We last saw Sunsoft’s Blaster Master series on WiiWare, but, after acquiring the license, Inti Creates has announced that it will make a surprise return with Blaster Master Zero.
The announcement came at the developer’s 20th Anniversary Fan Festa event held in Ichikawa, Japan, where they revealed that everything will start again from “zero.”
“Using the original Blaster Master game as a base, we are setting out to create a fully 8-bit experience in a way that both hearkens back to the golden age of the NES and uses the current generation hardware to optimize and power up the game for the players of today,” Inti Creates explains.
“This of course includes new areas and bosses, and new gameplay elements such as extra sub-weapons, improved gameplay when battling outside of your SOPHIA 3rd tank, a more robust scenario, refined and expanded exploration mechanics, and more.”
After countless wars and untold environmental destruction, Blaster Master’s premise saw Earth once again plunged into an ice age leaving humanity with no choice but to relocate underground. When this came to an end, humanity returned to the surface with technology that would allow them to restore the planet’s lush green landscapes, although, in such time, a large mysterious comet fell on the planet.
Several hundred years pass and we pick up with Blaster Master’s protagonist Jason Frudnick – a robotic engineering genius. When he discovers an unknown creature, he names it ‘Fred’ and decides to observe its behaviour. But, when it escapes one day, he gives chase which leads him into the subterranean world where humanity once resided.
Here, he discovers a large vehicle with the name “SOPHIA 3rd” on the side. The cockpit opens to invite him in, with Jason choosing to pilot the vehicle to help save Fred.
Blaster Master Zero will release on the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo 3DS in Spring 2017.
