Aconcagua
Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment

If you're like us, you've probably never heard of Aconcagua, the 2000 PlayStation exclusive about a group of players surviving after crashing in the fictional country of Meruza, and there are two good reasons for that.

Not only was it released at the end of the original PlayStation's life cycle, but for the last 22 years, the game has only been available in Japanese, making it hard for western players to experience this unique point-and-click survival adventure.

Now all that's about to change, as a dedicated PlayStation translator and hacker, named Hilltop Works, has put in the work to create an English translation, and is set to release it on July 11th.

While the game wasn't exactly a critical darling at the time of the release – with Japanese publication Famitsu giving it a fairly average score of 29/40 – it will be fun to finally be able to check it out for ourselves.

Taking a look back at the early news coverage and promotional material for the game, it seems like it was originally planned – at the very least – for a North American launch before Sony thought better of it. It even had Spanish and American voice acting, despite being a Japan-exclusive. Now all these years later, fans will be able to see what they missed out on in the past and whether we've been denied another cult classic.

From what we can gather, Aconcagua puts players in control of the five survivors of a terrorist attack. Your aim is to descend the mountain you've crashed on. But to do this you will need to fight off the terrorists, salvage items from the wreckage, and steal weapons to defend yourself. How you proceed also influences how the story is told, with one of the survivors being a terrorist sympathizer who is ready to sabotage your every move.

It sounds like an interesting enough premise, so we're ready to give it a spin and see how the game matches up to our expectations. You can download it here once it launches.

[source twitter.com]