Historians recovered the source code for this never-before-seen NES shooter, finished the game themselves, and are now selling it as a charity fundraiser

New games for retro systems have become common enough that the novelty has started to disappear – and I say that as someone who still regularly fires up the NES for a spin. But the story behind Xcavator 2025, which will be released on a brand-new NES cartridge next year, is too cool to ignore, and it certainly doesn't hurt that the game itself looks pretty good, too.

Announced at the Day of the Devs showcase earlier today, Xcavator 2025 is a shooter that publisher iam8bit describes as "a never-before-seen, long-lost prototype game from legendary programmer Chris Oberth." Much of Oberth's work has faded into obscurity for modern gamers, but his arcade titles for Stern proved influential on the development scene of the early '80s.

Xcavator 2025 was originally set for release on NES in 1991 under Incredible Technologies, the company best known for bar mainstay arcade cabinets like Golden Tee Golf and Big Buck Hunter, but despite being "shopped around to multiple publishers across the country," the game "never found a home, and was quietly archived and never looked at again."

We are SO EXCITED to finally show you Xcavator 2025! This is an unreleased (and unannounced!) NES game from 1991 that we recovered from its source code. The rights to it were 100% donated to us, and it's being published as a fundraiser cartridge to support our work!

— @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social (@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-12-10T22:55:25.199Z

The game was never even officially announced, and would've been destined for the lost media dustbin if the prototype hadn't been among the materials uncovered by the Video Game History Foundation in Oberth's development archives, which were donated after his death to the group by his family.

"The Video Game History Foundation then worked with Mega Cat Studios to finish the game," iam8bit continues, "staying true to Oberth’s original vision and using the tools and environments that Oberth would have utilized himself to make the game whole."

You can now pre-order Xcvator 2025 ahead of its Q2 2026 launch for $100. That's a fairly steep price even for a modern reproduction cartridge, but 100% of the proceeds from those sales are going back to the Video Game History Foundation so they can continue their work in preserving forgotten pieces of the industry's history.

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