An anonymous video game fan and hero has shocked the gaming community by channeling their inner Indiana Jones to find one of the great lost treasures of the gaming world, the 1995 prototype Akira SEGA Genesis video game.
Thursday morning the news broke when an Akira Twitter fan account shared photos from the game and a link to a YouTube playthrough that was uploaded by Hidden Palace, the group that discovered the game. Hidden Palace is dedicated to preserving video game history such as rare source codes, hardware, and prototypes.
As the game was never completed, you’re unable to play it all the way through. The folks playing appeared to hop between different stages that pulled influence from a number of different game genres, such as a motorcycle racing stage that’s reminiscent of Road Rash, a first-person level that’s closely similar to Doom, and a hoverhike stage in the sewers akin to one of the famous Turtles in Time stages. Many of the levels are clearly incomplete and others are just plain broken.
You can watch the playthrough below.
The developer Black Pearl Studios, a subsidiary of the original THQ studio, obtained permission from Kodansha Comics to develop a game based off of the manga in 1993, but due to financial trouble at THQ the game was never completed. Akira was intended to be made available on Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, and Sega CD, beginning in 1995.
Unfortunately for fans the Akira franchise hasn’t had much luck in recent years, with the live-action film adaptation once again stalled. Director Taika Waititi is reportedly still attached to the project, but due to his commitments to Thor: Love and Thunder, the schedule conflicts have pushed back Akira for several years.
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