Digital Eclipse, known for its work on titles like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection and Blizzard Arcade Collection, recently released Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. Over 100 games from Atari's past are accessible to players, ranging from the dawn of the arcade to the early home console era. These titles are arranged in order of release so that players can explore the history as it happened, from the Atari 2600 to the handheld Lynx system, and a section of "re-imagined" games gives players a classic experience with modern graphics and mechanics.
Digital Eclipse editorial director Chris Kohler spoke to Game ZXC about the experience of making Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, including innovations like a brand-new Jaguar emulator and other extra content. Interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: What can players do in Atari 50?
A: Quite a lot! Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is unlike every other compilation of classic video games. It's an interactive journey through Atari history, in which playable games, digital artifacts, interviews, historical trivia and more are all arranged on a series of chronological, narrative "timelines," almost like a museum exhibit. Rather than simply giving you a list of games and telling you to go find something you're interested in, we've put everything into historical context. We've also developed six new games inspired by Atari classics, such as Swordquest: AirWorld, the long-awaited final installment in the Swordquest quadrilogy, or VCTR-SCTR, an homage to the days of vector graphics.
Q: Can players access special features such as higher than normal difficulties or more than two players at a time?
A: There are over 100 games in Atari 50 for seven different platforms, and many special features that have been added on a game-by-game basis - check out the pause menu in each game and you'll see what's available for you to play around with for that particular game.
Q: The webpage contains a teaser for an hour of interviews with key players in the industry - who is featured in these interviews and how might modern gamers know them?
A: There are many key figures from Atari history featured in these interviews; some you've likely heard of, some you probably have not! We begin the chronology with vintage 1973 footage of Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, which is likely the earliest surviving footage of Bushnell and Atari (from when the company was still called "Syzygy"). We have all-new conversations with Pong designer Al Alcorn, Yars' Revenge designer Howard Scott Warshaw, Swordquest producer Tod Frye, and many more.
Q: Is there any kind of online or local play? High scores? Head-to-head Competitions?
A: With over 100 games, Atari 50 is full of many different kinds of local multiplayer opportunities, competitive and cooperative alike! There is no online play for this title, but we do save the high scores for the arcade games that originally supported that feature. That way, players can at least compete locally with each other to see who truly is the best.
Q: These games have been redistributed several times over the last half century. What makes this packaging of the same titles different and unique?
A: While many of the classic games in Atari 50 have certainly been included in previous collections, there's actually quite a lot of new content in Atari 50 - there are six all-new games developed here at Digital Eclipse, for starters, and this is also the first time that Lynx and Jaguar games have been playable on these platforms. We've actually developed an all-new Atari Jaguar emulator from scratch for Atari 50, and this is going to be the first time that people who don't actually own an Atari Jaguar console can play these games for themselves.
What really makes Atari 50 unique, though, is what I described above - the fact that games, artifacts, and really all the content is arranged in a chronological narrative along our interactive timelines. This isn't just an aesthetic choice; we believe that by positioning these games in their proper historical context, playing them will be more meaningful.
Q: Digital Eclipse has done other anthology collections. What have you brought to this collection that some players might recognize?
A: I think you'll be able to see the same commitment to quality, historical accuracy, and enhanced gameplay that you've seen in our previous work like Blizzard Arcade Collection and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection.
Q: What was important for you about making these older titles available now to modern audiences?
A: We believe that gaming's history should be treated with the same kind of respect given to classic films or classic literature. If you want to view any moderately popular film from the 1980s, you can be reasonably assured that you can get on Amazon and buy it on Blu-ray or DVD, or even just find it on a low-cost streaming service. On the other hand, if you want to play a classic video game from the 1980s, even some of the best-selling and most fondly remembered ones, it's more likely than not that that game is out of print and unavailable. This is why we love to do anything we can to keep these games in print. In the case of the Atari Jaguar, we've even gone above and beyond what unofficial emulators can do, so it really is bringing these games back from obscurity for the first time.
Q: Is there a trivia or archive section in the game where players can read about the history of these game?
A: There is a vast wealth of historical information in Atari 50, which is all integrated into our interactive timelines right alongside the games!
Q: Thinking of previous video game collections that you've worked on, did you bring any lessons from those projects to the production of Atari 50?
A: I think the big one is the use of the interactive timeline format, of integrating the historical content with the games themselves rather than keeping them separate. While not every collection going forward will use this exact design, you will definitely see some of the concepts from Atari 50 used in future projects.
Q: What plans can you share about future projects by Digital Eclipse? Specifically, do you plan to keep up with the video game collections, or are there plans for original games somewhere down the line?
A: Why not both? We are passionate about game collections, and continuing to evolve how we present classic games on modern platforms, but we also have many talented designers creating all-new games. Atari 50 actually has several all-new games in it created by Digital Eclipse, in fact! Last year, we released Space Jam: A New Legacy: The Game, and for Halloween we actually released a new original game called Candy Creeps.
Q: What were some of the games that stood out to you the most in this collection that you might remember from earlier years?
A: Everybody's going to have their own favorite, but for me personally, working on this collection brought back great memories of buying an Atari Jaguar (for $20) and Tempest 2000 (for $10) at Kay-Bee Toys when they were on clearance, and having way more than $30 worth of fun with Jeff Minter's brilliant reimagining of Tempest! We're thrilled to have that game in Atari 50.
Q: With this, Atari joins your library of collections of games by Capcom, Konami, SNK and Blizzard. If you could pick the next collection of games you could have the opportunity to work on, what would it be?
A: My phone rings. It's Miyamoto! He saw Atari 50 and now he wants us to do the same thing for Nintendo. He starts emailing over some original pencil sketches from Devil World. I'm about to open the attachment when I wake up in a cold sweat. I try to get back to the dream but that never works.
Q: This is your second collection to be released to major home consoles this year. Any hints you're allowed to give as to what you might be up to for 2023?
A: More! Small stuff. Big stuff. Collections. All-new games. Hopefully something for everyone. Digital Eclipse is growing and the mood internally is very excited for the future.
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Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.