Xbox Game Pass's Retro Classics now offers a mammoth 95 titles as 7 Activision Blizzard’s 90s games join in

Seven 90s retro games from Blizzard Entertainment are joining Microsoft’s Xbox Retro Classics streaming service, bringing the total library to 95 games. These titles include many games released during Blizzard’s formative years, when the company was known by the moniker Silicon and Synapse. All seven games are now available to all Game Pass tier users, including Game Pass Essential.

The updated library also brings back the PlayStation version of The Lost Vikings 2, the 1997 puzzle platformer, which wasn’t included in the Blizzard Arcade Collection.

These retro classics include games before the Blizzard’s Warcraft heyday. Among them is Blackthorne, a rotoscope-animated adventure platformer similar to Prince of Persia, in which players play as Kyle “Blackthorne” Vlaros. Xbox Retro Classics adds both the 1993 Sega Genesis and 1994 SNES ports.

Released on the SNES in 1993, The Lost Vikings allows players to control three Vikings, Erik, Baleog, and Olaf, through an alien spaceship in a puzzle-platformer, which went on to influence co-op games like the Trine series.

The Lost Vikings 2: Norse by Norsewest was released in 1997 and is available in two flavors: the SNES version features the SNES’s 2D style, while the PlayStation port uses pre-rendered 3D sprites for a more polished look.

Rounding up the list is RPM Racing for the SNES, which was released in 1991, an isometric racing game featuring 128 upgradeable tracks, and its next installment, Rock n’ Roll Racing, which was released on the SNES in 1993 and featured incredible chiptune renditions of songs like Black Sabbath’s Paranoid and Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild.

Blizzard shipped these titles during its scrappy days as Silicon and Synapse, a small team that was pumping out ports and original games before moving on to bigger-than-life projects like Diablo, StarCraft, World of Warcraft, and more.

Gamers can access this expanded library of classic SNES, Genesis, and PlayStation titles via Game Pass on Xbox consoles, the Xbox PC app, or via cloud streaming on LG and Samsung Smart TVs or Meta Quest headsets.

But this is just the beginning, as the developers over at Antstream Arcade have already teased that they’re ready to revive more classic retro titles in the coming year. This could finally see Microsoft's promised '100+ titles over time' commitment come to fruition, largely bolstered by Activision Blizzard's offerings of late.

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