It's safe to say Blaze Entertainment has had an eventful year. It started 2022 with the delayed release of its Evercade VS in North America, then spent the majority of the year adding new cartridges like the Renovation, C64, and Irem collections to its ever-expanding library of games. As if all this activity wasn't enough, in June 2022, it then revealed another new system, the handheld Evercade EXP, which was later released in December (amidst news that a shipment worth half a million pounds had been stolen).
Now in a statement, the managing director of Blaze Entertainment Andrew Byatt has opened up about the year gone by, while issuing a tease of what's to come. In this statement, he starts by thanking customers who continue to support Blaze and Evercade and outlining some of the products the company has launched over the last year.
He then provides an update on the recent robbery:
"The biggest shock of my year was taking a call from our logistics manager in early December to find out that thousands of Limited Edition consoles had been stolen whilst in transit. This was truly disheartening for the entire team who had worked so hard to get products into the hands of customers. When we realised what had happened, we quickly gathered together with Funstock and devised a strategy to address the problem. At this time the Police have not located the stock and when we see any suspicious online listings we are reporting them. We will update you if anything changes in their investigation and customers will have already received the latest update from Evercade on their orders."
Look ahead to 2023, Byatt then ends the statement on a slightly rosier note, giving Evercade owners some hints on what's to come:
"Onto 2023, I have signed 11 new cartridges as of today with several more deals being negotiated as I write. We aim to bring you more variety, more big names, more hidden gems and games from other systems we have not yet seen on Evercade. We have some exciting things coming your way."
At the moment, it's unknown what these 11 new cartridges will be, but it's expected that we'll see some old Commodore Amiga games being published in the future, thanks to a partnership made last October. More news on future cartridges is expected in 2023. You can read Byatt's full statement on the Evercade website.