Atari acquires the rights to the RPG that has shaped all RPGs
Atari has acquired the rights to multiple iterations of the Wizardry franchise. Holding the licenses for 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), as well as “many other video games, rights, and other intellectual properties related to Wizardry.” This could well translate into new games for the franchise as well as series, movies, comics, or any other kind of productions. Wizardry, one of the most […]
Atari has acquired the rights to multiple iterations of the Wizardry franchise. Holding the licenses for 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), as well as “many other video games, rights, and other intellectual properties related to Wizardry.”
Wizardry, one of the most influential video games in history
In fact, Atari is not new to the world of Wizardry. In 2024, they published a remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, developed by the studio Digital Eclipse, which updated the graphics and mechanics of the game to make it more accessible to new generations of players. Something very necessary given the difficulty and roughness of a game originally released in 1981 for the Apple II.
The importance of Wizardry cannot be overlooked in any case. The franchise is of great significance to video games, as it shaped what RPGs would become thereafter.
Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Baldur’s Gate are direct heirs of Wizardry, as their creators have explicitly stated more than once, but anime also has a clear heritage from this game, as its popularity was such that it has influenced numerous cultural productions outside of video games, including the pioneer of high fantasy in Japan: Record of Lodoss War.
On the other hand, it seems that things are not so clear. Drecom, the company behind the rights to Wizardry in Japan and which has been in a decades-long struggle for the rights with its original creator, Robert Woodhead, claims that Atari has not acquired the rights to Wizardry. Therefore, it seems that there will still be discussion about how all this will translate into the future of the franchise.
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