Xbox Cult Classic Voodoo Vince is Getting Remastered

There was an era in videogame history when your console needed a mascot to represent it. This character was typically from a colorful platformer that appealed to the young demographic that videogames were marketed to. Nintendo had Mario, Sega had Sonic and PlayStation had Crash Bandicoot, though he would later get replaced by Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, and Ratchet and Clank. Microsoft released the Xbox when this trend was winding down but that didn’t stop them from taking a few shots at establishing their own lovable console mascot (ironically, it was Microsoft themselves who sounded the biggest signal of this sea change with Halo).

Voodoo Vince was one of those less-than-successful attempts (pour one out for Blinx), but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its fans. Over the years Vince the voodoo doll has developed a bit of a cult following, and apparently that fandom has instilled enough faith in Microsoft to give Vince another shot.

Clayton Kauzlaric, creator of Voodoo Vince and creative director at Microsoft Studios, announced today in a blog post on the official Xbox site that Voodoo Vince will be remastered. Apparently, the original game’s code made it impossible to make it backwards-compatible, so until now, Vince was stuck on the original Xbox.

Voodoo Vince Remastered will run at 60 frames per second in 1080p widescreen. The core gameplay, controls and animations are unchanged, but the textures and rendering effects have been improved with a new engine. The remastered edition will also introduce controller vibration to the game, because apparently the development team “never finished hooking up rumble in the original game.”

Kauzlaric said in the post:

It’s great to finally resurrect Vince. Watching him and his world come back to life over the last few months has been a fantastic experience. It feels like coming home. I hope his long-time fans are as glad as I am to see him again. I also hope Vince will make a few new friends now that he’s coming back to the world of the living.

Voodoo Vince Remastered is coming to Xbox One and Windows in early 2017. You can vote for it to be added to Steam here, read Kauzlaric’s full blog post here and watch the remaster’s announcement trailer below.