Atari struck a deal to acquire a dozen retro arcade titles to add to its video game library, including the 1980s classics Berzerk and Frenzy. The games were originally developed by Stern Electronics in Chicago.
The iconic gaming brand will seek to expand digital and physical distribution of the 12 classic titles, create new games based on the intellectual property (IP), and explore brand and merchandising collaborations.
Berzerk is a top-down, multidirectional shooter designed by Alan McNeil. Released for arcades in 1980, the game is frequently ranked in Top 100 Video Game lists. Berzerk is best known for being one of the first arcade video games with speech synthesis and for the iconic villain Evil Otto.
“Berzerk is one of those foundational games that so many people first encountered playing on an Atari console,” says 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.”
In Berzerk, players navigate through a maze of rooms while fighting armed robots and avoiding electric walls. They must escape the maze before being caught by Otto. Berzerk was ported to the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 by Atari. The 1982 critically-acclaimed sequel, Frenzy, was also acquired under the agreement.
Atari has not announced the other ten titles involved in the acquisition.
