed, and now it will be available on modern consoles for genre enthusiasts thanks to WayForward.
Survival horror is a genre with a number of foundational titles that many tend to look back at with a fondness for what they did as opposed to any modern replayability. Games like the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill don't have quite the same effect in 2023 as they did in the '90s. Clock Tower is another game that joins the ranks of poorly aged but classic survival horror. Thankfully, it's coming back, and a lot of those rough edges will hopefully be buffed out.
The announcement of Clock Tower's comeback came via the developer WayForward just recently. The developer uploaded a video highlighting some of the challenges of approaching this port, as well as some of the new additions it will have and the reason the game is so necessary for survival horror genre fans. The game thankfully will be coming to all consoles, and it is currently scheduled for an early 2024 release.
This will be the first time the original Clock Tower has gotten an official release outside of Japan. Up until this point, players who became fans through the game's sequels, which did make it to the West, could only experience what started it all through SNES fan translations and emulators. Frankly, an official port, especially one with modern updates to get rid of some of the game's antiquated features, has been long overdue, and it's exciting to see it happening after more than 25 years since its initial release.
Human Entertainment was the development studio that did every Clock Tower game in the series except for the third, which was instead made by Capcom and Sunsoft. The company ultimately went bankrupt in 2000 and thus was unable to continue making games for the franchise. It's unknown at this time if any of the members of that original team will work with the team at WayForward to bring this game to modern audiences, but they are still around, with key developer Suda51 going on to work on hits like the No More Heroes series. Hopefully, the game will revitalize Clock Tower for a whole new generation.
Clock Tower is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch in early 2024.