Yacht Club Games has announced Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope DX, an enhanced edition of the original Shovel Knight. The Shovel Knight series has been a fixture of indie gaming for a decade now, and this definitive version will be made with an aim at “preserving the game’s historical functionality, ensuring these elements remain available for future generations of players” says Yacht Club.
Shovel of Hope DX will include new features as well. It’ll have online multiplayer, as well as features from previous versions of the game like “Challenge Stages, Custom Knight, and the Battle Ghost Arena” as well as Stereoscopic 3D, for whoever really liked that. It’ll also include the choice to play as one of 20 different characters, turn on all kinds of cheats, and tweak the difficulties.
Shovel Knight got an 80% review back in 2014, and has honestly gotten a lot better since then.
“If nothing else, it proves that we weren’t crazy to obsess over primitive, two-button games,” said reviewer Emanuel Maiberg at the time. “It’s a testament to the importance of little details. The arc of the Knight’s jump, the speed of his downward attack, the subtle way that his big cute head bobs as he walks. If any of these things were even a single pixel off, Shovel Knight would feel like just another platformer preying on your nostalgia. But they’re not.”
There have been some seven games in the Shovel Knight series so far, not counting a few very large DLC, and that started with the original Shovel Knight in 2014. Here, a decade later, seems like a reasonable time to release a definitive edition.
You can find Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope DX on Steam. It’s listed as “coming soon.”
Nice spot, Eurogamer.