Mastertronic and Abstraction Games announced today that The Chaos Engine, the classic Amiga game originally developed by legendary outfit The Bitmap Brothers, will be coming to PC, Linux and Mac on 29th August. The early ‘90s top-down shooter has been lovingly restored by Abstraction Games, the team who recently brought Hotline Miami to the PS3 and Vita, in close consultation with Mike Montgomery, one of the founding members of The Bitmap Brothers. Abstraction Games have been entrusted with rebuilding The Bitmap Brothers game from the ground up in its original form, as well as throwing in an alternative mode with a few extra enhancements.
The original version of The Chaos Engine was one of the first games to introduce a skill system in action-adventure games, helping players improve their characters and equip individualized weapons.
In The Chaos Engine, players will be able to choose from six hard-nailed mercenaries, each with their own unique weapons and skills to combat the bizarre monstrosities created by the machine.
Players will battle through four unique worlds in single-player or online and local co-op modes. Two game modes – ‘Enhanced mode’ and ‘Classic mode’ – will be available, alongside the game’s original graphics and controls for the true Amiga experience. Steam Achievements will test the mettle of both new players and old fans. This restoration of the classic Amiga shooter includes all the intense gameplay of the original with enhanced graphics, controls and Steam features.
Mike Montgomery, one of the founding members of The Bitmap Brothers, said:
“This really feels like the right time to bring back The Chaos Engine. There are many fond memories of The Chaos Engine and I wanted to make sure that the game was true to the original without losing its charm during the restoration process. The option to play in the original ‘Classic’ mode with the added option to play in ‘Enhanced mode’ with its refined pixel-perfect finish is a clever way to satisfy all enthusiasts! It feels a completely natural transition to the PC.”
Ralph Egas, CEO of Abstraction Games, added:
“We grew up with the Amiga and those classic Bitmap games were the inspiration for a lot of us who went on to work in games and development. For many of us, The Chaos Engine was our first taste of co-op and was a platform that incited our love of top down shooters. The Chaos Engine holds such fond memories for so many people and it stands the test of time and we were determined to restore the game to its full and amazing pixel-perfect glory, with a couple of cool enhancements!”
Stuart Morton, Executive Producer at Mastertronic concluded:
‘‘The Chaos Engine holds very fond memories for so many people and so many great games have been ruined by bad remakes. We didn’t want to remake it. It is a great game and we found very quickly when we went back and played the original that the gameplay still holds up very well. A lot of fondly-remembered games are pretty disappointing when you go back and look at them now, but The Chaos Engine still plays beautifully today .”
The Chaos Engine will be released on Steam, Get Games and GOG on 29th August for PC, Mac and Linux.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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