Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD is a faithful restoration of Krome Studios’ beloved 2002 PlayStation 2 banger. It’s a deeply Australian take on the character action platformer genre of the time, and we reckon you’ll bloody love it.
Yes, we’ll be affecting the extremely bonza Aussie verbiage the game uses for this entire piece. Carn, get around it.
It’s Australian kitsch in video game form
Krome absolutely stuffed this game with Australianisms. As soon as the game starts, turning the camera to the left reveals the beautiful Uluru looming in the distance. The tutorial comes from a blokey cockatoo that wears a blue tank top and speaks with the gruff no-fkn-worries twang of a tradie who’s seen it all. Your enemies are frilled-neck lizards in biker jackets and a mad emu pissed off about mammals beating birds up the evolutionary ladder. Every sentence the characters speak is stuffed with true blue Aussie larrakinisms, and every new quest is met with “No worries!” or “Righto.”
You should play this if you loved Banjo-Kazooie
By far, the single greatest influence on Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD is Banjo-Kazooie. The parallels are everywhere. You’re collecting opals instead of musical notes. Finding bilbies instead of Jingos. Picking up yellow cogs instead of Jiggies. Each world has been designed to reflect some facet of the Australian landscape, from the gum-lined billabong of the opening stage to snowy mountains and the outback itself. All these areas are as large as the levels found in Banjo and encourage the same level of exploration. Beaut.
The remaster was made by Krome Studios
Krome Studios, the same legends that made the original Ty Trilogy, came back to craft the remaster. Proudly Brisbane-based and still making games after all these years, these mad units are a fixture in the Aussie games development landscape. Picking up a copy of Ty HD supports one of the great Aussie game dev success stories. And if that wasn’t enough, Krome just wrapped up a successful donation drive that saw 5% of all digital sales of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD across all platforms go to the Save the Bilby Fund. Sick one, mates.
You don’t mess with perfection
One of the standout decisions Krome has made with this remaster is not trying to spruce it up so much you don’t recognise it anymore. This is the classic Ty experience, as it was on the PS2, in pristine HD resolution. They even left the FMV cutscenes as they were back in 2002, uprezzed of course, but kept intact for posterity’s sake. Video game preservation is massively important and it’s cool to see Krome take such great care of their special mate.
There are FOUR of these bad boys
Did you know that Ty the Tasmanian Tiger was actually part of a longer series? It’s true! To date, Krome has produced HD remasters of both Ty 1 and Ty 2: Bush Rescue (which launched on Switch back in March; we’re still waiting for the PS4 and Xbox versions). While Ty 3: Night of the Quinkan got an HD remaster for PC back in 2018, there’s been no word just yet about a console launch. We’d keep our eyes open for that one if we were you.
Mate, if you need more convincing than that, you might be a bit of a drongo. Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD is out now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC. It’s an important piece of Australian video game history and you owe it to yourself to play it.
Article updated to include Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4, and the conclusion of the charity drive.
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