Good news to all SEGA fans and retro gamers. Every SEGA game ever made is coming to iOS and Android, and it’s free-to-play. SEGA has just announced SEGA Forever, which will offer games released for every console era—Master System, Genesis/Mega Drive, Dreamcast and more—via smartphone or tablet.
SEGA Forever will launch this week on iOS and Android for free. Some of the titles that are expected to be released are Mega Drive games Altered Beast , Comix Zone , Kid Chameleon , Phantasy Star II , and Sonic The Hedgehog . According to Metro UK , these games will be playable offline and has modern features such as cloud saves, online leaderboards, and Bluetooth controller support.
SEGA plans to release a new game every two weeks , until eventually incorporating titles from every SEGA console from the SG-1000 through to the Dreamcast. Behind the SEGA Forever concept is Chief Marketing Officer Mike Evans who shares that he also has plans of including previous unreleased games in the West such as Dreamcast game Segagaga , and Girl’s Garden , the first game from Yuji Naka.
“We’ve never before done something that really crosses all of the different gaming eras, and isn’t prejudice against someone because they grew up in the ’80s versus the ’90s. And so what we’re trying to do is look at how we can take content that spans two decades and make it all available in the same place,” Evans tells Metro UK .
The only setback is that the SEGA games were designed to work on a proper controller and not on a touchscreen. To this, Evans says that they are trying to get the experience as good as possible, but for those who don’t want to play on a touchscreen, players can buy a cheap Bluetooth controller, which can even be set up on the TV.
Unfortunately, there will be no added difficulty levels or aids, other than lowering the difficulty within the game itself. This is because the SEGA team prefers to keep the games faithful to the original.
“We haven’t gone in and changed the original ROM itself, we’ve kept them as faithful emulations. Which was important in making this project work commercially,” Evans explains.
Since the games are free, the way that SEGA will profit is through short adverts that would play before the start of a game. According to Metro UK , there are plans in the future for a subscription service, where there would be no need to wait for the ads to play out. For now, there is an option to pay £1.99 for each game to get rid of the ads.
Meanwhile, Eurogamer was able to try some of the games on both Android and iPhone. According to the popular gaming blog site, although the ads didn’t seem at all intrusive, the appeal for use of a physical controller is definitely there. SEGA is also reported to be working on native apps for the Apple TV and Android TV.
[Featured Image by Jae C. Hong/AP Images]