You Don't Know Jack

Face iconic foes from the past in the new Samurai Jack videogame

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IN 2017, GENNDY TARTAKOVSKY AND HIS team finally brought the tale of the time-wandering hero Samurai Jack to a close. And that was that.

Considering that it took 16 years to complete five seasons of what is now considered a modern animation classic, Tartakovsky was content with how they concluded their tale. But then Adult Swim, home to the finale season, approached him about making a canonical videogame developed by Soleil Ltd in Japan, which would translate the visual essence of the series into a playable format.

Initially sceptical, Tartakovsky tells Red Alert that his first reaction was to say, “If you’re just gonna crap it out, I don’t really want to be involved. I know it’s a business and people have to do what they have to do. But they said, ‘No, no, we want to make it really great!’”

In fact, Adult Swim Games asked Tartakovsky and his long-time writing collaborator, Darrick Bachman, to craft the game’s story so that it wouldn’t sully the finale they were so proud of, and would honour all five seasons of their cumulative storytelling. Having never worked on a videogame based on his creations, and excited about the potential of Jack in a 3D space, they agreed.

The result is Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, available this month on all major gaming formats. It brings back all of the original series’ voice actors, from Phil LaMarr (Jack) to Tara Strong (Ashi), as Jack bounces through time again revisiting prior allies and foes.