Atari 50 was already a fairly comprehensive offering of retro games spanning half a century, launching in late 2022 as a playable museum of sorts charting the classic publisher’s output across arcade machines, the 2600, 5200, 7800 and Jaguar home consoles, 8-bit computers and the Lynx handheld. The more than 100 games included at launch was far from stingy, with an extra dozen being added in a free update at the end of last year. Now the collection will add almost 40 more games in an upcoming ‘Expanded Edition’, taking its total game count to over 150.
The Expanded Edition of Atari 50 will add the games across two additional interactive timelines, dubbed The Wider World of Atari and The First Console War. As with the collection’s other playable histories, the games will be presented in chronological order alongside various insight into their development in video segments, interviews, advertisements from the time and other “historical artefacts”.
The Wider World of Atari will take up 19 of the games, including Berzerk and a look into the creation of Breakout, while The First Console War will delve into the battle between the Atari 2600 and Mattel’s Intellivision with 20 more games, including several prototypes. Funnily enough, Atari settled the apparent conflict by purchasing the rights to Intellivision earlier this year.
Atari 50’s Expanded Edition will be offered as both DLC for the existing game and a standalone collection by itself. We’re yet to get a full rundown of the games included or how much it’ll cost, but expect a release on October 25th.