Earthworm Jim 4 has been canceled. That's probably not too surprising given that the Intellivision Amico has turned out to be vaporware, but it's still a disappointment to Earthworm Jim fans around the world.
This sad news comes courtesy of from OutofcontextEarthwormJim on Twitter. According to a Discord conversation with fans, "EWJ4 was quietly dusted under the carpet, and they hoped nobody would notice." They speculate that Intellivision didn't have the rights to Earthworm Jim, which is owned by Interplay, and was "slapped on the wrist," or "everything went pear-shaped with the Amico, and they decided to call it quits."
The latter scenario seems to be the most likely. Earthworm Jim 4 was a joint announcement with Jim creator Doug TenNapel and Intellivision CEO Tommy Tallarico back in 2019 shortly after the Amico was announced. TenNapel shared some concept art on his Instagram and Tallarico issued a statement saying it was "a dream come true to finally get the entire team back together" to work on an exclusive sequel, and both promised more news in the months ahead.
TenNapel then launched an Indiegogo campaign for Earthworm Jim: Launch the Cow, a graphic novel reboot of the series that raised almost a million dollars. That came out in 2019, with the second volume currently being crowd-funded. Then a teaser trailer was released in 2020, although it didn't feature much beyond Jim crash-landing on a beach and then running around for 20 seconds.
More and more disheartening reports came out of Intellivision throughout 2020 and 2021 that made it seem like the Amico console was never going to be a thing and that hasn't really gotten any better in the years since then. Fans demanded refunds when the Amico went years past its promised release date and then Intellivision laid off a "significant" amount of staff in 2022. Intellivision says it's "still working" to bring the Amico to market, but I wouldn't hold your breath.
So if you want more Earthworm Jim, you’ll have to sign up for the graphic novel campaign or wait for the planned TV reboot, although that doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere either.
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