For over 40 years, the Atari 2600 game The Revenge of Yars has endured. Atari has re-released the 1982 action game multiple times, both in cartridge form and built into retro consoles. Multiple developers have tried to remake, reinvent, or make an official sequel to the simplistic shooter.
In September, developer WayForward Technologies will try again The Revenge of Yarsbut it zigzags where others have zigzagged. WayForward’s Yars is rising is an action-adventure-exploration game in the style of Supermetroid And Shadow Complexand instead of a vengeful chrome alien fly, the protagonist is a young hacker – named Emi “Yar” Kimura – who tries to take down a shady corporation from within.
Yars is rising is certainly a deviation, but it is created “with as much reverence as possible” for the original The Revenge of Yarsgame director James Montagna tells Polygon.
“I’ve done about the deepest dive you can possibly do into the entire history of The Revenge of YarsMontagna told me over a video call. “I mean even things like the 1982 vinyl record release of The Revenge of Yars —really obscure stuff that maybe only two people in the world care about. We just tried to absorb as much knowledge as we could, because if we’re going to do this, we want to make sure we do it right. We want to know where it came from. And I think that’s really important when you get something like this, because it has a history and we want to honor it.”
Still, Yars is rising is thematically, aesthetically and mechanically very different from the original The Revenge of YarsBut that’s intentional, Montagna said. Some of it is in service of the new game’s story, but some of it, Montagna acknowledged, plays to WayForward’s strengths as a developer of platformers and Metroidvanias.
“It’s also a bit (of us) surprising players with something they might not have even known they wanted,” he said. “Nobody expected or asked for an exploration action platformer The Revenge of Yars reinvent, right? But I think part of our job as designers is to show people why and how something like this can be meaningful.”
The story of Yars is rising is about a black hat hacker group that is approached by a “mysterious figure with deep pockets to hack this mega-conglomerate called QoTech.” Emi takes the job because the price is right, Montagna explained. “She has an antagonistic streak; she does something that’s a little shady and dishonest right away,” he said. “She gets a job at QoTech to gain their trust over the course of a few weeks, and the game starts on the night that she’s going to pull off her heist. As the game progresses, you learn more and more about her backstory.
“Why is a The Revenge of Yars reimagining it to have this kind of character and this style of gameplay? It starts to make sense the more you play it. And I can’t explain much without giving certain things away completely, but it basically comes down to, well, this is how we communicate the story. It’s a genre that we’re good at, and kind of (that) we want to surprise and delight.”
Yars is rising honors the original The Revenge of Yars in one important way: The game is full of hacking mini-games that are built around the concept of the original game. To hack things in Risingyou play as the pixelated fly (Yar) and attack the enemy (Qotile), who is guarded by a shield. The hacking games are remixed versions of the original playing field, mixed with other classic Atari 2600 games such as Space Invaders And Rocket Command.
“It’s almost as much a WarioWare microgame experience in a certain light,” Montagna said. “It’s also a stealth game. So I think there’s so many elements of different (game genres) (…) probably why I personally hesitate to put certain labels on it, but I can’t correct anyone who calls it a Metroidvania.”
While WayForward attempts to do something new and different with its take on the Yars series, Rising is also an Atari love letter, Montagna said. In Yars is rising‘s gameplay trailer, you can see Computer room cabinets and references to Atari creator Nolan Bushnell. But these shoutouts to Atari’s history will be more than just set decoration, Montagna explained.
“In so many ways, we wanted to make it so that every detail is something that could potentially be important to someone,” he said. “There’s a way to do that that doesn’t feel invasive or[exclusionary]. There should be an emotional response — like, Oh, they get me. I grew up with this. Or I know what this is. So throughout the game, there are varying degrees of Atari references — even entire boss battles in this game are references to something that has to do with Atari in some way, shape, or form. I hope players are looking forward to seeing what that is.”
Image: WayForward Technologies/Atari
Even the game’s hacker hero is built around Atari iconography. Emi’s aqua-blue hair is a combination of the Atari “Fuji” logo and the silhouette of the original Yar sprite.
But Montagna said that Yars is rising can’t just rely on nostalgia or a familiar game name to be successful. It has to play great and be a good action-adventure-exploration game in a crowded market of Metroid-inspired retro games.
“I’m happy to say that we’ve done a pretty good job of making sure the flow is good,” Montagna said of Yars is rising‘s focus on precision and gameplay variety. “You’re shooting enemies, jumping from platform to platform, mowing through a series of enemies, and in the next room it changes. It becomes a bit of stealth gameplay where we slow things down. I think that ebb and flow is good, because when it’s just pure adrenaline, it can be tiring. We also add those hacking challenges, which also break up the moment-to-moment a bit.”
Yars is rising will be released on September 10 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
