Atari acquires 12 classic arcade properties to expand retro titles

Atari announced the purchase of a dozen properties including Berzerk and Frenzy. They talk about their goals to expand the digital and physical distribution of classic titles and make way for new games based on those properties. The full announcement is available to check out below:

Atari® — one of the world’s most iconic consumer brands and interactive entertainment producers — announced today the acquisition of a dozen retro arcade games, including the 80s classics Berzerk and Frenzy. Atari will seek to expand digital and physical distribution of the classic titles, create new games based on the IP, and explore brand and merchandising collaborations.

Berzerk is a top-down, multidirectional shooter designed by Alan McNeil that was released for arcades in 1980. Frequently ranked in Top 100 Video Game lists, Berzerk is best known as one of the first arcade video games with speech synthesis, and for the iconic villain Evil Otto.

In Berzerk, players navigate a maze of rooms while fighting armed robots and avoiding electrified walls, and must escape the maze before being caught by Otto. Berzerk was ported to the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 by Atari. A 1982 critically-acclaimed sequel, Frenzy, was also acquired under the agreement.

“Berzerk is one of those foundational games that so many people first encountered playing on an Atari console,” said Atari CEO Wade Rosen. “Berzerk, and the other titles included in this acquisition, are a perfect fit for our strategy of commercializing classic retro IP.”

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