Atari Wants to Remaster Forgotten Hideo Kojima Game

It feels like retro games have seen a surge of remasters and re-releases recently, as players long to revisit the golden eras of gaming. Retro games have offered a window into a different time, where live service monetization and player retention rates felt like secondary concerns that took a backseat to simply making a fun game. Now, gaming studios are actively searching through back catalogs to find which retro game remaster or re-release could be a huge hit to capitalize on the wave of nostalgia.

In a recent interview with Video Games Chronicle, Atari head Wade Rosen shared his thoughts on three different retro titles he would love to see reimagined. One of these was the Blade Runner-inspired adventure game called Snatcher, a Hideo Kojima classic that released way back in 1988 and has not seen a re-release or remaster on modern consoles.

Balancing Passion Projects and Financial Hits

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Aside from helping raise the current crop of gaming consumers, retro games also hold a considerable place of passion and influence for the leaders of the gaming industry, who played games growing up the same as the rest of us. Rosen told VGC in the interview that he struggles with deciding between which “passion projects” are worth pursuing and which actually have the legs to sell well in today’s environment: “Where you can, the end goal is always to try and do something that is both something we genuinely have a lot of passion about and has a lot of commercial viability.”

This led to discussions about which games still needed proper remasters and which ones were comparable to indie arthouse movie projects that game producers might only venture into as a treat for themselves and hardcore fans. “Life’s too short, you know? I’ve got mine too, right? If we ever had a chance to work on Panzer Dragoon Saga or Ogre Battle or Snatcher or something like that,” explained Rosen. “I don’t know if [Snatcher] would do well, but I’d probably push it through and make sure we did it just because I would love to work on one of those. But it all has to be in a balance. If this company just became like ‘what games does Wade want to work on?’, we would not be around too long.”

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Snatcher, which originally released on MSX2, captured the imaginations of Western gamers after it made its way to a 1995 Sega CD release. Thanks to a strong narrative and rich atmosphere, it created a cult following that considers it one of Kojima’s best projects. But despite enduring enthusiasm for the game, there’s never really been a follow-up project. There was a radio drama prequel released in 2011 called Sdatcher, produced by Kojima and Lollipop Chainsaw game designer Goichi Suda, but that’s about it. Lollipop Chainsaw has recently had its own struggles, as fans worry that Suda won’t be part of future projects.

Aside from the radio drama, the series has primarily stayed in the state it was released in. It would be nice to have a modern remaster of the game, since it can be challenging to track down on specific systems, thanks to a surge in retro collecting that has inflated the prices of gaming classics in recent years.

Atari, with its iconic status in classic gaming, would be an excellent choice for bringing Snatcher to a new generation of gamers. After all, they’ve recently announced plans to remaster five Ubisoft games, with new content and releases on new platforms. I also recently enjoyed the Heretic + Hexen remaster, released by Atari subsidiary Nightdive Studios, which has an excellent reputation for these kind of games. However, Nightdive Studios boss Stephen Kick seems to currently have his heart set on reviving Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem.

What are your thoughts on the possibility of bringing Snatcher back in some form in the future? Is it something that you will play through again, or pick up for the first time?