EA have put a bunch of restored versions and ports of classic games on Steam, GOG and the EA App. 25 games in all, including multiple entries in the Wing Commander and Ultima series, are part of the haul. Why’s this happening now? Well, an EA producer stumbled across a cupboard full of old tapes, film reels and CDs.
According to an interview with The Game Business, the discovery of this old gubbins was a consequence of EA senior producer Jim Vessella needing somewhere new to stick a bunch of Betacam tapes used to help make the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection. “One of the facilities people was like, ‘I think there’s a room in the other building that has a couple of items like that’,” Vessella recalled. “He took me over there, opened it up and it was like Indiana Jones… just, whoa. Knowing what I’d discovered with the Command & Conquer tapes, I really felt like we had to find out what was on all these tapes.”
The producer was able to convince EA’s bosses that this stuff was worth the work needed to stick it back on storefronts, and lo, an EA blog post gushing about their vault’s door having slid aside to reveal this pile of retro games. The collection includes restored versions of the following games, all with “robust quality-of-life updates and higher resolution Full-Motion Videos (FMV) from the Master tapes”:
- Road Rash: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander: 35th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi: 35th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander Prophecy: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Privateer 2: The Darkening: 30th Anniversary Edition
Meanwhile, the rest of the lineup is filled out by “faithful ports” of the following:
- Wing Commander: Privateer
- Wing Commander: Academy
- Wing Commander: Armada
- Strike Commander
- Thème Hospital
- Crusader: No Remorse
- Crusader: No Regret
- Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness
- Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress
- Ultima III: Exodus
- Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
- Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
- Ultima VI: The False Prophet
- Ultima VII: The Complete Edition
- Ultima VIII Gold Edition
- Ultima IX: Ascension
- Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
- Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds
On Steam, all of these are currently on sale for less than a fiver each, with the prices of the most expensive ones set to rise to just under £10 when the introductory offer expires on November 19th.
It’s good news in preservation terms, though I’m not sure it totally washes away the bad vibes of EA’s Saudi and private equity owners reportedly looking to take over Unity.
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