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PO'ed, an infamous relic of the early days of FPS gaming, is getting a remaster from Nightdive Studios. Yes, it is April Fools' Day, and no, this does not appear to be an April Fools' joke.
PO'ed: Definitive Edition was announced today with an extensive trailer and listings on Steam and GOG promising "updated visuals, antialiasing, increased frame rate, and redefined controls, and up to 4K 144 FPS performance." On top of PC, the game is also coming to PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Nightdive says to "stay tuned" for a release date.
If you're a reasonable person who does not spend your nights watching YouTube videos about obscure '90s games, you might be asking what PO'ed actually is right about now. Developed by a small studio called Any Channel, PO'ed first launched for the 3DO back in 1995, and like many games for that ultimately doomed platform, it was soon ported to the PS1.
In the most basic terms, PO'ed is a first-person shooter in the mold of the original Doom, but much, much weirder. You're a chef who's turned out to be the last human standing after your ship was hijacked by aliens, and you've got to take down the bad guys with an array of non-standard weapons including power drills and frying pans. The aesthetics are all '90s gross-out kitsch, with enemy designs including a pair of buttcheeks with legs attached. You might argue that this sounds like a human that's been cut in half, but I promise you, it's a full-on butt monster.
These days, PO'ed is mostly remembered as a surreal curiosity of the '90s, but it's a pretty unique take on shooters that offered much bigger levels than the games that had come before. It also gave you a jetpack to quickly fly through those levels, and we all know that jetpacks make every game better.
I'm sure there's somebody out there with enough nostalgia for PO'ed to be calling for a remaster, but I can't imagine there are that many of them. But that's what's so neat about this announcement. The historical greats of gaming history have generally been rereleased, remade, and remastered a dozen times over, but now a bizarre historical footnote like PO'ed is getting another chance at life. I'm not sure it's earned that chance, but I'm glad it's getting it all the same.
