German ratings board USK has published a rating for Ikaruga for PS4, indicating that an announcement of a port may be forthcoming.
Treasure’s cult-classic shoot’em up has seen multiple rereleases since its original arcade release in 2001. The game is currently playable on Dreamcast, GameCube, Xbox 360, and most recently PC as of 2014. Ikaruga is famous for its brutal difficulty and its polarity-swapping mechanic. Enemies fire white bullets or black bullets, and the player ship can switch between white and black. A white ship does extra damage to black enemy ships, is immune to white bullets, and is vulnerable to black bullets. The opposite applies to a black ship. Players must flip between the two polarities on the fly in order to navigate a treacherous sea of bullets, explosions, and enemy ships.
The game evidently still has life to it. A PS4 release would be Ikaruga’s first trip onto the current console generation, and would mark the first instance of the classic sh’mup being available to PlayStation owners.
