Ape Escape is coming back. The classic PlayStation franchise is reportedly in development at Evening Star, the studio behind Sonic Mania and Penny's Big Breakaway, with the project said to have been quietly underway for some time. For fans of action adventure games who grew up chasing chimps with a stun club on PS1, this is the kind of news worth paying attention to.
Veteran games journalist Jeff Gerstmann went public with the claim on his podcast, stating that an external studio, not Team Asobi (the Astro Bot team), has been working on the revival. Gerstmann noted he had been asking questions about an Ape Escape game as far back as February at DICE, suggesting the project has been in motion for well over half a year at minimum.
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Why Evening Star makes a lot of sense here
Here's the thing: Evening Star is not a random pick. The studio formed from the core team that made Sonic Mania, widely regarded as the best Sonic game in decades, precisely because it nailed the feel of a classic franchise without just being a nostalgia cash-in. That same instinct is exactly what a dormant property like Ape Escape needs.
Penny's Big Breakaway, Evening Star's follow-up, showed the studio could build original movement-based platformers from scratch. Ape Escape's entire identity is built on inventive gadget mechanics and movement-forward gameplay. The fit is not accidental.
Gerstmann was careful to temper expectations on timing. His read is that when he first heard about the project, it had just been greenlit and was barely getting underway. That tracks with a game that has not been officially announced and has no known release window.
Sony's broader plan to unlock its back catalog
Ape Escape is not a one-off experiment. Sony has been quietly building a strategy around licensing dormant franchises to third-party studios rather than tasking its first-party teams with every revival. The Everybody's Golf series already went through this process, with Bandai Namco handling Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots in 2025.
Killzone is also reportedly in the mix, with a remake or remaster said to be in early development. The pattern is clear: Sony has a library full of beloved franchises that its internal studios cannot realistically prioritize, and licensing them out keeps those properties alive without pulling resources from flagship projects.
Ape Escape last saw a mainline release in 2005 with Ape Escape 3, making this a gap of over two decades for the franchise. The original 1999 game was historically significant as the first PlayStation title designed specifically to require the DualShock's analog sticks, which gives any revival an interesting design question to answer in the DualSense era.
What this means for the franchise going forward
The key here is that Evening Star being attached to this project, if accurate, signals Sony wants a genuine revival rather than a quick nostalgia release. A studio with Sonic Mania on its resume brings credibility and a track record of treating classic franchises with care.
No release window, no official announcement, and no platform confirmation beyond the PlayStation connection have surfaced. Given Gerstmann's timeline, a reveal before the end of next year feels optimistic. But the fact that multiple sources are now corroborating the same studio name suggests this is further along than a rumor.
Keep an eye on Sony's upcoming showcase calendar. If Evening Star is indeed building a new Ape Escape, it is the kind of announcement PlayStation fans have been waiting years to hear. Check out our gaming guides hub for coverage of everything PlayStation-adjacent as more details emerge.
