Atari CEO Wade Rosen expresses desire to remaster Panzer Dragoon Saga and Snatcher

Have you played your Atari today? A better question would be “Have you played Panzer Dragoon Saga or Snatcher today?”

Under the leadership of Wade Rosen, Atari SA has been busy reviving tons of retro game franchises. From famous Atari classics like Yars Revenge, Centipede, and Missile Command, to obscure Atari classics like Caverns of Mars and Fatal Run, to even Bubsy, which Atari SA acquired only two years ago, Atari’s making one impressive comeback. Atari SA owned developers Digital Eclipse and Nightdive Studios are even bringing back classic games not owned by Atari, such as Mortal Kombat and Outlaws, which makes Mr. Rosen’s wishlist of classic games to remaster a bit more plausible than you’d expect.

In a recent interview with VGC, Wade Rosen expressed his personal desire to arrange remasters of Panzer Dragoon Saga, Snatcher, and Ogre Battle. Of course, this is not to be taken as confirmation that Atari SA or any companies under its ownership are currently working on such remasters.

You can see his exact quote right below the break.

Mr. Rosen named these top three examples he would personally love to bring back while talking about the balancing act of reviving old games guaranteed to sell well and reviving “passion project” games that someone in his position has a personal attachment to, but are not at all guaranteed to be big sellers. He said that no company can lean too far toward one side or the other and will need to balance them out overtime. Here’s what he had to say.

“Life’s too short, you know? I’ve got mine too, right? If we ever had a chance to work on Panzer Dragoon Saga or Ogre Battle or Snatcher or something like that… I mean, I don’t know if it would do well, but I’d probably push it through and make sure we did it just because I would love to work on one of those.

“But it all has to be in a balance. If this company just became like ‘what games does Wade want to work on?’ we would not be around too long.”

Many a Sega fan would be familiar with Panzer Dragoon Saga and Snatcher. Not only are these excellent games for their time, but neither has really seen a release beyond the original consoles they were built for, and both games happen to be incredibly rare and expensive. They, along with Square-Enix’s Ogre Battle series of tactical RPGs, may not have been widely known even at the time of their original releases, which may be why they were so rare in the first place, but they have gained major cult status in the years since. We certainly hope remasters of both can, someday, be made, even if Atari SA somehow end up being the ones to make it so.

As far as guaranteed sellers and passion projects, Mr. Rosen cited two main examples that Digital Eclipse and Nightdive Studios respectively are hard at work on right now: Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection and Outlaws + Handful of Missions: Remaster. Chances are most of you reading have heard of Mortal Kombat: one of the most famous and influential fighting game series, which is known for its gruesome violence and is still receiving new games to this very day. Outlaws, a wild west themed FPS released on PC in 1997 by Lucasarts, isn’t nearly as well known and has no sequels, but it is still a game beloved by those who have played it and has a cult following. Nightdive Studios is working on a new remaster now because members of that studio loved Outlaws so much that they really wanted to work on remastering the game regardless of its market uncertainty.

“The goal is when you can get them both. But at the very least, I think that’s a part of the give and take in any business. If you go too far in any one direction – if you’re only numbers-driven, it crushes the spirit of the company. If you’re only passion-driven, well, you oftentimes don’t have a company.

“We’re seeing a lot of both of those in the industry right now, and so we try to straddle the line. But we definitely let the team pick a… you know, we all work together and choose jointly what we’re going to work on, but there will definitely be a few like Outlaws that the team kind of throws out and I’m like ‘yeah, let’s give it a swing’.”

We know that Sega is committed to reviving some more of their own retro franchises just like Atari is doing right now. They’d do well to take Mr. Rosen’s advice. They have already announced new entries in some famous series of their own, such as Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi. Although those franchises haven’t received new entries in a very long time, they’re still well known enough now that Sega could justify making new sequels today and revealing them at the Game Awards, and they are on many peoples’ radars even now. One of the games announced back then, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, is coming out later this week and is already receiving rave reviews and getting many gamers excited. For Sega, those games are likely sellers, whereas many other old games of theirs like Alex Kidd, Burning Rangers, Comix Zone, and (I’m sorry, but it’s true) Panzer Dragoon are unlikely to make waves like that. Sega can still justify those games now and then, and they have on a few recent occasions, but only if they make ample time for the big names as well. I think we can all agree that we’re due for another cult Sega revival sometime soon, though.

So what do you make of this development? Are you just as interested in seeing a port or remaster of Panzer Dragoon Saga or Snatcher as Wade Rosen is? Would you be okay with Digital Eclipse or Nightdive Studios handling such projects? (Remember, this is not a confirmation that they or any other Atari SA owned company is working on those games.) Are there any other “passion project” type of Sega games you’d like to see come back?

In recent related news, some of you may know that Mr. Rosen is not the only person within Atari’s umbrella who has a classic Sega game in their personal port wishlist. Digital Eclipse’s Stephen Frost recently spoke in another interview about how he’d love for his studio to have the chance to make a compilation of Sega’s Saturn fighting games. Nightdive Studios’s CEO Stephen Kick also talked about a wishlist game revival of his own, but they’re not Sega games.

Oh, and you can read the rest of VGC’s interview with Wade Rosen here.

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