Ape Escape revival may be in the works at Evening Star: IGN and VGC report rumor
IGN and VGC report that Sony may have Evening Star making a new Ape Escape game. Sony has not officially confirmed the project.
- Evening Star, the studio behind Sonic Mania and Penny’s Big Breakaway, is named in the report as the developer.
- Sony has not officially confirmed the project; platform, release date, and exact game format are still unknown.
What happened
IGN wrote that Sony may be working on a new Ape Escape game, based on comments from Jeff Gerstmann and information that VGC says was confirmed by its own sources. The report names Evening Star as the studio that would be working on the project. Sony Interactive Entertainment has not said anything about it yet.
According to the reporting, this would be an externally developed project, but the exact form remains unclear. The sources do not mention a platform, a release date, or any concrete gameplay details. Gerstmann also reportedly said the game is not close to release yet.
Evening Star fits the profile of a studio with experience on retro and platform projects. The developer previously worked on Sonic Mania and later released Penny’s Big Breakaway. That makes the studio a plausible name in the rumor, but without official confirmation the link to Ape Escape remains unconfirmed for now.
Timeline
2005: Ape Escape 3 launches on PS2 and is mentioned in the reporting as the last mainline game in the series.
2010: PlayStation Move Ape Escape releases on PS3 and is cited as the latest Ape Escape release in the broader series.
Recent: Jeff Gerstmann says he has heard that a new Ape Escape game is in development at an external studio.
Recent: IGN reports that Evening Star is the studio in question and points to VGC sources.
Recent: VGC publishes its own report supporting the claim of an Ape Escape revival by the Sonic Mania developers.
Background
Ape Escape is a PlayStation franchise that has gone years without a new main release. The series began on the original PlayStation and later received entries such as Ape Escape 3 on PS2. In the reporting, that game is described as the last mainline entry, while PlayStation Move Ape Escape from 2010 is cited as the most recent release in the broader series.
Evening Star is an independent studio founded in 2018 and based in Los Angeles, with operations in London and Melbourne. The studio is known as the team behind Penny’s Big Breakaway and as a group with roots in Sonic Mania. That background makes the name relevant in rumors around a possible Ape Escape revival, but the studio itself has not announced anything.
The rumors fit into a broader wave of reporting about classic PlayStation franchises potentially returning through external developers. In that context, other series such as Killzone and Sly Cooper have also been mentioned, but Sony has not shared any official list or strategy for them either.