As a part of the quiet Summer we’ve had has included news out of Alan-1. They had a large booth at Amusement Expo 2026 in Vegas, where they showed off three prototypes for games in the Atari Recharged series: Breakout, Caverns of Mars, and Yars Recharged. That was the last that we heard about them, and now California Extreme (better known as “CAX”) is upon us, and we have two new prototypes to look at with Black Widow & Quantum Recharged.
As a disclaimer, I was working with Alan-1 on things like some game design up until the Spring of this year, and had some contributions through playtesting and game design suggestions on all of the Recharged titles up to these three. I don’t know how much of that was kept in the final versions, but at least when I last had played them, I felt that they played closer to their original games while still carrying a unique identity (Caverns being my favorite of the bunch).
Onto the news
Breakout, Caverns of Mars, & Yars Recharged Available Now
First off, I was able to confirm that the trio of Recharged games in the subheader here are available and shipping. I’d been trying to find out when they were going to be available over the past few months but was unable to get an answer. Turns out they became available in June, so I’ve updated the Arcade Releases page to reflect that. Breakout & Yars likely carry the most retro recognition among players, although I have a soft spot in my heart for Caverns of Mars, as it feels so much like the Activision classic River Raid (one of my favorite games from the ’80s). All three of these featured a lot of changes from the console versions so they are all unique versions – plus they use the cool Pepper’s Ghost effect that you can’t get at home.
All three of these are at Alan-1’s CAX booth (#1855), sporting their production cabinets and software builds. From what I can tell, the artwork inside of each machine is more prominent, and I assume they made other adjustments/fixes to them based on feedback from the show and any testing they did.
On a related note, Alan-1 is also doing their annual MLeS tournament where the winner of the whole thing will walk away with one of these Recharged games. That seems to be drawing in the crowds more than it ever has before.
First Prototypes Of Black Widow & Quantum Recharged
Also making their debut (but not released/shipping yet) are two more of the ten Atari Recharged games, Black Widow and Quantum Recharged. The original titles that these were based on were both launched in 1982, both of which were vector games, Black Widow being a conversion kit for Gravitar, and Quantum just such an abstract game that it never sold big numbers. Because of their vector nature, they weren’t great candidates for ports to Atari’s computers & consoles(although the Atari ST could’ve done them some justice), and they were ignored until Atari did these Recharged updates a few years ago.
Disclaimer: These are prototype models, so anything from the artwork to the gameplay may change from what is shown here.
It wasn’t stated why, but these are not using the “MirrorFX” Pepper’s Ghost design of the three aforementioned games. It’s possible that the production models could switch over to that, or they might keep them this way (IMHO, both of these games would look cooler with that effect in place). It also wasn’t stated what is different about these compared to the console games that they are based on.
Black Widow is a twin-stick shooter, while Quantum uses a trackball. I hadn’t played Quantum Recharged on consoles, but was told that it played a little differently than the arcade original. That is not a surprise as all of the Recharged games strayed from their original in one way or another (usually several ways). That said, all of Alan-1’s other Recharged ports were improvements on the console versions, as I could tell when I was playtesting the others that the 3rd party who made the Recharged versions didn’t really “get” the arcade design of the originals. Alan-1 was working to restore that, as best they could, while throwing in some additional improvements.
When these two will launch has not been stated, aside from “later this year,” but I’ll endeavor to find out for certain and report on them when they are available. This also leaves only two games left out of the series for Alan-1 to port – Berzerk & Centipede. Berzerk was one of the least liked Recharged ports by the fans, although I think it has great potential; I did sit in on some discussion meetings for both of those games, but it remains to be seen what will be changed about them.
Perhaps we’ll see them all at IAAPA 2026, as Alan-1 has not one, but two giant booth spaces there, including an odd space at the front of the inflatables area. We’ll have to wait and see what that’s all about. If they are though, then that should mark the end of all the Recharged ports, bringing ten new Atari video games back to arcades.
Quick Bit On CAX 2026
From what I’ve been able to gather from those who are there, the show is apparently “a little smaller” this year, not in terms of space being used (same rooms as before), but in the number of games brought. Stern does not have the giant presence that they had at the more recent CAX events, such as the last time I was there in 2024 and they took up a lot of space with several games.
This all might be due how late they were in announcing when the show would happen this year, which is a shame if true, but at least it still did happen, as this is also the 30th anniversary of CAX, so that’s worth celebrating.
What are your thoughts on all that Alan-1 has shown this year and CAX 2026?
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