Yar's Revenge is a Atari 2600 shoot 'em up that released in 1982 and is still fondly remembered by gamers of the era. During the Xbox 360 days, Atari released a 3D rail shooter which added co-op but reimagined the insect protagonists as human-like characters. 40 years after the first Yar's Revenge (!!!), the series is due for a comeback with Yars Recharged on modern consoles and PC. This one hews closely to the original, with playable space flies, 2D shooting, and the welcome addition of local co-op.
The original Yar's Revenge was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw and is remembered as Atari's best-selling original 2600 game. The new game comes from AdamVision Studios and SneakyBox, the same duo that has reimagined numerous Atari sequels in recent years: Asteroids: Recharged, Black Widow: Recharged, Breakout: Recharged, Centipede: Recharged, Gravatar: Recharged, and Missile Command: Recharged. All of those titles but poor Missile Command have local co-op!
Features:
- Arcade mode: Boss rush of 30 enemies. It’s not endless, but it’s VERY difficult to get to the end of this mode. Three hits and you die, but don’t worry, that hit-count resets when moving to the next fight.
- Missions: 30 unique, challenging bosses and only one life to beat each. Like Gravitar: Recharged, there’s one global leaderboard for mission mode, so you need to be on your game. Bosses pose a challenge, so you will need to take them head on with a barrage of bullets or start with the smaller, Minor Cores first and work your way to the boss.
- Power-Ups: Minor Cores will drop power-ups when attached. Shoot in all directions at once, rapid fire, explosive shots, or fire a railgun – the nature of the power up is tied to the nature of the core that dropped it.
- Co-op: Yars: Recharged is a local co-op game in both arcade and mission mode, a big change from the original and a ton of fun for you and a friend.
Yars: Recharged is due out Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam on August 23. We expect it to sell for $9.99.