The Making Of Karateka Announced For Switch

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Original (7/11): Digital Eclipse announced today that it’s kicking off a new Gold Master Series, and the first entry will be The Making of Karateka. A release is confirmed on Switch for 2023.

Karateka is a 1984 martial arts action game. It was made by Jordan Mechner, the original creator behind Prince of Persia.

Here’s what’s been shared about the new Switch title thus far:

Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner was a college student when he created one of the biggest-selling games of 1984: Karateka. Now, in a new interactive documentary, Digital Eclipse tells the story of how a teenager with an Apple II created one of the most groundbreaking, influential games of all time.

‍Discover how Karateka was made through an exhaustive archive of design documents, playable prototypes, and all-new video features. Like walking through a museum, you can explore the interactive timelines at your own pace. The timelines reveal how Karateka became one of the first games to include cinematic scenes, a moving original soundtrack, rotoscoped animation, and a Hollywood-style love story, influencing the decades of games that followed.

At any time, play pixel-perfect versions of the original Karateka games and a variety of never-before-seen early prototypes, with rich quality-of-life features like save anywhere, rewind, chapter select, and director’s commentary. Then, enjoy two new games exclusive to The Making of Karateka. Karateka Remastered is an all-new version of the original game featuring cutting-room-floor content, commentary, achievements, and more. Deathbounce: Rebounded is a fast and frantic twin-stick shooter based on Jordan’s unpublished prototype.

The Making of Karateka is the first entry in Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master Series, which presents iconic games in an innovative “interactive documentary” format, putting the shared history of games and their creators into one comprehensive package.

Digital Eclipse editorial director Chris Kohler explained the Gold Master Series in a blog post today, writing: “Our mission [with the Gold Master Series] is to elevate these games, presenting them in their best possible light while putting them in their proper historical context, an approach we’ve dubbed the ‘interactive documentary.’ If you played last year’s Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, you got a taste of this approach. In the Gold Master Series, we’re going to take deep dives into many more fascinating stories from video game history.”

We have the first trailer for The Making of Karateka below.

Announcement trailer

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Update (7/12): This is now confirmed for physical release. Limited Run Games will share more details later.

Update (8/16): No exact date yet, but the Switch version is confirmed for this September. We’ll pass along the final launch timing when available.

Update (8/25): A release date has been confirmed for August 29, 2023 in North America. It will follow on September 5 in Europe.

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