This is why I love my job; it's 2026, and a console that was first released in Japan in 1994 and finally discontinued in Japan in 2000 after lasting two years longer than the rest of the world has just got a new game, 26 years after it took its final bow off the production line.
Vigilant Paradise is an FPS game that channels the 80s vibes of Miami Vice in everything from the game logo and synth-tastic soundtrack through to the characters' clothing and exotic locations (you already knew there was going to be a speedboat before I showed you the picture in the article header). And yes, it can be played on original hardware once via CDs or cartridges for the full Saturn experience!
The project comes to us from solo developer Riccardo Campione and his publishing company Playnautic. According to the information on the game's Itch.io page, it took him five years to complete the game, all of it being self-funded. He's spent many late nights on his mission to 'make an exclusive first-person shooter for the beloved, underrated console; and relive some of the magic of mid-'90s gaming.'
While the game has been sitting in wait on the internet since the end of 2025, it's only in the past couple of days that people have picked up on it fully and begun singing its praises online, receiving an update two days ago at the time of writing. It's currently $10 to buy, which is £7.44.
Don't think that just because this is a homebrew game that it's not worth your money, however. Vigilant Paradise has a full single-player campaign for you to play through with those classic 90s Sega Saturn low-poly 3D characters and over 15 minutes of cutscenes complete with voiceovers. There's also, according to Campione (which translates as champion for anyone wondering, just to let you know I'm Italian for the 7,034th time), 'a shameless overuse of CD synth music', something you can never have too much of.
As I also touched on above, the game can be played on original hardware, which is made all the better by the fact that it utilises both of the Saturn CPUs, both VDPs, and all of the Saturn's memory chips, as well as PCM playback and CD audio.
The story follows Vince Dimare and Paolo Diterra, plain-clothed policemen who have a history of being renegades and 'fighting crime in unconventional ways'. They've been put on a forced vacation, but the not-so-sweet bliss of boredom is about to get shattered, giving the pair a little more than they bargained for.
It's amazing that we can download and play a new Sega Saturn game in 2026 on both emulators and physical hardware. This could definitely be one to try out with the Sega Saturn Retro Receiver and the M30 Gamepad from 8BitDo! $10 for Vigilant Paradise is incredibly reasonable for a new Sega Saturn game, especially considering the amount of time it took Riccardo Campione to make it. Give it a try and let us know your thoughts in the comments!
