Mr. Run and Jump Will Be Atari's First New 2600 Cartridge in Over 30 Years

ign.com:

Mr. Run and Jump may be coming out on consoles and PC later this year, but the action platformer will also come packaged in an Atari 2600 cartridge, marking it the first new 2600 cartridge game in over 30 years.

Atari announced on Tuesday that the Atari 2600 version of Mr. Run and Jump, made by the company in collaboration with John Mikula, a developer from St. Louis-based indie studio Graphite Lab, will be sold in a limited-edition cartridge. The new game will be sealed in a high-quality box and come with an instruction manual. The cartridge is also engineered to operate on older hardware, especially the Atari VCS — if you still have one of those.

The Atari 2600 cartridge version of Mr. Run and Jump features 80 new screens across six different worlds and a unique scoring system that has your gameplay session starting at 25000 points. Every second that passes by takes a point off, and you lose 100 points every time you crash into an enemy.

In Mr. Run and Jump, which was announced last month, the titular white cone-nosed character's dog, Leap, has wandered toward the Dark Realm and is in danger of never coming back if he goes too far. Now Mr. Run and Jump must venture off to the strange world and save his best friend before it's too late.

The cartridges are manufactured from new materials and parts, designed with beveled edges to prevent pin damage, strong gold-plated connectors, and a power draw that is identical to that of the original cartridges. They're up for pre-order on Atari's website now for $60.

Mr. Run and Jump will release on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam and Epic Game Store, and Atari VCS in 2023.

Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. To paraphrase Calvin Harris,