Atari buys Wizardry intellectual property

This one is for some of our long-time readers. Atari, yes, this Atari bought the rights to the first “Wizardry” games.

I’m often asked how I started using Apple products. More precisely, it was an Apple II in the late 70s, without more, e, C or GS. Among the first titles given to my youngster was the original Witchcraft.

It was eighth grade, graduation. I’m sure some high school students suffered from this.

It didn’t always boot on my single drive DOS 3.3 system. But the drives were portable and I carried them around to my friends’ houses, which later during that high school period were Apple IIc and Laser 128 compatible.

Thanks, Luke and John. Additionally, thanks to a reset key on the keyboard, which if pressed alone on my Apple II keyboard or control opening Apple-reset on the others before the reader updates the characters as dead, would allow you to easily recover them.

Regardless, for years, emulation, crude acquisition methods, and, more recently, classic game providers were the only way to play the early games in the series, despite the franchise’s rise in Japan. Flash forward to 2026, and the modern incarnation of Atari has purchased the “full and exclusive rights” to the first five games and their intellectual property.

Starting with Burst Developed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Atari has fallen on hard times over the decades in an evolving industry. Without getting into the various sagas, the most recent major change has been a change in leadership in 2021, including a strange blockchain and NFT period.

The current Atari is primarily focused on releasing modernized versions of classic titles, and Witchcraft is already part of it.

“Wizardry is a very influential RPG franchise, yet many games have not been available for over two decades,” said Wade Rosen, CEO and president of Atari. “We are thrilled to have this rare opportunity to re-release, remaster and release console ports and physical versions of these early games.”

The acquisition, announced on May 7, comes two years after a Witchcraft “remake.” The remake essentially overlays modern graphics on top of the older Apple II interface, similar to how Halo, the Master Chief collection overlays 2012 graphics over the 2000 Xbox original.

Unfortunately, it’s not great. I’ve played it from time to time, on my gaming PC, and it has some jaw-dropping character deletion bugs.

Atari managed to speak to Robert Woodhead, one of the co-creators of the franchise.

“When Andrew Greenberg and I created Witchcraft In the 1980s, the video game industry was still in its infancy, and the original games were among the first to bring the role-playing experience to PC and consoles,” Woodhead said. “As Atari continues to reintroduce games to new platforms and to new audiences, I will certainly be watching for feedback from gamers who decide to take on a real, old-fashioned challenge.”

Andrew Greenberg, the other co-founder, died at age 67 in August 2024.

For now, I’m not encouraged by the state of the first remake, which was made by one of Atari’s in-house studios. We will see if things improve after this announcement.

The titles included in the deal are:

All had Apple II versions. The first two had Macintosh versions in the United States and a third was released in Japan, covering the first three installments. There are other titles after V, but they are owned by a different company, not covered by this agreement and considered an alternate universe.

The acquisition also includes numerous other Witchcraft associated video games, contractual rights and other related intellectual property. Presumably this also includes WizEdit and other character editors I used at the time to rejuvenate my characters.

In case you’re wondering, I managed to beat the first two titles back in the day.