Atari 50 ( subtitled The Anniversary Celebration ) is a video game compilation and interactive documentary about the history of Atari that comprises newly shot interviews with former Atari employees, archival footage, emulated games from the company's catalog, and six new games inspired by Atari classics. It was developed by Digital Eclipse and released on Atari VCS, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in 2022, the 50th anniversary of Atari's founding.
The compilation features 103 video games made for arcades and stand-alone handhelds as well as the game consoles Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx and Atari Jaguar. Additionally, new games have been created for the collection such as part of the Atari Reimagined series by Digital Eclipse staff. Each of the original games is given a single save state, controls can be remapped, and a CRT-like filter can be enabled, while bezels recreate art and fill out the wide screen.
The game has a interactive timeline presenting the history of Atari. It is split into five categories: "Arcade Origins", "Birth of the Console", "Highs and Lows", "The Dawn of PCs", and "The 1990s and Beyond". The timeline includes archival material such as design documents, game manuals, context for games and contemporary quotes about them along with video interviews with game creators. Atari employees and former employees are interviewed in the collection including Allan Alcorn, Owen Rubin, David Crane, Jerry Jessop, Bill Rehbock, Tod Frye, Eugene Jarvis, Howard Scott Warshaw, Nolan Bushnell and Wade Rosen, as well as other members of the game industry such as Cliff Bleszinski, Tim Schafer, and Ed Fries. The games included can also be browsed through in a traditional list as in most retro collections. Some games feature enhancements, such as Star Raiders which has overlays that show player status and rumble effects when entering hyperspace.
Source: Wikipedia, "Atari 50", available under the CC-BY-SA License.