Chris Kohler, Editorial Director at Digital Eclipse on Atari 50 – Interview Series

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, a digitalized catalog featuring countless keepsakes and gaming experiences that span decades of Atari’s fruitful history as one of the industry-defining giants, has just opened up the floodgates for even more content. That’s right, The Wider World of Atari—a DLC that boasts all-new features, games, and exclusive content, has finally launched on consoles and PC, and it’s bringing its jam-packed time capsule to the forefront of modern gaming to celebrate fifty glorious years.

To learn more about Atari 50 and its treasure trove of titles and materials, I caught up with Chris Kohler, Editorial Director at Digital Eclipse.

Let’s talk about Atari 50. Sure enough, it isn’t something that necessarily needs a formal introduction. However, for the sake of covering all bases, please could you explain to us what it is?

Chris: Sure. Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is an interactive documentary game for consoles and PC, in which you travel through the history of Atari, almost like a digital museum. There are digital artifacts like design documents, vintage magazine pages, 3D boxes, archival photos, and well over an hour of original video featurettes covering various events in the company’s history. And, of course, over 100 fully playable games. You can choose to just play the games in whatever order you want, or you can experience them in the full context of their history.

Atari 50 is also our effort to continue the Atari legacy. All-new games developed at Digital Eclipse, like VCTR-SCTR and Neo Breakout, take the classic Atari formula and move it into the modern day.

Atari 50 is a lot more than a simple catalog of timeless games; it’s also a time capsule for some of the most prestigious, era-defining innovations and mementos of all time. Tell us. why do you think it’s so important to preserve the history of video games in a world that’s forever searching for new ways to raise the benchmark?

Chris: Video games are the defining creative medium of the 21st century, and we owe it to ourselves not to let the history of this medium’s origin be consigned to the dustbins. We don’t want to be scrambling to recover it before it’s too late. Of course, there’s a role for all sorts of preservation efforts – non-profit institutions like the Video Game History Foundation, independent archivists, museums, etc. For our part, we try to take advantage of the fact that there are things we can do as the official home of Atari or as an official project for a licensing partner, and we try to do our part there.

Moreover, we believe that the best way to tell the history of video games is through games themselves. Because games are interactive and naturally lend themselves to a multimedia approach, we can combine video, audio, photos, and text alongside interactive gameplay, so that you can truly get hands-on with history in a way that other mediums wouldn’t be able to allow. Following on from Atari 50, we released The Making of Karateka and Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story, two more interactive documentaries in our Gold Master Series that continue the work we did with Atari 50. The next entry, Tetris Forever, comes out later this year.

The game that captivated the world. The amazing true story.

TETRIS FOREVER

Coming to consoles & PC in 2024, part of the Digital Eclipse #GoldMasterSeries, in partnership with @Tetris_Official pic.twitter.com/kKqFrpYSrk

— Digital Eclipse (@DigitalEclipse) August 27, 2024

We’re curious to hear more about the upcoming DLC, The Wider World of Atari. Please could you tell us a bit more about it, as well as the games that it will bring to the pre-existing library of Atari 2600 classics?

Chris: The Wider World of Atari is the first of two DLC packs that we will be releasing this year. What many players would consider “the big one” is Berzerk, a very popular and influential top-down shooter. We have the original arcade version, its sequel Frenzy, the Atari 2600 version, the Atari 5200 version, and even the “voice enhanced” 2600 version that was later done as a fan project.

Beyond Berzerk, there are two versions of the classic Avalanche, which later inspired the 2600 game Kaboom; the three Atari 2600 games that were originally released exclusively through the Sears Tele-Games line, rare obscurities like Atari Video Cube, and more. 19 games total! The next DLC pack, The First Console War, will get into the rivalry between Atari and Intellivision, and feature games from the “M Network” line.

Of course, The Wider World of Atari isn’t just a second arm for torch-bearing games, either. Are we right in thinking that the DLC will also include an archive—a treasure trove of interviews, ads, and historical “artifacts” too? Tell us a bit about that.

Chris: There’s just so much to talk about when it comes to Atari that we simply weren’t able to even scratch the surface in the original game! The Wider World of Atari is an opportunity for us to stretch our legs a bit and explore a variety of other stories that branch off from the core tale. We talk to Al Alcorn about the origins of Breakout, and how that involved Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. We speak with “homebrew” game developers who continued to support the Atari 2600 with new games long after Atari originally stopped supporting it. And many other stories, besides. The goal is to show just how long a shadow Atari cast over the years, and in how many directions.

The eighties are likely to resonate with retro fans from all over the world, especially those who grew up with the Atari 2600 in their adolescent years. And yet, it seems that there are still a lot of newcomers who have yet to experience the full breadth of what Atari has to offer. With that in mind, do you have any advice for players who’ve yet to take the trip down memory lane?

Chris: We’ve put nearly all the games into our interactive timelines, where you can experience the story of Atari, and experience the games with context like the original box, vintage artwork, and maybe even interviews with their original programmers. Don’t feel like you have to jump into the list of 100-plus games and pick one at random. Jump around the timelines and learn about the games first, and you’re likely to find one that feels intriguing.

🗺️ Welcome to The Wider World of Atari.

Atari 50's latest DLC is here and it features new exclusive interviews and 19 additional games, including BERZERK!

Explore #Atari50: https://t.co/i1EqQ5Ryak pic.twitter.com/zG8GuYbuxJ

— Atari (@atari) September 26, 2024

Do you mind if we ask what else you have up your sleeve for the forthcoming quarter? If you’re willing to share, please could you tell us about some of the other projects or collaborations that you’re working on?

Chris: No problem! Before the year 2024 is out, we will also have released Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind, an all-new 90s-style arcade action game, as well as our next interactive documentary in the vein of Atari 50, titled Tetris Forever. That one’s a whole history of the last 40 years of Tetris, from its origins in Moscow in 1984 all the way up to a brand-new Tetris game for 2024 called Tetris Time Warp.

Additionally, if you haven’t jumped into Atari 50 yet and don’t mind a bit of a wait – you’ll be able to buy a new physical version, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration – Expanded Edition, on November 8. This will include everything – all the games from the original, the games we added last year in a Holiday Content Update, and both new DLCs – on the physical media. There’s even a special steelbook edition for the Switch with some fun physical bonus items packed in.

We’d love to stay up to date with Digital Eclipse and all things Atari 50. Please could you point us in the right direction for any noteworthy social channels, streams, or newsletters?

Chris: We’re on most of the major social media platforms, either as @digitaleclipse if we have that handle, or @digitaleclipsestudios. We’re most active on X, Bluesky, and Facebook if you want all the latest happenings. We do in fact have an email newsletter, and you can sign up by visiting us at www.digitaleclipse.com.

Is there anything you would like to add for our readers?

Chris: Thanks for your patience as we continue to put the finishing touches on all of these projects we’ve got cooking this year! More to come soon!

We appreciate it. Thanks for your time, Chris! Here’s to another fifty years of Atari!

For more information on Digital Eclipse’s Atari 50 and its upcoming DLC, The Wider World of Atari, be sure to check in with the team over on their official social channel here.