Update [Thu 14th Dec, 2023 20:45 GMT]: More trademarks have been spotted:
Original Story [Thu 14th Dec, 2023 09:15 GMT]: Sega appears to be in something of a revival arc at the moment, having announced that it has new entries in the Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi and Virtua Fighter franchises in development.
It would appear that this is just the beginning, as the company has filed fresh trademarks for other classic series, as spotted by Gematsu.
Four trademarks were filed on December 6th in Japan, including Altered Beast, Eternal Champions and Kid Chameleon – as well as Jet Set Radio.
Altered Beast was a 1988 side-scrolling action title which was famously ported to the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive in the same year, eventually becoming a pack-in title when the console hit Western markets. Despite its fame, it remained a one-off until 2002, when THQ published 3d6 Games' Altered Beast: Guardian of the Realms on the Game Boy Advance – a disappointingly bad attempt to revive the franchise. Even more crushing was Sega's 2005 Altered Beast reboot on the PS2, which was so bad that the company decided against a North American release.
1993's Eternal Champions was one of Sega's attempts to capitalise on the success of Street Fighter II and was released to rave reviews. Developed by a North American team, the game pushed the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive to its limits but never kickstarted the franchise Sega perhaps expected it to. Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side was simply an enhanced version released on the Sega CD, while the two spin-offs, Chicago Syndicate and X-Perts, were critical and commercial flops.
Viewed by some as a blatant attempt to copy Super Mario, 1992's Kid Chameleon had the legendary Mark Cerny on its development team; an industry veteran, Cerny is most famous today as the system architect of the PS4 and PS5. The gameplay includes the ability to swap out various hats and helmets to change into different characters, each with their own unique skills.
While the filing of a trademark doesn't necessarily mean that a new game is in development, we'd love to see all of these franchises get a resurrection. What about you? Let us know with a comment below.