First Remaster Crushed It, So Croc 2 Is Next in Line

When Argonaut Games revived itself and shipped a remaster of the original Croc: Legend of the Gobbos last year, the studio's founder Jez San was already saying the quiet part out loud. If the first game sold, a Croc 2 remaster would follow. That conditional has now been met.

Argonaut Games announced Croc 2: Kingdom of the Gobbos, a remastered version of the 1999 platformer, coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Switch, and PC via Steam and GOG. The studio is targeting a Q4 2026 release window, though no specific date has been set.

The messaging from Argonaut's leadership is refreshingly blunt about why this exists. Co-CEO Mike Arkin didn't dress it up: Croc's successful return exceeded what we hoped for, and that made the decision easy. Croc 2 was originally built on a totally different engine to Croc, posing its own set of remastering challenges, but the early work we did to validate our approach paid off."

San echoed that sentiment, calling the sequel "always the plan, once we saw how fans embraced the first remaster." I appreciate how direct both of them are being here. No corporate non-speak about "exploring the IP" or "evaluating opportunities." Fans bought the first game, so they're making the second one. Simple.

What the Sequel Brings Back

For anyone who missed Croc 2 the first time around, it was a larger game than its predecessor. Croc leaves Gobbo Valley for the mainland after discovering a message in a bottle from his birth parents, only to run into a resurrected Baron Dante looking for payback. The game spans four themed villages: Sailor Village, Cossack Village, Caveman Village, and Inca Village, each with its own Gobbo culture and set of missions.

The remaster promises enhanced visuals and quality-of-life improvements while keeping the core game intact. Croc's moveset includes a triple jump alongside his classic tail spin, and the 40-plus levels feature vehicles like speedboats, minecarts, hang gliders, and airplanes. You can also spend crystals at Swap Meet Pete's General Store, a shop run by a cat who sells gadgets and can teleport you between villages. Late-90s platformers had a specific energy, and Croc 2 had it in spades.

Argonaut is also bringing back the digital museum concept from the first remaster, now called the Croc2pedia. It'll contain production materials, full game design documentation, marketing assets, animation test videos, 3D model galleries of cut characters and levels, and interviews with both the original Argonaut team and the remaster developers. The Crocipedia in the first game was a genuine highlight for anyone interested in how these older titles were built, and expanding it for the sequel is a smart move.

A Studio Earning Its Second Chance

The original Argonaut Games shut down in 2004 after a rough stretch that included the poorly received Malice and financial difficulties. The revived studio announced the Croc remaster in 2024, and after a delay, it shipped in 2025. Its strong enough performance to greenlight a sequel remaster speaks to something real: there's an audience for these PS1-era platformers that the industry keeps underestimating.

I'm glad to see a small studio executing a clear, honest plan. Announce the remaster, ship it, gauge the response, and if people show up, do the sequel. No live-service hooks, no battle pass, no drip-fed roadmap. Just a game, then another game. It shouldn't feel novel, but it does.

Nintendo Life pointed out something worth a laugh: the first Croc remaster launched on the same day as the Switch 2 reveal Direct, which probably buried its visibility. Here's hoping Croc 2 gets a quieter news day when it arrives in Q4 2026.

The subtitle "Kingdom of the Gobbos" was actually the working title during the original sequel's development and never made it onto the final box. Argonaut restoring it for the remaster is a small touch, but it signals how much care the studio is putting into these re-releases. Croc 2: Kingdom of the Gobbos is planned for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Switch, and PC later this year.