EA has brought 25 classic PC games to Steam, including seven restored Anniversary Editions of Road Rash and six Wing Commander titles. The other 18 games—such as Theme Hospital, Strike Commander, Crusader, and eleven Ultima titles—are appearing on Steam for the first time. The Anniversary Editions are priced at $9.99, while the rest are $4.99, with a 50% discount available until November 19.
The restoration effort began in March 2022 when EA producer Jim Vessella discovered a storage room at EA's Redwood Shores campus containing nearly 20,000 old tapes, film reels, and CD-ROMs. By April 2026, around 6,000 items had been digitized, helping restore over 1,500 cutscenes. Much of the work was done on personal time, with Vessella using lunch breaks and evenings, and Brian Barnes dedicating weekends to Road Rash. Fan modders contributed community patches for Wing Commander, and GOG engineers built the Prophecy edition.
The 1996 PC version of Road Rash now runs at up to 60 FPS, features native controller support, a relicensed soundtrack including Soundgarden, and optional AI-upscaled cutscenes. Existing owners of Wing Commander on GOG or the EA App receive free Anniversary Edition upgrades.
Source: TechPowerUp News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing