Owlboy Gets Release Date After Nine Years Development

Owlboy, the beautiful 2D 16-bit platformer that has been in development for the past nine years, now has an official release date. The game, developed by D-Pad Studio, is heavily inspired by the Raccoon suit from Super Mario Bros. 3, which allows the titular character to fly and glide. The eponymous Owlboy – an adolescent anthropomorphised bird with a feathered brow and great wings – takes that concept and runs with it.

Owlboy is a ‘high-bit’ adventure game, where you can fly and explore a brand new world in the clouds! Pick up your friends, and bring them with you as you explore the open skies. Overcome obstacles and greater enemies, in one of the most detailed adventures of this era.

• A love letter to pixel art for a new audience, Owlboy is an open-world exploration game with a unique mix of flight and platforming.
• Carry anything. Recruit Otus’s friends as gunners to fight for you, each with unique abilities and stories.
• Large dungeons with big and challenging boss battles.

While Owlboy is pitched as a love letter to titles from the early-Nineties, the developers don’t intend the game to rely on sheer nostalgia as its selling point.

“I love retro 2D games,” developer Blake Edwards told Destructoid back in 2008. “Adventure games and platformers during the 16-bit era still hold a special place in my heart. With Owlboy, we’re lucky enough to get to model our game after some of the great games of that time period, but also add a lot of new tricks and elements from modern games too.”

“I know that not only have graphics improved over the last 20 or so years, but so have gameplay elements,” Edwards added. “One game I really enjoyed recently was Mega Man 9, and though Owlboy has the retro graphics in common, we’re still experimenting with all kinds of new gameplay and not limiting ourselves to just the nostalgic gamers (like myself).”

Owlboy is set for release on PC on 1^st November, and will be available from Steam, GOG (for pre-order now, with 10% off), and the Humble Store.