As part of their increasingly kooky 60th Anniversary celebration, Sega is releasing four free retro-inspired titles on Steam for a very limited time. Rolling out once a day starting October 15th, all four games will then be delisted on October 19th at 10am PST / 6PM BST. I don’t think it was intended this way but it feels very nostalgia-appropriate for Sega to ape Nintendo’s recent antics and draw attention with a limited release window.
The first to be released on October 15th is Armor of Heroes, a top-down throwback to the various tank-based games of yore with some Company of Heroes assets. On the 16th you can grab Endless Zone, a side-scrolling shooter inspired by Fantasy Zone. Available from October 17th is Streets of Kamurocho, a mash-up of sorts between Streets of Rage and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s Yakuza.
Finally, on October 18th you can grab Golden Axed, a prototype of what Sega Australia was working on early in the 2010’s. Known as SEGA Reborn, the project became a reboot of several classic Sega franchises in an updated 2.5D style, all under the umbrella of an overarching hub world. Apparently Golden Axe was the only chunk that made it into a playable state and so Sega has packaged it up for release, though the story behind its actual development from programmer Tim Dawson might be the most interesting part.
Elsewhere in Sega’s celebration on Steam, you can grab a free copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 until October 19th, and get a free copy of NiGHTS into dreams if you sign up for their newsletter. There are other freebies and discounts to come so I’ll be back with anything else that has a delisting deadline ahead of it. Thanks to Kaizuken for pointing out the news.