Centipede was first released as an arcade cabinet in 1981 by Atari. The essence of a vintage game classic, Centipede: Recharged, has been transferred, recreated, and re-released numerous times over the previous forty years and is now getting a fresh lease on life.
On Tuesday, Atari released a trailer for the relaunched game. Although the publisher has yet to set a release date, the teaser reveals how Centipede: Recharged intends to revitalize the series.
Centipede: Recharged has a new, retro-futuristic appearance, with brilliant neon colors drenching the original wireframes. The style is comparable to Missile Command: Recharged from last year, and Adam Nickerson develops both games. Centipede: Recharged has a number of additional elements in addition to the basic bug-shooting action. There are a variety of new difficulty types and power-ups, as well as couch co-op.
Some of these additional modes were teased in the game’s reveal trailer. Indirect Approach is one of them, and it requires the player to shoot around a wall of unbreakable boulders. Another game, Bomberman, gives the player a large number of bombs with which to blast adversaries.
Wilderness, Flea Extermination, Spider Invasion Arrows, A Clear Path, Super Centipede, Don’t Kill a Centipede, and Four Chances are all included in the teaser. This isn’t an exhaustive list, and it’s unclear exactly what each mode includes. Regardless, the Atari classic appears to have a wide range of variants.
A couple of the new power-ups are also shown in the teaser. One shoots a solid purple laser that annihilates anything in its way. Another adds explosive rounds to the player’s arsenal for increased splash damage. A multi-shot power-up is also shown in the teaser.
In a quick interview, Nickerson explained to Axios how he almost lost his chance to revive the arcade classic. He claims his relationship with Atari began when he spotted an Atari email in his spam folder. Atari contacted Nickerson and gave him a catalog of titles, asking which ones he wanted to recreate. His favorite game as a kid was Missile Command, thus it was an obvious first pick.
Nickerson also shared his expectations for Centipede: Recharged. The independent game creator wants to remake his favorite old games while adding new features and concepts. He also believes that Centipede: Recharged will bring the classic arcade game to a new generation of players. There’s a good chance of accomplishing that goal if the future game has the same positive reaction as Missile Command: Recharged.
