1C Entertainment announced that they will be collaborating with 3D Realms to bring Ion Maiden to the Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch during the second quarter of 2019.

The game is currently in Early Access over on the Steam store for $19.99. It entered into Early Access back in February of 2018, and was supposed to spend just six months in Early Access for the developers to flesh out the weapons, the levels, and gameplay mechanics. However, with 1C Entertainment striking up a deal with 3D Realms, it appears the initial delay into 2019 was just happenstance or to “polish” up the game, but for the fact that there are now multiple platform iterations in the works.

The Early Access rendition of the game features a lot of the core functionality that you can expect from the full version, including headshots, physics-based gameplay, widescreen support, auto-saves, and full gamepad and controller support.

Ion Maiden is a prequel to 3D Realms’ other title, Bombshell, which came out back in 2016. The isometric shooter didn’t do all that great, but it laid the groundwork for 3D Realms to further flesh out the story featuring Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison.

For the prequel, Voidpoint decided to focus on recreating the kind of fast-paced, bloody, violent action that helped define first-person shooters during the mid-1990s when titles like Blood, Redneck Rampage and Duke Nukem 3D were tearing up the sales charts.

Ion Maiden has been receiving a lot more positive feedback from gamers compared to Bombshell, which is likely why 3D Realms and 1C decided to pull the trigger on bringing the game to the Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

In addition to announcing that the game is coming to home consoles starting in the second quarter of next year, there’s also a post over on the Steam community thread, announcing that you will be able to get some hands-on time with Ion Maiden at the upcoming PAX South in San Antonio, Texas next year between January 18th and January 20th in 2019.

They also revealed some additional screenshots for the game, featuring the multi-fire crossbow being utilized in what looks like a lounge overtaken by cultists.

And we also see Shelly dual-wielding two machine guns while in the men’s bathroom, shooting up some foes, along with wielding a mini-gun while taking down some guys in a facility.

I still get that inching feeling as if this is a franchise that’s still trying to push the Liberal agenda, just doing it under the guise of a retro game that’s actually fun to play. I suppose we’ll find out for sure once the full game is released in the second quarter of 2019.