Atari acquires rights to first five Wizardry games [Update 2]

Atari has acquired the rights to the first five Wizardry games, the company announced.

The acquired titles include Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981), Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds (1982), Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn (1983), Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna (1987), and Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom (1988), as well as “many other Wizardry-related video games, contract rights, and other related intellectual property.”

Drecom, the Japanese company which acquired the Wizardry intellectual property rights in 2020, will continue to hold the trademark worldwide, it clarified. It will also continue to own Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, and Wizardry 8, which are based on a different fictional universe.

Atari plans to bring back the “Original Wizardry” / “The Llylgamyn Saga” games, which “set the cornerstone for the Japanese RPG genre,” through expanded digital and physical distribution and the creation of remasters, collections, and new releases.

In addition to game publishing, merchandise, card and board games, books and comics, and TV and film projects are planned as part of a long-term plan to build an entertainment franchised based on the original  games.

“When Andrew Greenberg and I created Wizardry back in the 1980s, the video game industry was still in its infancy, and the original games were some of the first to bring the role-playing experience to PCs and consoles,” said Wizardry series co-creator Robert Woodhead in a press release. “As Atari continues to reintroduce the games on new platforms and to new audiences, I’ll definitely be paying attention to the reactions of gamers who decide to take on a real old-school challenge.”

Atari CEO and chairman Wade Rosen added, “Wizardry is such an influential RPG franchise, yet many of the games have been unavailable for more than two decades. We are excited to have this rare opportunity to republish, remaster, and bring console ports and physical releases of these early games to market.”

Atari-owned studio Digital Eclipse already released a remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord in 2024.

Update 05/07/26 at 3:00 a.m.: Despite Atari’s announcement that it has acquired the “underling [intellectual property]” for the first five Wizardry games, Drecom has said that Atari has not acquired the rights to the Wizardry intellectual property, which was what Gematsu originally reported.

Update 05/07/26 at 4:45 p.m.: Atari has provided Gematsu the following statement regarding its rights acquisition:

Atari has acquired the full rights to the first five Wizardry games and the underlying [intellectual property] behind them, which are considered to be the formative Wizardry titles and universe with which most fans are familiar. Drecom owns the Wizardry trademark. Atari collaborated with Drecom on our remake of Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

The underlying [intellectual property] is the collective Llylgamyn universe in which the first five games take place. This includes unique expressions and continuously named characters such as Werdna and Trebor, a constructed and unique spell language, the town of Llylgamyn itself, iconic items, distinctive and continuous monsters like the Creeping Coin, and unique components like the resurrection mechanic. All of these components are distinctive of the first five games and are incorporated into the IP which Atari now owns. This is wholly distinguished from the trademark, which is simply the word “Wizardry.”

The original Wizardry 1 to 5 and the later Wizardry 6 to 8 are distinct universes with different underlying rights ownership. So, while Drecom may own the Wizardry trademark and certain later-series rights, many of the characters, settings, lore elements, and other expressive components most closely associated by consumers with the original Wizardry games are separately owned by Atari.