Atari Mania looks like a WarioWare mashup of early console classics

Atari has made some dubious attempts to capitalize on its console gaming legacy over the past decade or so, but Atari Mania doesn’t appear to be one of them. Announced on Thursday, the Windows PC game is a collection of minigames that mash up staples of the Atari 2600 library, all in the name of historical preservation.

In the announcement trailer above, I see callbacks to Outlaw, Yars’ Revenge, Breakout, Combat, Circus Atari, Warlords, and Adventure, all presented in an updated, pixelated style. (Instead of the 2600’s … what, 4-bit graphics?) The minigames are a blend of the classic titles’ characters and gameplay — for example, using a Pong paddle to fight off the bugs in Centipede.

There’s even a story wrapping around all of this: “You are the Caretaker of the Atari Vault, the storehouse of classic Atari games,” says the promo copy. “One night, a dead pixel appears and soon enough, all heck breaks loose!!”

Atari Mania promises more than 150 of these microgames when it launches on Steam later this summer. And if the teaser is any indication, there should be Easter eggs, deep cuts, and sly references aplenty — including what the Adventure adventurer would look like if they weren’t, you know, a yellow block.