Atari announces it has acquired rights to the first five Wizardry games

Atari is teasing plans to bring the classic entries of the Wizardry series back to market through digital and physical releases.

Atari has announced that it has acquired the rights to the first five games of the long-running first-person dungeon-crawling RPG series, Wizardry. With the acquisition, Atari intends to unearth many of the classic games and bring them to new platforms in future physical and digital releases.

The leadership of Atari announced the acquisition in a press release, as posted on BusinessWire. According to the announcement, Atari has gained the complete and exclusive rights of the first five games, sometimes referred to as “The Llylgamyn Saga,” including 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 did include that the acquisition included “many other Wizardry-related video games, contract rights, and other related intellectual property.” However, Drecom has stepped forward to clarify that it still has claims to the series and will continue to handle the rights of Wizardry games, such as its free-to-play 2025 game, Wizardry Variants Daphne.

The Wizardry series was started by American developer Sir-Tech, which not only developed most of the mainline Wizardry games up to Wizardry 8 in 2001, but also either developed or published series such as Jagged Alliance and Realms of Arkania. Since Sir-Tech closed in 2003, the Wizardry rights have floated around, with XSEED putting out a game in 2020 and the aforementioned 2025 Drecom game.

With the classic Wizardry games supposedly falling under Atari, we’ll be watching for an update on the studio's plans. Stay tuned to the Atari topic for more updates.

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