Atari announced this morning that publishing subsidiary Infogrames has acquired the Surgeon Simulator series from previous owner tinyBuild Inc. This marks the second casual, physics-heavy multiplayer game Infogrames has absorbed this year following April’s move to grab Totally Reliable Delivery Service also from tinyBuild. Surgeon Simulator has released numerous games in the franchise, including VR titles and the most recent Surgeon Simulator 2: Access All Areas, which released in 2020 for PC and 2021 for Xbox.
For the uninitiated, Surgeon Simulator has the player performing numerous surgical tasks of escalating complexity and strangeness all while having to contend with realtime physics and other obstacles. With these additions to relaunched Infogrames label, it seems like the publisher might be a new bastion for chaos simulators popular on streaming platforms.
Officially, Atari says via press release that Infogrames will “acquire IP and publish games that fall outside the core portfolio of IP associated with the Atari brand.” They also note that, consistent with their parent company’s general ethos, Infogrames “sees game preservation as a core component of its mission.”
The Surgeon Simulator acquisition adds to an already busy week for Atari, who announced Tuesday they will add 39 games to Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection, an expanded version of the critically acclaimed game/interactive digital museum/documentary. The new version of the title will have its own digital release across all modern platforms and a physical release for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch, the latter getting an additional Steelbook edition retailing for $49.99 with some fancy extras.
Folks who have already purchased Atari 50 will be able to get the additions found in The Anniversary Collection in DLC later this year. Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection comes out on October 25.
Between this week’s developments and their acquisition of the Intellivision name and library in May, Atari is having an extremely busy year so far. All of this and they’re not stuck with figuring out what to do with the Amico. Huge!
