Atari just bought the rights to the first five Wizardry games

Atari has acquired the complete and exclusive rights to the first five games in the Wizardry franchise, along with their underlying intellectual property. The deal covers the foundational era of the series, spanning from 1981 to 1988.

It is great to see Atari making great moves and saving old properties. I had Wizardry for my Apple IIGS. I've still never beaten it. The difficulty curve in those early dungeon crawlers is absolutely ruthless, but that friction is exactly what made them so compelling.

The acquisition includes 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), and Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom (1988). Atari now controls the contract rights and the specific universe details, including the original spells, characters, places, and monsters.

Out of print for 25 years

The original PC, NES, and SNES versions of these games have been legally unavailable for 25 years. The rights to the Wizardry franchise became famously fragmented after original developer Sir-Tech closed its doors in the early 2000s.

The Japanese side of the franchise thrived with spin-offs and mobile games under different ownership, but the original Western titles were stuck in a licensing purgatory. Fans had to rely on aging original hardware or piracy to play the foundational games.

Atari plans to bring the original titles back to the market through expanded digital and physical distribution. The company also announced plans for remasters, collections, and new releases. They even floated the idea of merchandise, card games, and film projects, though the immediate value is simply getting the games back on digital storefronts.

Franchise co-creator Robert Woodhead noted the historical weight of the series in a statement following the acquisition. "When Andrew Greenberg and I created Wizardry back in the 1980s, the video game industry was still in its infancy, and the original games were some of the first to bring the role-playing experience to PCs and consoles," Woodhead said.

Dragon Quest owes it everything

It is difficult to overstate how much modern gaming relies on the foundation built by the first five Wizardry games. Along with Ultima, Wizardry essentially codified the computer role-playing game.

The influence was particularly heavy in Japan. The first-person dungeon crawling, menu-based combat, and party management systems directly inspired Yuji Horii when he created Dragon Quest. Hironobu Sakaguchi drew heavily from the same well for Final Fantasy. The entire JRPG genre exists because Japanese developers in the 1980s were obsessed with Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

This acquisition makes a lot of sense for Atari's current corporate structure. Now that Atari owns the underlying IP for the first five games, the path is clear for similar treatments of the rest of the Llylgamyn saga.

We will have to wait for specific release dates for the upcoming collections. For now, it is just a relief to know the licensing knot has finally been untied. Maybe this is the year I finally roll a party that survives the first floor.

Source: https://www.businesswire.com/