Rumor has it Evening Star—the Sonic Mania crew now cranking out Penny's Big Breakaway—is allegedly deep in a new Ape Escape for Sony, per Jeff Gerstmann and VGC sources that actually bothered to check. Gerstmann spilled on his podcast that the project got greenlit roughly a year ago, external studio handling it, nothing remotely close to release, and definitely not Team Asobi's Astro Bot crew. VGC backed it with multiple sources claiming Sony is farming out dormant IPs like this to smaller third-parties, and Evening Star founder Hunter Bridges has been dropping Ape Escape posters and anime-character job posts like a fanboy with inside intel.

Last real Ape Escape was the PS3 Move one in 2011. Now the yo-yo studio that nailed 2D Sonic nostalgia might be the ones dragging the monkey-catching platformer back from the dead. Community's already losing it on X, with Wario64 dropping the VGC link and the replies turning into a full-on revival prayer circle.

If this lands, it's Sony outsourcing the revival play to the right weirdos who actually get classic platformers. Gerstmann heard it at DICE Summit back in February; now it's got legs. The rest of the old Sony vault might be next on the external studio chopping block.