Mysterious PS4/PS Vita JRPG Teased by Sony Could Be a Return of Metal Max/Saga to PlayStation

Giuseppe Nelva October 22, 2017 2:41 PM EST

Sony teased a brand new game for PS4 and PS Vita of unknown title and origin, but its nature might not be all that mysterious, after all.

A few days ago, Sony Interactive Entertainment teased on its YouTube channel the coming of a “True: End of the Century RPG” for PS4 and PS Vita.

To add to the mystery, there was no indication of a publisher or developer, leaving gamers to wonder where the game comes from. Is it a first party endeavor or a third party title? No indication is shown anywhere in the trailer and its description, and nothing else surfaced since.

That being said, the trailer felt familiar. The post-apocalyptic setting is fairly common, but this game pairs it with what appears to be an open world, a wide variety of vehicles… and a red tank.

There is an old and glorious franchise that has all of those elements, including the iconic red tank, and that’s the Metal Max/Metal Saga franchise created in 1991 by Crea-Tech and Data East.

The series started was well known for its open-ended and non-linear gameplay, with quirks like the ability to complete the game nearly immediately after beginning in Metal Saga: Chain of Sandstorm.

The debut of the series happened on Nintendo consoles, with Metal Max and Metal Max 2 on Famicom (the Japanese NES). while Metal Max Rreturns was a remake of the first on Super Famicom in 1995.

After that, Data-East went bankrupt, and the rights for the series passed to Success, that debuted it on PlayStation 2 with Metal Saga: Chain of Sandstorm in 2005. In 2006 the series moved back to Nintendo consoles, with Metal Saga: Season of Steel for Nintendo DS. Since then, the series has bounced between Nintendo portables with DS and 3DS, mobile games, and even a browser game.

The last games of the series, Metal Max: Fireworks and Metal Saga: The Ark of Wastes, were both for iOS and Android, and both released in 2015.

The most interesting element of the franchise is certainly its vehicle system, which allowed players to find and heavily customize several kinds of cars, tanks and more exotic means of transportation and vehicular combat, which appears to be something heavily featured in the newly-teased game as well.

The most striking similarity with Metal Max/Saga is the presence of the red main battle tank named “R-Wolf,” which is basically one of the most iconic and recurring vehicles of the series. You can see it in several different incarnations in the gallery below, and the design appears to be mostly the same (the armaments are different due to the customization element of the game).

Of course, there is no way to be 100% sure, but unless someone really wants to pay homage to the Metal Max/Saga series, to the point of reproducing its main elements and placing one of its most iconic vehicles front and center in a teaser trailer, we’re most likely looking at a return of the franchise to consoles, and more precisely to the PlayStation camp.

We’ll have to wait until Thursday, October 26th to know (unless the game gets leaked earlier by Famitsu as usual), but in the meanwhile, you can enjoy the trailer once more below.