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Elijah is a freelance news writer at Polygon. He was an associate editor at The A.V. Club and Paste, and has been featured in outlets like Game Informer, Fanbyte, Unwinnable, and more. He loves media in all forms, from fighting games and horror flicks to slow cinema and visual novels. He's from the Greater Boston area.
The Masters of the Universe are here in all their pixelated glory
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Just in time for He-Man’s birthday, Clear River Games revealed the release date for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction, an upcoming action game based on this long-running series. Thankfully, the wait for Prince Adam and his buddies won't be long.
Clear River Games also confirmed that Dragon Pearl of Destruction will have a physical release for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X. It will also be available digitally on those platforms, as well as PS4, Windows PC, and Xbox One. The game will be released on Feb. 4, 2027.
What kind of game is He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction?
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction is a retro-style beat ‘em up. The game is being developed by Bitmap Bureau, a studio that’s quite familiar with arcade-era-inspired tie-ins to classic franchises. In 2025, the team released the 2D run-and-gun Terminator 2D: No Fate, which received solid reviews despite criticisms for its short length. Before that, the team worked on the beat ‘em up Final Vendetta and the hack-and-slash Battle Axe.
Dragon Pearl of Destruction has four playable characters — He-Man, Teela, Man-at-Arms, and She-Ra — each with different movesets and magic abilities. The Steam page indicates it will have 13 levels, suggesting a relatively short playtime, as is fairly common in this genre.
Is He-Man having a revival?
Beyond the upcoming game, He-Man recently hit the screen in this summer’s Masters of the Universe live-action movie. While the film performed relatively well with critics, it flopped at the box office, grossing $114 million on a $170 to 200 million budget, although it was Prime Video’s most-streamed movie for several weeks in a row.
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Beyond this, there have been plenty of recent He-Man TV shows. The animated series Masters of the Universe ran on Netflix from July 2021 to January 2024 for 15 episodes total. Before that, She-Ra: Princesses of Power ran from 2018 to 2020 for 52 episodes, a reboot of the ‘80s series (which was a spin-off of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe). That series received critical acclaim and attracted a large fandom thanks to its interesting characters, strong writing, and central queer relationship between She-Ra and Catra.