EA Revives 25 Classic Games on Steam and GOG, Including Ultima and Wing Commander with Enhanced Editions

Electronic Arts is re-releasing 25 classic games from its catalog on Steam today, featuring seven Anniversary Editions for six Wing Commander titles and Road Rash. The other re-releases include every Ultima RPG, both Crusader games, Strike Commander, and Theme Hospital. The 18 standard re-releases are priced at $4.99 each, while the quality-of-life-updated Anniversary Editions are $9.99 each.

EA describes the quality-of-life updates as making these refreshed versions "support modern systems, controls, improve performance and make the titles more approachable without compromising their authenticity." For Wing Commander, which is perhaps best known for its full-motion video (FMV) cutscenes starring Mark Hamill, EA explains: "For each restored Wing Commander title, these improvements were made possible by the dedicated community, who were open and eager to collaborate with the passionate team at EA to incorporate their mods into the official releases. This launch is a celebration of the community’s commitment to the franchise, which is why anyone who already owns a digital copy of the Wing Commander titles on GOG or the EA App will automatically receive the Anniversary Edition upgrade for free on their respective digital platform."

Regarding the Anniversary Editions, including my personal favorite, Road Rash (check out the trailer above), EA says: "The Anniversary Editions have been a labor of love, inspired by the discovery of a physical media vault containing thousands of Betacam, VHS, and D1 tapes alongside other media assets. 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."

The Ultima series, meanwhile, was the brainchild of legendary RPG designer Richard "Lord British" Garriott, who went on to build a castle for a house and later become one of the first private citizens to go into outer space. You can hear about those stories and more on my old IGN Unfiltered interview with him from 2017.

Here's the full list of classic games EA is re-releasing: