The Japanese video game retail store Beep is officially entering the vide game publishing industry, beginning with their debut initiative, "Super Arrange Project". The first thing on their list: Cotton Reboot, an effort to bring an old but widely-celebrated arcade game to modern audiences on modern platforms.
Cotton Reboot (tentatively named) is a side-scrolling shoot em' up adventure that'll more or less play much like the original Cotton game, which came out back in 1991. Cotton is also what began the sub-genre of shoot em up games called 'cute em ups', which are basically shoot em ups with incredibly cute animations, characters, enemies, and sounds. While not everyone may think that a 28-year old arcade game has a place in the modern games industry which is teeming with 144fps graphical marvels and ~100 GB installations, industry trends would beg to differ. Retro is making a comeback - old-school metroidvania games, rogue-likes, and more have been popping up left and right thanks to the dedication of independent game developers that keep gaming legacies alive.
In 2019, Cotton may look like a simple side-scrolling game, and maybe that's exactly what it is. But with AAA titles and all of their microtransactions, DRM-crazy game publishers, online-only play, and all of the other toxic trends that plague the industry as of late, it can't possibly hurt to take a step back and enjoy the classics. Beep endeavors to bring Cotton, a game that was enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, to a whole new generation.
Apart from Cotton Reboot, Beep will also be releasing physical copies of the original Cotton game. Specifically, Beep will be releasing the Sharp X68000 version of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, which is being used as the foundation material for the Cotton Reboot. The original Cotton will be available made to order only, and will come in floppy drives much like they did back in the 90's. However, this time around, you probably won't have to insert a coin to continue where you left off.
There's no official release date yet (I mean, the devs haven't even officially decided on the game's name), but we know that we can expect Cotton Reboot to drop for Nintendo Switch, PC (via Steam), and PlayStation 4.
