Rebellion’s latest game has gone a little under-the-radar. Speedball, a reboot of the iconic 1988 Bitmap Brothers action-sports game, has hit Steam in early access to a fairly small group of players. While the game hasn’t set the world on fire, the sports game has seen positive reviews from fans, a rare sight for any return to a long-deceased series.
Speaking to FRVR, the team at Rebellion working on the game explained that following up on The Bitmap Brothers’ beloved Amiga game was a daunting task. After Rebellion acquired the Bitmap Brothers’ catalogue in 2019, the team worked on a number of pitches to give retro fans a new lease of life, and Speedball won out, but while the team is excited about their work, it’s always scary to face fans.
“There were a lot of people excited about the idea of Speedball across the company, to be honest, so it seemed to be a bit of a clear front runner,” art director Samuel Beattie said. Rebellion’s Speedball is slightly more complex than the originals—it’s in a full 3D environment, after all—but it’s also wisely launched into early access, allowing fans to help dictate where the team should stay on the rails and where they can divert from the originals.
“Of course it is [daunting],” Beattie said when asked. “You know, your nostalgia is a hard thing to match, decades of nostalgia. It is a real challenge. I think, sometimes, you have to stick with your gut as well and not always be diverted… so many voices can pull in so many direction…
“[That’s] partly why early access did make sense for us as well is to kind of get some of that fan base to play it, experience it and give us that feedback, and we knew it wasn’t going to tick every single box for every person. That’s an impossible challenge.”
When it comes to retro gaming, there are a lot of memories instilled that simply cannot be replicated any more. You’re not playing new Speedball on the same clunky PC with the hum and static of a CRT emanating through the room. For a game that’s more than 40 years old, a lot of feelings tied to the game simply cannot be replicated; some of them may not have even be real, but it’s the role of developers to try and make you feel them again.
“I do want to quickly add that, while daunting, it is a massive honour, and it’s been so fun,” Beattie continued. “It has been incredible, it’s been a great journey, and it’s been awesome. It’s been daunting for sure—it always it putting yourself out there. As soon as you put yourself out there, you’re open to comments, right? Which, good or bad, it’s always going to be a daunting task, but you start to realise the magnitude of what you’re doing.”
The team explained that there’s a “weight” to recreating something like Speedball. It’s different from remaking games that are barely ten years old. There’s a “real history there”, something that can’t be messed up, and the current player base of the new Speedball game do seem very happy with what’s released so far.
