Namco's 1987 brick-breaking arcade game Quester has been revealed as the next classic arcade game coming to modern consoles as part of Arcade Archives.
It will be released digitally tomorrow (January 29th) on Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, with two versions available to players.
The first is the Arcade Archives version for Switch and PS4, costing $7.99, which features online leaderboards, CRT filters, a HI SCORE MODE, and a CARAVAN MODE. The other, meanwhile, is an Arcade Archives 2 version for the remaining platforms (Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S), costing $9.99 that introduces a special TIME ATTACK MODE.
A $2.99 upgrade option is available to Nintendo Switch and PS4 players wanting to upgrade to the Switch and PS5 versions.
If you've ever played a Breakout clone before, you'll likely already be pretty familiar with the gameplay in Quester. Essentially, you control a panel on the bottom of the screen to bounce a ball, or multiple balls, into a set of blocks arranged in unique patterns on the screen. To give you a bit of background, it was believed to have been designed in response to the popularity of Taito's 1986 hit Arkanoid, and was created by a team that notably included Pac-Man designer Toru Iwatani and the Ridge Racer composer Shinji Hosoe.
There's no traditional background music featured in the game, but players can create musical tones by hitting the different coloured blocks on screen.
Here's the official description from the Arcade Archives' publisher Hamster:
"Emergency Order! Annihilate all enemies!
QUESTER is a brick breaker released by NAMCO LIMITED (current Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.) in 1987. Your goal is to safely return to Earth by piloting the spacecraft and defeating the mysterious space organisms（blocks） that obstruct your path.
The ball can split into multiple pieces if it continues to bounce off the walls. Use various power-up items to your advantage and aim to clear all 33 rounds!"
Following its original arcade release, a special edition of the game with fan-submitted levels was launched in 1987, as well as a version of the original for the Wii Virtual Console in Japan in 2009, which was released under the title Namco Quester.
You can watch the trailer below: