Atari and Firaxis Sign Long-Term Deal

At a press event last night, Firaxis announced that it is working on Sid Meier's Pirates!, the long-awaited update of Sid Meier's classic game from 1987. Atari and Firaxis today announced that they have entered into a long-term publishing deal that not only includes Pirates!, but also includes a "variety of additional properties from the Civilization franchise." The deal also involves two unnamed future titles.

"With Civ III, Firaxis and Atari have shown the world that we can take a fresh look at the games that fans have played and loved for decades and deliver some of the best gameplay experiences available today," said Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis Games. "We're inundated with requests from fans asking us to bring back some of my classic games and I'm excited that we now have that opportunity."

"Atari is a premier publisher in the industry and we're thrilled that our strong relationship with them will once again reunite us with Sid's classic games," said Jeff Briggs, president and CEO of Firaxis Games. "These titles represent some of the most engaging and fun games ever created for the PC, and both Firaxis and Atari are looking forward to bringing these classics to a new generation of gamers."

The deal also transfers the rights to a number of classic Sid Meier games from Atari to Firaxis. These include Sid Meier's Pirates!, Sid Meier's Colonization, Covert Action, Gunship, Silent Service, F-19 Stealth Fighter, F-15 Strike Eagle, and Sid Meier's CPU Bach. Firaxis plans to work with Atari to publish games based on some of these properties.

For more details on the new Pirates! game, check out our report from the unveiling event.

Editor's note 05/20/03: When this story was originally posted, it mistakenly stated that rights to a number of Sid Meier games were transfered to Atari, when in fact those rights were transfered from Atari to Firaxis. GameSpot regrets the error.