Atari has acquired the IP for five classic Ubisoft titles to bring them to modern platforms.
Ubisoft doesn’t quite have the library of esteemed franchises to sit on and do nothing with like Sony, Nintendo, or Capcom do, but aside from Rayman (who is apparently coming back) and Splinter Cell (which has a remake seemingly in development hell), it uses a lot of its major series pretty regularly. However, what Ubisoft does have is a ton of little one-off titles that are just begging to return (Buck Bumble), and clearly, Atari agreed.
This week, Atari confirmed (via BusinessWire) that it had picked up the IP rights for five Ubisoft titles in order to make them available for modern platforms. The games in question are the nautical survival horror (seven years before Resident Evil did it with Revelations) Cold Fear, apocalyptic survival game I Am Alive, and the underrated platformer duo of Grow Home and its sequel Grow Up.
However, it’s the fifth title that’s the most exciting, as Tetris Effect and Lumines Arise director Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Child of Eden has been picked up, which is a musical rail shooter and spiritual successor to the classic Rez. Cold Fear and I Am Alive are still available on Steam, the Grow games are on Steam and non-Nintendo consoles, but Child of Eden has been locked to the Xbox 360 and PS3 for over a decade, so getting to experience this again is undoubtedly the highlight.
Atari hasn’t said much more than the games are coming back, but Cold Fear seems like a game that is begging for a NightDive Studios remaster. It had the unfortunate problem of being a Resident Evil-style game that was released two months after Resident Evil 4 came out as an industry-defining classic, so maybe this is its chance to finally shine.
