Classic Atari games remixed for anniversary

Atari has announced six new games based on classic titles like Breakout and Asteroids coming to a collection celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary.

The once-giant Atari is staging a bit of a comeback, as the company announced six new games that are remixes of classic Atari games as part of a collection designed to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is a collection of over 100 classic games from 7 different Atari consoles through the ages, including the Atari 2600, the Atari Lynx, and the Atari Jaguar. The collection includes games like Tempest 2000, Asteroids, and Yars’ Revenge, as well as some much more obscure titles.

Classic Atari games are now easily playable with this collection. Picture: Atari

The collection also includes six new titles based on classic Atari games like Breakout, Asteroids, and an all-new game in the Swordquest series, called Swordquest: Airworld. Atari calls this “the missing, last installment in the four-game Swordquest series”, promising that fans can finally finish the adventure that they started forty years ago.

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration has a host of other features, too, with over an hour of interview videos with “key players in the games industry”, including early Atari designers and engineers, which can’t be found anywhere else. There’s also five “interactive timelines”, which show the history of Atari throughout its 50 years with interviews, archival images, and other behind-the-scenes content.

The collection will be available on PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox, and it’ll set players back about $60 when it launches this month.

Atari has had a long and coloured history, starting as a gaming juggernaut in the 70s and enjoying success for many years, before releasing one of the top 10 worst movie tie-in video games ever in ET: The Extra Terrestrial in 1982, which ultimately led to a crash of the North American video games market.

Indie developers have tried to capture the look and feel of classic retro games in recent times, such as the Aussie indie game sequel that’s coming soon, Sports Story. The long-awaited follow-up to 2017’s Golf Story aims to evoke memories of retro sporting games like Mario Golf and Mario Tennis for the Game Boy Color. It’ll also include sports like fishing, volleyball, cricket, and more when it launches next month.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.