So many game publishers are trying to get their titles out of the shadow of Grand Theft Auto 6, leading to a comically crowded September this year. But Atari isn’t blinking, releasing–of all things–a collection of classic Barbie games exactly a week before Rockstar’s behemoth.
Developed by Digital Eclipse, Barbie Rewind is a compilation of 16 Barbie games released between 1991 and 2007. It’s out on November 12 on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, and both Nintendo Switch platforms. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick is presumably shaking in his boots.
The full list of included titles hasn’t been revealed yet, but one of the announced games is the previously unreleased Barbie: Vacation Adventure, giving the collection a sort of Star Fox 2 moment.
Barbie Rewind isn’t the only Atari release on GTA 6’s month–the company is also putting out a remastered version of Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee on all modern platforms on November 3, 16 days before GTA launches.
Remasters and retro compilations are relatively low-key releases compared to modern blockbuster games, so it’s doubtful that Atari wants the attention that other big game companies fear losing to GTA 6. On the other hand, Barbie Rewind’s close proximity to Rockstar’s blockbuster makes for some hilarious counterprogramming, and it would be amusing to see fans and Atari itself try to capitalize on this, similar to the Barbenheimer phenomenon in 2023.
We know for certain that Devolver Digital plans to deliberately release a game on the same day as GTA 6, though such plans are unclear, other than the publisher still seems committed to this stunt. We’ll see what it has to add to Grand Theft Barbie: Destroy All Monsters, or whatever people decide to call November.
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