Hello Games is now known for its epic development trajectory with No Man’s Sky, but the studio’s premise was a stuntman. Joe Danger was a simple, fun and polished indie game that initially sold on PC and consoles before making its way to mobile, and its success saw multiple sequels before Hello’s gaze was firmly set on the stars.
At least until recently. Around this time last year, the studio returned to Joe Danger for a true gaming feel-good moment, updating and revamping the old Joe Danger games on iOS after the father of one of his biggest fans got in touch. Hello Games was somewhat understandably focused on building out the No Man’s Sky universe, and the Joe Danger games were languishing. But the reminder that people still cared about them clearly made an impact.
Hello Games has now been relaunched Joe Danger Touch and its sequel Infinity as free browser gamesin fact keeping the best of the title that launched the studio forever.
Last January we launched Joe Danger on iOS 😍Now Joe Danger is FREE to play in your browser 😎Joe Danger Touch and Infinity full with enhanced visuals, on Mac/PC/Chrome/Linux, dynamic resolution, mouse and keyboard support. Play it here!https://t.co/v6nV4qEMvI pic.twitter.com/2azlwZEHnHJanuary 6, 2023
“It’s sad that a lot of games are slowly dying,” said Sean Murray, both the founder of Hello Games and the creator of Joe Danger. “And we’ve been trying to figure out a way to make Joe live on forever and reach as many people as possible. This is hopefully a way to do that. We owe him this and more.”
If you haven’t played Joe Danger yet, imagine an autorunner with an Evil Knievel action figure. The games are unabashedly sunny good times and distracting enough, even now that I’ve just spent half an hour testing whether the browser versions work properly. I’m relieved to say they do.
It’s another feel-good moment from a studio that, after No Man’s Sky’s nadir at launch, has moved forward and proven time and time again how committed it is to its titles. The only slightly melancholic element has nothing to do with Hello, but thinking about how many other games have been practically lost recently to things like iOS updates: few of which will receive the love that Joe Danger has.
In addition to looking back, Hello naturally also looks ahead to the future. The studio’s next game won’t be a sequel to No Man’s Sky, but just as ambitious. This time though, Hello will probably do everything it can to temper the pre-release hype.