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Ziggurat Interactive announces Retro First Friday, featuring monthly gaming launches

Publisher Ziggurat is kicking off the premiere of its Retro First Friday reveals with Return of the Phantom, Altered Destiny, Hunting Unlimited, and The Train: Escape to Normandy.

TJ Denzer

August 7, 2020 4:05 AM

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For some time now, Ziggurat Interactive has poured effort into acquiring, remastering, and relaunching retro games for new and modern audiences. The group has already overseen the launch of a growing selection of titles, but it’s about to start doing it regularly with the launch of Retro First Friday: a presentation on the first Friday of each month in which Ziggurat will reveal several new launches of retro games. What’s more, it comes with a lovely first slate of titles.

Ziggurat Interactive announced Retro First Friday with its first episode on the Ziggurat YouTube channel on August 7, 2020. The first line-up of games includes Return of the Phantom, Altered Destiny, Hunting Unlimited 1, and The Train: Escape to Normandy. 1993’s Return of the Phantom and 1990’s Altered Destiny feature two classic graphical adventures, the first being point-and-click and the latter being a text-based command game. Return of the Phantom presents players with a somber and dramatic murder mystery while Altered Destiny is more sci-fi and colorful affair.

Meanwhile, Hunting Unlimited 1 supplies players with a classic hunting experience in which they use bows, rifles, and other gear to track and hunt big game. Where once it was a sparse forest full of waiting and chance, Hunting Unlimited 1 has been reworked to give players a more engaging and less tedious experience across 220 hunting missions.

Finally, 1987’s The Train: Escape to Normandy has players taking on the roles of a train hijacker and their forces trying to escape Nazi Germany via a steam train. While on the tracks, you’ll maintain the train’s speed, pressure, and more while fending off strafing planes with anti-aircraft guns and protecting your forces at stops as they resupply the train amid attacking Nazi soldiers.

Ziggurat Publishing shared its initiative to publish a library of retro games with Shacknews back in March when we spoke with CEO Wade Rosen about Ziggurat’s efforts and priorities towards reviving classic games that would otherwise be lost the sands of time. Since then, the group has also relaunched titles like classic real-time strategy Krush, Kill, n’ Destroy on Steam.

With Retro First Friday launched with its first slate of games, it’s safe to say Ziggurat will have plenty of classic gaming goodness to show off in the months to come. Stay tuned to see what launches month to month.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.