Atari has unveiled that it is releasing a new collection to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Titled Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, this collection contains over 80 classic games from Atari’s best years. The included games come from all of Atari’s major consoles, covering the 2600, 5200, 7800, ST, Jaguar, and Lynx, and it launches on PC for $39.99 USD this November. At launch, it will be available on both Steam and the Epic Games Store.
The Anniversary Celebration doesn’t only offer old games. The team at Digital Eclipse has created six new games that aim to re-envision Atari classics. These are Airworld, Haunted House, Vctr Sctr, Neo Breakout, Quadratank, and Yars Revenge Reimagined. The inclusion of Yars Revenge Reimagined is particularly significant, as it’s a remaster of the best-selling Atari 2600 game.
Outside of games, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration also comes bundled with a series of exclusive interviews with various Atari designers and engineers from the publisher’s earlier years. In total, there’s over an hour of interviews included that largely focus on the impact of Atari on the games industry.
The final piece of content included in the collection is a series of behind-the-scenes media. This content varies from documentary footage, product design documents, archival images, and a detailed interactive timeline. All of these will provide further insight into Atari’s past, making Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration a great choice for retro game enthusiasts.
A former great
Today, Atari isn’t known for all that much. The publisher has gone bust multiple times and is more involved with cryptocurrency than it is in game development. But that wasn’t always the case. Back in the 1970s, Atari was the biggest player in the industry, having revolutionized the home console. We will likely never see Atari return to its former greatness, but collections like these at least give us the opportunity to celebrate what once was.
