About 45 years after the release of the original game, Atari just made a major purchase to secure the rights to an iconic sword and sorcery RPG franchise from the 1980s.
Atari Acquires The Rights to Wizardry
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord launched in 1981 and the RPG would go on to be followed by four more installments in the franchise before the decade came to a close. Although the series may be long-forgotten to many gamers, Atari has big plans for Wizardry.
Recently, Atari acquired the rights to the remaining titles from the first five titles in the Wizardry franchise. The deal includes the rights to:
- Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981)
- Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds (1982)
- Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn (1983)
- Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna (1987)
- Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom (1988)
There are three more titles in the franchise, but those ones are owned by a separate company and focus on a totally different story, setting, and characters. Apparently Atari has big plans to re-release or remaster the original five games in the near future.
Atari CEO Wade Rosen made the following statement following the purchase:
“Wizardry is such an influential RPG franchise, yet many of the games have been unavailable for more than two decades. We are excited to have this rare opportunity to republish, remaster and bring console ports and physical releases of these early games to market.”
The original Wizardry started out as a simple dungeon crawler, but became one of the most influential RPGS of the early video game era. The series is often mentioned along with Ultima and Might and Magic as a key influence in the RPGs that would follow in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s.
The 2024 remake from Digital Eclipse includes modern graphics and many other upgrades to the game.
When it comes to the Atari projects, it will be very interesting to see if the rest of the releases are straightforward re-releases and remasters or if there is any attempt to modernize and update the games with more of full remake approach. That seems unlikely based on Atari’s recent history and it seems like a safe bet that the company will rerelease the games with some modern quality of life conveniences added, rather than other significant changes.
Be sure to check back in the near future for more Atari, Wizardry, and retro gaming news and updates.
At this time, no official details have been shared about the release windows for any upcoming Atari remasters of the rest of the Wizardry games.
The post Atari Just Purchased An Iconic 1980s RPG Series appeared first on VICE.
