Phantom Dust re-release hits Xbox One, PC tomorrow for free

Phantom Dust, one of the biggest surprise announcements at E3 2016, just got its last: It’s coming free tomorrow to Windows PC and Xbox One, Microsoft's head of games marketing, said today.

Polygon got a first look at the updated Phantom Dust earlier this month. Adam Isgreen, the game’s creative director, said the game would be updated to add a 16:9 aspect ratio, and support for 1080p or 4K resolution depending on the user’s display.

“We haven’t changed anything about the way that the original game worked,” Isgreen said. “So if people want to grind and they want to play exactly like they did when the original game came out, that is all in place. Everything about how the game works and functions is there. We really wanted to allow people to jump into multiplayer and play immediately.”

A new version of Phantom Dust, the 2005 card-collecting/strategy game on Xbox was first announced at E3 2014, though a year later Microsoft quietly walked back those plans. Greenberg later said the game wasn’t in active development, but it wasn’t canceled outright, either.

At E3 2016, Loftis said Phantom Dust would be updated for modern times. "We're using the original assets from the Phantom Dust that was released by Microsoft Japan in 2003," she said. "We are updating some key parts of it. We are updating it with modern Xbox Live. ... The game, when it came out, was very of its time."