BODY: Three decades after it first lit up Sega Saturn screens, one of the platform's most beloved pinball simulators is finally getting a second life. Biside announced that Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators, the 1995 cult favorite, will be ported to Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, and PC sometime in 2026.
Originally developed by KAZe and published in Japan in late 1995, Last Gladiators earned a reputation as one of the most physically accurate digital pinball games of its era. Its single, meticulously crafted table โ themed around futuristic gladiatorial combat โ became a benchmark for ball physics on home consoles, and the game retains a devoted following among Saturn collectors today.
The port is being handled by Biside, a Tokyo-based studio with deep roots in niche Japanese game preservation and quirky original titles. While pricing and an exact release window remain unannounced, the multiplatform rollout marks the first time the title has been legitimately playable outside the Saturn hardware since its original release.
For pinball sim enthusiasts, the announcement fills a notable gap. Last Gladiators has long been cited alongside Pro Pinball and Devil's Crush as essential vintage digital pinball, but its Saturn-exclusivity kept it locked away from modern audiences who never owned the hardware.
The insider take
In Tokyo's retro game shops in Akihabara and Nakano Broadway, a sealed copy of Last Gladiators can still command surprisingly high prices โ a quiet testament to how seriously Japanese hobbyists take their pinball sims. The fact that Biside, rather than Sega itself, is shepherding this port reflects a broader pattern in Japan's preservation scene: smaller studios increasingly stepping in to rescue Saturn-era titles whose original publishers have moved on. Expect the Switch 2 version, in particular, to leverage HD Rumble for the kind of tactile flipper feedback Saturn players could only dream of in 1995.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).