Namco's 1985 arcade sequel Dig Dug II arrives on Switch today as part of Hamster's Arcade Archives series.
The follow-up to the famous 1982 original, Dig Dug II replaces the side-on, digging gameplay with an overhead view, with hero Taizo Hori armed with both his traditional air pump and a new jackhammer weapon – the latter of which is behind the game's defining mechanic, the ability to dig at fault lines in the ground and cause sections of the landscape to sink into the water, taking out enemies (and the player, if they're not careful).
Despite offering something fresh and new rather than simply rehashing the original game, Dig Dug II was not as commercially successful as its forerunner – although it did get a port on the Famicom / NES in 1986 (1989 for North America). Dig Dug II was also ported to the PlayStation Portable in 2005 as part of Namco Museum Battle Collection. Two years later, it made it onto Namco Museum DS. An online version of Dig Dug II, known as Dig Dug Island, went live in 2008 but was shut down a year later.
The last mainline entry in the franchise is 2005's Dig Dug: Digging Strike on the DS.