What EA actually released
EA announced that 25 retro games are coming to Steam and other platforms, including seven remastered anniversary editions. According to EA's launch post, the games are also available through GOG and the EA App. Steam is new for most of them.
The seven restored titles are:
- Road Rash: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander: 35th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi: 35th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander Prophecy: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Privateer 2: The Darkening: 30th Anniversary Edition
The other 18 are what EA calls faithful ports. They are Wing Commander: Privateer, Academy and Armada, Strike Commander, Theme Hospital, Crusader: No Remorse and No Regret, and the Ultima series. The Ultima titles are Ultima I through IX plus Ultima Underworld I and II. They have not been restored in the same way.
That distinction matters. "25 games" does not mean 25 remasters. Seven got the restoration treatment, and the other 18 are the old games, available in new places.
The vault story
EA says the project started in March 2022. Senior Producer Jim Vessella found a physical media vault at the Redwood Shores campus. EA describes it as filled with archival assets, and says it held almost 20,000 items, including Betacam, VHS and D1 tapes, film reels and CD-ROMs. A small team digitized the contents. EA says they preserved about 2,500 hours of footage.
The payoff is the full-motion video (FMV) cutscenes. The original game video had been compressed for 1990s CD-ROM. EA says it found the source master tapes, digitized them and re-edited the scenes frame by frame. Counts differ by game:
- Wing Commander III and IV: more than 1,000 FMV scenes between them.
- Wing Commander Prophecy: more than 150 scenes.
- Privateer 2: more than 100 scenes.
- Road Rash: "dozens" of scenes.
One outlet, Bestgamesworld, reports a combined figure of more than 1,500 restored scenes across the seven games. I would treat that total as a secondary tally. EA's own per-game numbers don't obviously sum to it, because Wing Commander I and II aren't described as having restored FMVs.
For each game, EA also offers optional AI-style upscaling. EA says it uses "the latest in video upscaling technology." The restored masters are the default, and upscaling is an extra. Privateer 2 also gets an alternate Director's Cut. EA says the original cinematics director color-corrected, restored and re-edited each scene.
What changed on the PC side
The release leans heavily on community patches that Wing Commander fans built over many years. EA bundles them rather than reinventing them.
Wing Commander I and II each ship in two flavors:
- DOS versions come with the community WCAT patch. EA says it restores the gameplay and audio feel of a 386 PC and adds improved controls and asteroid adjustments.
- Kilrathi Saga versions are the Windows-era releases. They are digital for the first time, according to EA. They add digital music and sound, a re-orchestrated soundtrack and optional drop-away cockpit support. They also include the community Wcdx patch. EA lists gameplay speed fixes, better controller support, optional cheats and windowed mode.
Wing Commander III and IV bundle the community Enhancement Patch. EA lists 60 FPS gameplay, higher-resolution FMVs, advanced levels of detail, better controller and joystick support and cockpit configuration for widescreen monitors. Wing Commander III also includes its Kilrathi Saga version.
Privateer 2 gets its own Enhancement Patch. EA lists smoother frame rates, the higher-resolution FMVs and improved controller and joystick support.
Wing Commander Prophecy gets an Enhancement Patch with higher-resolution FMVs and advanced levels of detail.
Road Rash is the odd one. EA calls it a PC release that is the first digital version of the 1996 PC game. Its modern-system changes include:
- frame rates up to 60 FPS
- native controller support
- windowed mode
- cloud saves
EA also says the soundtrack was relicensed. It names Soundgarden, Paw, Hammerbox, Monster Magnet, Swervedriver and Therapy? as the bands. Music licensing is a classic reason old games vanish from digital stores, so this is a real feat.
Pricing, discounts and the upgrade offer
The announced list prices are modest. The Anniversary Editions of Road Rash and Wing Commander are $9.99 SRP each, with all other classic titles at $4.99 SRP each. The coverage doesn't clearly establish whether that is the sale price or the regular one.
The sale window is less clear. EA's own post says special pricing on Steam and GOG runs from November 5 to 19, and one other outlet repeats that. Two other reports give a window of November 5 to 9. If you are budgeting, check the store page before assuming the longer window.
Ownership rules are worth knowing:
- Anyone who already owns a digital copy of the Wing Commander titles on GOG or the EA App automatically receives the Anniversary Edition upgrade for free on that platform.
- That offer is tied to GOG and the EA App. EA's wording doesn't extend it to Steam, and Steam was not previously a place to own these titles.
- Road Rash and Privateer 2 aren't covered by the Wing Commander wording in the coverage I reviewed.
- GOG says its Anniversary Editions arrive as a two-game pack, with the legacy version and the new anniversary version.
Why it matters, and what to be skeptical about
For PC users, this is a case study in software preservation. Getting a 1990s game running on Windows 10 or 11 usually takes some combination of DOSBox, compatibility settings, fan patches and luck. Here, the publisher found the source media and then adopted the community's compatibility work.
There are caveats:
- EA's claims are untested. The feature lists and phrases like "best cinematics ever seen" come from EA. I haven't seen independent compatibility testing, so treat "optimized for modern hardware" as a claim.
- Features differ by title. Windowed mode, 60 FPS and widescreen cockpits are listed for specific games, not all seven.
- The 18 ports are not restorations. The Ultima, Crusader and Theme Hospital entries are the original games, newly available on Steam. EA describes them as the purest trip down memory lane.
- Old licensing can bite later. The soundtrack deal for Road Rash is a good sign, but it shows how fragile these re-releases can be.
If you're deciding what to buy, the Anniversary Editions are the ones with new engineering behind them. For the rest, you're paying a few dollars to get a classic onto a current storefront. Whether that is exciting or merely convenient depends on how much you love Ultima.