Re-Volt is a cult-classic. One might even argue it's the best example of a cult-classic game out there. It has and has had a tightly knit, talented and dedicated fanbase since it's original release in 1999- and they're still going strong today nearly 25 years later. Re-Volt is a arcade racing multiplayer RC simulation game, and to this day almost no RC racing games exist that match it's game feel. Playing Re-Volt today feels just as good as it did as the day I first played it when 6 years old on my Dreamcast, and that's a very good thing. The game has twitchy and responsive controls, well designed tracks, great physics, and it really nails the feeling of driving RC cars around these larger than life maps based on every day locations, like a suburb block or supermarket. It also has a fantastic soundtrack and while dated, visually it still manages to overcome it's technical limitations by providing visually dynamic tracks with nice lighting and details, and it even has networked multiplayer support, which people managed to use to play online. Flat out, the game is excellent. There's a reason it became a cult-classic. So why is there such mixed reviews here in the Steam Reviews section? So, what the heck is going on with Re-Volt? (Short version) Simply put, Re-Volt, unfortunately- or fortunately- depending on your perspective- has been marred with decades of is-it-or-is-it-not debate about whether it's considered abandonware or not. The studio that made it, Acclaim Studios London, has been closed since 2004, where Re-Volt and many other properties were in license limbo for virtually the entire time since, even to this day, to this very release here on Steam. If you buy this, your money is not going to the people who made Re-Volt. It's going to a Korean company called SuperDay Inc, who currently owns the Re-Volt IP, and it's not clear or known what their intentions are with the IP. The company that preceded them, WeGo Interactive, was marred in controversy and was known for making low quality mobile trash out of the Re-Volt IP in the past. It's very possible to simply go get the fan made port of Re-Volt RVGL and set it up without spending one dime on the game, and many recommend you do so. In fact, RVGL is so good, even if you do buy this version, you should still set up and use it instead, as it has vastly better support by the community and works much better on modern hardware. So, what the heck is going on with Re-Volt? (Long version) Here is a full breakdown of what is going on with the Re-Volt IP. From the top, Re-Volt releases to multiple platforms in 1999 and the early 2000s. People play it, it's great, it's a popular small-scale success, they even made a spin-off called RC Revenge, which was initially going to be a direct sequel, although it's sales numbers were probably not very impressive, unfortunately. Fast forward to 2004. Acclaim Entertainment shuts down and it's studios are shut down with it, including Acclaim Studios London, the developer of Re-Volt. It's employees are given 15 minutes to get their stuff from the office and get out. Yeah. It was that kind of shutdown. In the meantime after the studio closure in 2004, being the talented and dedicated fans they were, Community members Huki and Jigebren worked on updating and improving the original 1999 port of the game with necessary functionality to get the game running nicely on modern PCs of the time using a leaked copy of the game's source code. This became known as the Unofficial Re-Volt 1.2 patch, and it released in mid 2010. However, also around 2010, a Korean company called WeGo Interactive obtained the rights to Re-Volt and began distributing it again as a port on mobile platforms and did some very questionable things with it. Initially, they released a straightforward ad-supported port of Re-Volt and this was fine enough, but after that, they stripped out a significant amount of content from it and started selling it again with the content added back in as microtransactions and called it "Re-Volt 2" (Not to be confused with RC Revenge.) Following that, there was also another game they were working on called Re-Volt 3, which there is little documentation on, but seemed to be a original game based loosely on the Re-Volt IP- that is to say. It's an RC car racing game full of predatory microtransactions exclusively on a mobile platform. Lovely. Obviously the nature of the mobile games market is at least coated in a layer of slime, so I can't really blame them too much for going this route, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it was kind of a gross move. Several years after obtaining the rights to the IP, they began distributing the original game as it was on GOG and Steam, which would have been perfectly fine, but this all went south with the community when it was discovered they were using the fan-made and community developed Re-Volt 1.2 patch and shipping it with the game without the permission of it's developers, all-the-while actively were fighting with the community over the unofficial Mac OS X Port, which was actually cancelled at the time due to WeGo's intervention. Following that controversy, WeGo Interactive delisted the offending copies of the game it on those platforms, it remained delisted until WeGo's closure sometime between 2018 and 2021 or so. (The details are very unclear on this, to be frank.) Again, in the meantime, given the circumstances, the fans yet again stepped up and began working on the game again, to continue to ensure the wide availability of the proper version Re-Volt to it's dedicated fans. RVGL, a significant rewrite/port of Re-Volt released to public alpha in 2010 and in the years since, and to this day, remains the best option for playing this all time classic. After WeGo's closure, the rights to Re-Volt were sold to another Korean company that was spun up called Superday Inc, supposedly made up of some former WeGo staff. This finally brings us to the present. The 2022 re-release of the original 1.0 Re-Volt PC port on Steam, from Superday Inc, published by H2 Interactive. Superday Inc seems to have some questionable motivations for bringing back Re-Volt again from the grave, but for the moment at least, it's here, it's available, it's cheap. It's a way to obtain Re-Volt legally. At some point they actually updated Re-Volt on Steam to the final official patch, Re-Volt 1.1 Patch 1207 and even added basic Steam Workshop support. There were a lot of rumors that Superday Inc was planning on some sort of RC Car based NFT crypto scam or some sort of microtransaction riddled thing, but so far, none of that seems to have come to fruition, though obviously there's no way of knowing for sure. Conclusion It's nice to see this game back on Steam again after so many years of being in license limbo. Personally, despite everything- I actually do recommend buying the game if you don't own it, simply out of principle. Re-Volt on Steam is inexpensive, it's functional, and it is an easy means of obtaining the game files for Re-Volt legally. Not much different from buying Doom 1999 on steam and then using the WAD files with your favorite source port. And while it's true that there's potential for it to be poisoned by bad actors in the future, at the moment, it doesn't seem like SuperDay Inc has any ill intentions with this rerelease. They simply threw up the final 1.1 version of Re-Volt, changed a few logos, made a Workshop publishing tool and called it a day, and have been radio silent ever since. The long and short of it is, I suggest you pick it up on sale or something, and follow one of the tutorials to apply RVGL to it, or replace it outright with RVGL.
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