Sony’s long-dormant Ape Escape series is reportedly being revived by Evening Star, the independent studio behind Penny’s Big Breakaway and founded by developers with ties to Sonic Mania. Veteran journalist Jeff Gerstmann said he had heard that an external studio was working on the project, while VGC separately reported that its own sources also point to Evening Star. Sony and Evening Star have not announced the game, so the project remains unconfirmed.
Gerstmann discussed the rumor on The Jeff Gerstmann Show after earlier speculation began circulating around Evening Star. He said his understanding was that Team Asobi, the PlayStation studio behind Astro Bot, was not developing the new Ape Escape and that the project had instead gone to an outside team. Gerstmann also indicated that when he first heard about it, the game had only recently been greenlit and was still at a very early stage, suggesting a release is unlikely to be imminent.
VGC subsequently said it had heard from its own sources that Evening Star is indeed developing the Ape Escape revival, giving the rumor significantly more weight than the earlier social-media speculation alone. The report also fits with broader claims that Sony has been accepting pitches for dormant PlayStation franchises from outside developers. Ape Escape has been one of the properties repeatedly mentioned in those reports alongside other older PlayStation series.
Evening Star would be a notable choice for the project because of the studio’s platform-game background. The company was founded in 2018, and its technology traces back to the Retro Engine used in Sonic Mania before the team moved into fully 3D development with Penny’s Big Breakaway. Evening Star describes Penny’s Big Breakaway as a kinetic 3D platformer built around momentum-heavy movement and yo-yo mechanics, experience that would translate naturally to a new take on Ape Escape’s gadget-driven platforming.
The studio has also continued developing its proprietary Retro Engine technology since Penny’s Big Breakaway. Evening Star said in 2025 that it was combining the engine’s separate 2D and 3D capabilities into Retro Engine Version 7, following earlier use of the technology across Sonic Mania, Sonic Origins and Penny’s Big Breakaway. None of that confirms the Ape Escape rumor, but it does establish that the studio has both the technical infrastructure and recent 3D-platforming experience needed for such a project.
Ape Escape has been largely absent from PlayStation’s lineup for years. The original game debuted on the first PlayStation in 1999 and became closely associated with its use of the DualShock controller, while later entries expanded the formula across PlayStation 2, PSP and PlayStation 3-era hardware. Sony has continued making older entries available on modern consoles, including enhanced PS4 and PS5 releases of the original Ape Escape and Ape Escape: On the Loose, but those are conversions of existing games rather than new installments.
The last new console entry released in North America was PlayStation Move Ape Escape in 2011, making the prospect of a full revival especially notable after more than a decade without a new game. The series’ basic premise combines traditional 3D platforming with a collection of specialized gadgets used to track and capture escaped monkeys, giving it a distinctive identity among Sony’s older platforming properties. A modern project could therefore represent more than a simple remaster if the current reports are accurate.
Sony has not confirmed that Ape Escape is returning, and there are still major unanswered questions surrounding the reported game, including its scope, platforms, release window and whether it is intended as a remake, reboot or entirely new entry. Gerstmann’s comments suggest development was still relatively early when he first heard about the project, while VGC’s corroboration strengthens the Evening Star connection without turning it into an official announcement. For now, the strongest available reporting points to a genuine Ape Escape project being developed externally, with Evening Star emerging as the studio most consistently linked to it.
