(Pocket-lint) – Atari is reviving Akka Arrh, a game that was originally released as an arcade cabinet in 1982 and was just as hard to play as it is to pronounce.
The game is a wave shooter of sorts and is the result of a new collaboration between Atari and developer Jeff Minter, the man responsible for Tempest 4000 among other things. Now, the two will work together to bring the Akka Arrh game back to life for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch. Oh, and Atari VCS. It’s currently slated for an early 2023 release.
As for what on Earth Akka Arrh is, it’s a fun story. The game was originally created in 1982 but was canceled because playtesters said that it was just too hard. Gamers had to deal with waves of enemies and use a trackball to target them. The player actually controlled the Sentinel which had an octagonal field around it and was positioned in the centre of the screen. The idea was that people would destroy enemies and go after them if they found a way into that field.
That all sounds more complicated than it probably was, although maybe not if the playtesters are to be believed. The game was canned, with just three arcade cabinets thought to have been made.
This isn’t the first time that Akka Arrh has made an appearance since then, though. After an arcade ROM leaked online back in 2019 Atari released the game as part of the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration collection. But now it’s going to be a standalone thing and all freshened up thanks to Minter and his no doubt eye-breaking graphical style.
Writing by Oliver Haslam.
