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No game deserves to be lost to time, not even an obscure retro shooter that only ever came out in Japan. Ziggurat and Limited Run Games are bringing back Rainbow Arts’ Rendering Ranger: R², and Digital Trends can exclusively confirm its [Rewind] re-release will launch during the first quarter of 2025.
Rendering Ranger: R² is a 2D platformer released by German developer Rainbow Arts in November 1995. It was a technical marvel for the Super Famicom, but because it came out so late during that console generation, it only got a very limited release in Japan. For most, its legacy is just that of being one of the rarest Super Famicom games, but it meant a lot more to others. Zigguraut and Limited Run Games, two of the companies partaking in the current wave of retro re-releases and revivals, are partnering to bring this game back as Rendering Ranger: R² [Rewind].
It’s an emulated re-release with extra content in the same vein as Tomba: Special Edition or Rocket Knight Adventures: Re-Sparked. Speaking to Digital Trends, Ziggurat Vice President Kate Woods and Limited Run Games Lead Producer Audi Sorlie stressed the importance of re-releases like this: Games like Rendering Ranger: R² [Rewind] have the potential to remind the industry how it needs to change so games aren’t lost to time.
What is Rendering Ranger R²?
Rainbow Arts was a German developer that made a name for itself in Europe during the heyday of PC platforms like the Commodore 64 and Amiga. One of its highest-profile designers was Manfred Trenz, the designer behind the shooter Turrican. In the mid-1990s, Trenz created Rendering Ranger: R² for the Super Nintendo. It was a side-scrolling sci-fi shooter like Turrican but featured shoot-’em-up sections that played more like Gradius.
“This is a technical marvel, but it was released too late and in a too-limited fashion.”
Rendering Ranger: R² was a technical feat for the Super Nintendo as it sported gorgeous pre-rendered visuals without sacrificing the smooth frame rate necessary for a shooter like this. Unfortunately, publishers didn’t have much interest in a 2D Super Nintendo game in late 1995, when the PlayStation and its fully 3D games were already on the market and Nintendo 64 was on the horizon. Virgin Interactive Entertainment did publish it, but only for a limited release for the Super Famicom in Japan.
Rendering Ranger: R²’s impact seemed minimal at the time, but it stuck in the minds of people like Sorlie, who recalled his love for Rainbow Arts as a kid and seeing it briefly mentioned in a Super Play magazine. He was never able to get his hands on the game because of its Japanese-only release, but after meeting many former Rainbow Arts developers at Factor 5 in the mid-2000s, a clear sentiment about the game revealed itself.
“The general feeling from everyone was that this is a technical marvel, but it was released too late in a too-limited fashion. If it was a year earlier, maybe history would have been different,” Sorlie tells Digital Trends. “But because it came at the cusp of 3D — a whole new dimension in the world opening up to us in video gaming — it was hard to look at something that was still linear and 2D and say that it is more technically impressive than Super Mario 64. But when you actually look under the hood, the merits of what it’s technically doing is almost at the same place, just because of how optimized it is.”
It’s easy for the video game industry to equate popularity and attention with quality. However, companies like Ziggurat and Limited Run Games see the worth of forgotten games like Rendering Ranger: R². Ziggurat’s Woods wasn’t aware of Rendering Ranger: R² until Ziggurat started acquiring the rights to over 80 Rainbow Arts titles. As the company did so in 2021 and 2022, Woods knew Ziggurat had to bring Rendering Ranger: R² back.
“There are so many different elements that created this almost impossible scenario for success,” Woods tells Digital Trends. “But the game itself, once you get your hands on it and can play it and see it in action, is worthy of visibility and celebration.”
What makes it a [Rewind] release?
Limited Run Games and Ziggurat already worked together to reprint Rendering Ranger: R² on SNES carts in 2022. Now, Ziggurat is using it as the spearhead for the company’s [Rewind] initiative, which Woods says is “a way that we can, through emulation or different activations, get in contact with original developers of a game and see if they would like to revisit it and tell a story.” That’s in line with the current trend for modern re-releases, which now typically contain asset museums and developer insights to fill out the context around a game.
At the base of Rendering Ranger: R² [Rewind] is an emulated version of the original. Sorlie stressed that this is more than a simple ROM dump, as “extensive testing” had to be done to ensure that this game runs as smoothly now as it did on the Super Famicom. This emulated version will have the bells and whistles expected on a retro re-release, as players can create save states or (aptly) rewind it anytime during gameplay.
Rendering Ranger: R² [Rewind] features a music player and asset museum. Although not much marketing material for Rendering Ranger: R² exists due to its limited release, Sorlie fleshed out the museum with written retrospectives on the original release and Manfred Trenz’s career, plus newly extracted art assets from the game itself. While Trenz declined to be involved with the re-release, former Rainbow Arts composer Chris Huelsbeck orchestrated a new remix theme featured in the main menu.
Targa, an earlier version of the game featuring pixel-based sprites rather than pre-rendered ones, will also be included. The treatment Rendering Ranger: R² is comprehensive, offering more than the re-releases of classic Mario or Sonic games even have. Rendering Ranger: R² might be obscure, but Ziggurat and Limited Run Games want no part of this game to be left behind in the ’90s.
An ode to forgotten games
Throughout our conversation, Woods and Sorlie constantly stress the importance of game preservation. The pair is particularly passionate about preserving the more lost and obscure titles. While Rendering Ranger: R² never grasped the mainstream gaming zeitgeist, Woods and Sorlie knew there was a compelling story to tell around its release. They also think there are people with deeper connections and appreciation for it.
Sorlie is one of them, as Rendering Ranger: R² stands as a forgotten culmination of that era of European game development to him. Meanwhile, Woods believes that Rendering Ranger: R² represents a video game industry that refuses to learn its lesson. She wants the industry to unite to ensure that games old and new like Rendering Ranger: R² aren’t lost, especially in a time of such strife for the game industry.
“While we’re trying to preserve these titles, I think we need to learn lessons as to how we develop mutual respect for the artists, the programmers, the developers, the porters, and the business challenges required to stay in business,” Woods says. “We need to be able to create a world where both sides are respectful and understand the challenges on both sides so that we don’t just continue this gaming industry of churn and burn and continue to lose game after game after game. We haven’t necessarily changed how we operate as an industry, but we can do better.
“By revisiting a title like this, I think it’s also important for us to take a moment and reflect on what’s changed in the industry as a whole … Every time we go back and revisit a game, I think bringing all this conversation forward repeatedly, making folks talk to each other and respect and acknowledge the importance, will be a pathway for change.”
At this point, I’ve spoken to almost every company responsible for the current wave of retro remasters for this column. There’s a connective hope between everything that companies like Ziggurat, Limited Run Games, Digital Eclipse, and Nightdive Studios are doing. Through projects like Rendering Ranger: R² [Rewind], they aren’t just capitalizing on nostalgia but reminding the game industry to respect its past, its future, and each other.
Ziggurat and Limited Run Games confirmed to Digital Trends that Rendering Ranger: R² [Rewind] will be released for PC, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch sometime during the first quarter of 2025.
