Zool 64
Image: Umbra Dynamics

Yesterday marked the debut of the first-ever Pixel Arcadia showcase, bringing with it a ton of exciting retro announcements.

There was the return of Quintet's SNES RPG Terranigma, the reveal of Commodore's Alien Breed 35th Anniversary Collection, and the unveiling of a new entry in Jaleco's Ninja JajaMaru series, as well as the announcement of Sanitarium Enhanced (a rerelease of the '90s psychological horror point-and-click). That's in addition to an updated release window for Bitmap Bureau's He-Man game, among other trailers for Ninja Baseball League-Man × Bases Loaded & Carrier Command 2.

What you might not have realised, however, is that the showcase also included another "hidden" announcement — one we initially missed ourselves, but later learned about thanks to an anonymous tip.

If you head to 1:39:38 on the VOD of the livestream and time it correctly, you'll see a blink-and-you'll-miss-it image of a Philips TV featuring a title card for a mysterious new game based on Gremlin Graphics' '90s platforming mascot Zool, called Zool 64.

This appeared for only a brief second during a round-up of all the games featured in the show, and notably included the name of the developer Umbra Dynamics in the corner, an "IP Revival" publisher that recently collaborated with 33 Games to produce a collector's box based on the Sega Mega Drive port of the game.

As pointed out to us, visiting Umbra Dynamics' website currently reveals a page teasing a bunch of upcoming projects, with one of these (labelled "Project 64") being described as a project which will bring "a classic IP to hardware it never reached — a first-of-its-kind port for a legend that belongs on this platform." With that in mind, it seems like Zool could be making its way to the N64 in the future.