Atari will publish its first VR game this summer: the nostalgic Pixel Ripped 1978. It’s coming to both Meta Quest 2 and PSVR2.
Legendary game giant Atari is breaking into VR. This summer, the company will publish Pixel Ripped 1978, the third entry in the standout VR Pixel Ripped series. It will launch on PC and PlayStation 5 and be compatible with both PlayStation VR 2 and Meta Quest 2.
Pixel Ripped is a standout VR series that pays homage to classic game eras. They generally tell coming-of-age stories built around the changing tech of the time, tying pivotal moments in gaming’s growth to its young main characters. Previous installments have explored 1989 and 1995, but the new one is going back even further to explore 1978 — and that’s fitting considering Atari will publish it.
Rather than following a kid growing up with games, the story revolves around a woman named Bug, who’s working at Atari during the early days of the gaming industry. She’s tasked with creating and testing some of the company’s most iconic games. While players get to control classic games in VR (in a sort of game-within-a-game), Bug also has the power to jump into the game worlds themselves and debug them. It’s a meta narrative that celebrates Atari’s history through its classic games.
Digital Trends went hands-on with the game at this year’s Game Developers Conference. In the slice I played, I sat in Bug’s office playing a 2D side-scroller that drew inspiration from Atari classics like Pitfall! At certain points, I could warp into the game world, which put me in a pixelated, almost Minecraft-like space where I could shoot dragons with an arm blaster and solve puzzles that would in turn fix “bugs” in the game.
