Arcade Archives Karnov Brings Data East's 1987 Fire-Breathing Strongman Back to Modern Consoles

Hamster releases Data East's eccentric 1987 arcade platformer Karnov on Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series, featuring the fire-breathing Soviet strongman.

Data East's wonderfully strange 1987 arcade platformer Karnov returns today through Hamster's Arcade Archives programme. The game is now available through the standard Arcade Archives line on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, while Arcade Archives 2 versions target Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Standard versions are priced around $7.99, while the newer Arcade Archives 2 editions are approximately $9.99 and add features associated with Hamster's expanded current-generation format, including Time Attack functionality. Karnov stars Jinborov Karnovski, a muscular fire-breathing hero who travels through nine stages searching for pieces of a treasure map. The game combines running and jumping with projectile attacks and a surprisingly broad item system. Boots improve jumping ability, ladders create routes through levels and bombs can destroy obstacles, while other equipment helps Karnov deal with the increasingly surreal collection of monsters standing between him and the treasure. The arcade original subsequently received numerous home conversions, appearing on systems including the NES, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, DOS computers and Macintosh. As a result, many players remember Karnov through significantly altered versions rather than the original Data East arcade board. Arcade Archives gives those audiences a convenient route to comparing the source game with the conversions they grew up with. This is where Hamster's seemingly endless weekly release programme has become genuinely important. The company's catalogue now stretches far beyond universally famous arcade games into second-tier and sometimes obscure releases that might otherwise remain trapped in MAME collections and surviving cabinets. Karnov was once recognisable enough for its protagonist to make appearances elsewhere in Data East's catalogue, but it never achieved the enduring mainstream visibility of Mario, Pac-Man or Bubble Bobble. Preservation programmes are most valuable when they cover exactly these games rather than repeatedly rereleasing the same fifty classics. The Arcade Archives approach also attempts to reproduce regional versions and arcade behaviour rather than redesigning games as remasters. Karnov can therefore be enjoyed as the strange 1987 coin-op it actually was. Few modern protagonists would be pitched as a bald Soviet-style circus strongman who breathes fire while collecting treasure-map pieces. The fact that videogames once had room for concepts like that is reason enough to keep them accessible.