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EA Officially Brings Back 25 PC Classics With Huge Sale
EA has released 25 restored classic PC games on Steam and GOG, including Wing Commander, Ultima and Theme Hospital. The project gives players access to older games with improved presentation, but its launch has drawn a mixed response amid anger over EA’s recent closure of BioWare.
Seven games are full remasters, including the Wing Commander titles, Road Rash and Privateer 2: The Darkening; the other 18 were already available on GOG and are new to Steam. Producer Jim Vessella said a team found nearly 20,000 archival media assets at EA’s Redwood Shores campus in 2022 and used original Wing Commander footage for higher-resolution transfers. The releases add features such as 60 frames per second support, though some players report controller problems. A petition calling for BioWare’s revival and its in-progress Mass Effect project has passed 300,000 signatures.
In short
- EA restored and released 25 classic PC games.
- Seven titles received full remasters.
- The launch comes amid continued backlash over BioWare’s closure.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Restoring these games makes influential works more accessible to new players and helps preserve parts of PC gaming history that might otherwise become harder to play. The archival work and technical updates show that EA is putting resources into keeping its back catalogue usable, while the sale offers players a relatively affordable way to revisit it.
The case against
A release of older games does not answer concerns about EA’s recent closure of BioWare or the loss of its in-progress Mass Effect project. Players may see the timing as a reason to question the company’s priorities, and reported controller problems suggest that bringing classics back is less valuable if the versions are not reliably playable.