// PC GAMER — GAMING
EA's releasing a truckload of classic games on Steam, and 7 of them are remasters
The remasters are also coming to GOG (which already had the re-released originals).
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Last month we got news that Wing Commander 3, the FMV space-combat sim with perhaps the highest concentration of Mark Hamill in any videogame, would be getting a remaster. Producer Jim Vessella is heading up the project, and revealed it during a presentation at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo.
What he did not reveal, it turns out, is that five other Wing Commander games—plus Road Rash—would be getting their own dolled-up re-releases, and that they'd all be dropping on Steam, GOG, and the EA App today as part of a larger bundle of 25 "EA Classics". No, I don't know why you'd buy them on the EA App either. It takes all sorts to make a world.
Here's the full list of games that are dropping. Anything labelled "Anniversary Edition" is an updated, remastered version of the original game. Anything not labelled that is simply a re-release.
If you're a GOG user, the only new things on that storefront will be the remasters—GOG's had all the other classic games for yonks now, but on Steam it's a veritable deluge of hearty, classic stuff. Personally, I'll just be glad to have a copy of Theme Hospital where all my other games are. And if someone fancies turning on Workshop support for it and integrating CorsixTH, they won't hear any objections from me.
On the remaster front, EA pinky promises it hasn't mucked the games up. "Each Anniversary Edition preserves the original look, feel and creative intent of the game, with quality-of-life updates to support modern systems, controls, improve performance and make the titles more approachable without compromising their authenticity."
You know what? I'm inclined to believe it. Vessella, who's more or less become the face of EA's old-game preservation and restoration efforts, also had a big hand in the work on the Command and Conquer Remastered Collection, and that was rather excellent even without access to the source footage of those games' FMV cutscenes, which seems to not be an issue here.
EA says the remasters are the fruit of "the discovery of a physical media vault containing thousands of Betacam, VHS, and D1 tapes alongside other media assets", while "the digitization process recovered the supposedly lost Master FMV sequences for these seven legendary titles, which were meticulously re-edited to restore the over 1,500 cinematic scenes across these games".
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.