A new Ecco the Dolphin game is in development, alongside remasters of the original two Mega Drive games.
The new game will have “contemporary play and GPU sensibilities” and has been revealed alongside a new countdown on the game’s website. It’s unclear if this is counting to a final release date or further news, but either way it’s currently 8510 hours away – that’s 354 days and 14 hours from now, which points to 25th April 2026.
News of a new entry was confirmed by series creator Ed Annunziata in an interview with Xbox Wire, as part of a celebration of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Annunziata and the entire original team are behind both the remasters and the new project.
Ecco the Dolphin was first released in 1992 for the Mega Drive and was followed by a sequel, The Tides of Time, in 1994.
Both games are 2D side-scrollers focused on the titular Ecco, who explores vibrant ocean environments with his sonar abilities. I still have my copy of the first game from when I was a kid: its shimmering oceans are gorgeous, but the puzzle gameplay gets very hard very quickly – not to mention its incredibly weird, alien story.
It’s unknown yet if the new game will be 2D or 3D, but the original games were followed by the 3D Defender of the Future on the Dreamcast, though Annunziata wasn’t involved with this one.
That game is not as well regarded and its proposed sequel was cancelled due to declining sales of the Dreamcast. Annunziata attempted to raise a Kickstarter for a spiritual successor back in 2013, but was unsuccessful.
Speaking to Xbox Wire, Annunziata discussed the role of the gaming community in raising awareness about global issues.
“I feel gamers possess a higher than average IQ than the average human,” he said. “Not only because they are frequently fully engaged and challenged mentally with real-time systems and information technology, but they are highly socially connected as well. Like the ocean, a gaming community is an ecosystem – games like Ecco can and should be a conduit to join these realms.
“I have high expectations of gamers for all the above-stated reasons. But there is something else gamers possess that can make the difference, and that is love. A universal love of games and gaming gives us all something we all share, when games like Ecco reach the hearts of gaming communities, that love can really make things happen in the real world.”
Back in January of this year, Sega filed a new trademark for Ecco the Dolphin, hinting a new project was on the way.