Windjammers Headlines Mid-2025 Evercade Releases

Evercade, the physical cartridge-based retro platform that began in 2020, is continuing its regular pace of releases to support the platform five years later. Longevity like this comes with benefits and drawbacks! After all, being this established likely opens a few new doors for licensing, but it also means a lot of its easiest acquisitions have seen release. So where is the platform headed? The four latest 2025 Evercade collections offer significant insight. The exceedingly clunky name of the Windjammers, Karnov & Friends cartridge likely stems from a rights split: while most of the Data East library (and the name) are now owned by G-Mode, this collection focuses on a handful of games owned by Paon DP. Seemingly Blaze worked out enough to keep the logo in the games themselves, but stopped short of whatever arrangements would be required to call it what it is: Data East Arcade 3. Still, we’ll credit the name with one thing, and that’s accurately cataloging the contents. You’ve got Windjammers, an all-time versus mode classic that has seen enough commercial support in recent years to pull it out of the “cult” category. You also have Karnov, a game with some name recognition in the retro community if nothing else. And then three games most people don’t know about! But we suppose they’re Karnov’s friends, and we’re glad he found some friends. Photo by Siliconera Gremlin Collection 2 is an interesting handful of titles. Action-racer Buggy and party strategy game Hogs of War offer some gameplay types that could use more representation in the Evercade library. Hogs is a 3D take on the Worms formula, with a focus on positioning and a different weapon set that keeps it distinct from that franchise’s own polygonal efforts. Buggy is probably as close as the Evercade will get to Crash Team Racing, an action-racer with a single-player story mode. The cart also includes Loaded and Re-Loaded, gore-heavy top-down shooters in the vein of Smash T.V. and Gauntlet. They’re… fine. Tomb Raider Collection 2 includes Lara Croft’s fourth and fifth PS1 outings, The Last Revelation and Chronicles. They’re not exactly the best-regarded entries, and they don’t have the benefit of nostalgia of the early entries, but it’s nice from a completionist standpoint to have these join the first three on Evercade. The Gremlin and Tomb Raider carts are examples of the Evercade testing its limits, with late PS1-era games really benefiting from analog sticks that the handhelds and stock controllers don’t have. That said, a system update last year added support for analog control on third-party controllers, so you may find that worth exploring if you really want to get the most out of 3D games. Photo by Siliconera Rounding out the system’s recent releases is Atari Arcade 2, a pack of ten early games. The headliners are Berzerk and its sequel Frenzy, but even outside of that there are games that feed into that era’s “one more quarter” arcade appeal. It’s an interesting collection of games, because a lot of them relied upon innovative hardware that can’t be replicated. Dark Planet used a two-layer screen setup to offer a 3D effect and let you play either near the ground or high above and fight different sets of enemies. Fire Truck was a co-op steering wheel game. Still, there are a few games in this collection that show off a hardware innovation of Evercade’s own: the EXP’s dedicated Tate Mode button. These latest mid-2025 Evercade cartridges are out now. For more on the system’s cartridge library, as well as breakdowns of compatible hardware, check out our Evercade archive. The post Windjammers Headlines Mid-2025 Evercade Releases appeared first on Siliconera.

Jun 24, 2025 - 20:30

Windjammers Headlines Mid-2025 Evercade Releases

Evercade, the physical cartridge-based retro platform that began in 2020, is continuing its regular pace of releases to support the platform five years later. Longevity like this comes with benefits and drawbacks! After all, being this established likely opens a few new doors for licensing, but it also means a lot of its easiest acquisitions have seen release. So where is the platform headed? The four latest 2025 Evercade collections offer significant insight.

The exceedingly clunky name of the Windjammers, Karnov & Friends cartridge likely stems from a rights split: while most of the Data East library (and the name) are now owned by G-Mode, this collection focuses on a handful of games owned by Paon DP. Seemingly Blaze worked out enough to keep the logo in the games themselves, but stopped short of whatever arrangements would be required to call it what it is: Data East Arcade 3.

Still, we’ll credit the name with one thing, and that’s accurately cataloging the contents. You’ve got Windjammers, an all-time versus mode classic that has seen enough commercial support in recent years to pull it out of the “cult” category. You also have Karnov, a game with some name recognition in the retro community if nothing else. And then three games most people don’t know about! But we suppose they’re Karnov’s friends, and we’re glad he found some friends.

2025 evercade cartridges controller VS — Photo by Siliconera

Gremlin Collection 2 is an interesting handful of titles. Action-racer Buggy and party strategy game Hogs of War offer some gameplay types that could use more representation in the Evercade library. Hogs is a 3D take on the Worms formula, with a focus on positioning and a different weapon set that keeps it distinct from that franchise’s own polygonal efforts. Buggy is probably as close as the Evercade will get to Crash Team Racing, an action-racer with a single-player story mode.

The cart also includes Loaded and Re-Loaded, gore-heavy top-down shooters in the vein of Smash T.V. and Gauntlet. They’re… fine.

Tomb Raider Collection 2 includes Lara Croft’s fourth and fifth PS1 outings, The Last Revelation and Chronicles. They’re not exactly the best-regarded entries, and they don’t have the benefit of nostalgia of the early entries, but it’s nice from a completionist standpoint to have these join the first three on Evercade.

The Gremlin and Tomb Raider carts are examples of the Evercade testing its limits, with late PS1-era games really benefiting from analog sticks that the handhelds and stock controllers don’t have. That said, a system update last year added support for analog control on third-party controllers, so you may find that worth exploring if you really want to get the most out of 3D games.

atari arcade tate mode exp — Photo by Siliconera

Rounding out the system’s recent releases is Atari Arcade 2, a pack of ten early games. The headliners are Berzerk and its sequel Frenzy, but even outside of that there are games that feed into that era’s “one more quarter” arcade appeal.

It’s an interesting collection of games, because a lot of them relied upon innovative hardware that can’t be replicated. Dark Planet used a two-layer screen setup to offer a 3D effect and let you play either near the ground or high above and fight different sets of enemies. Fire Truck was a co-op steering wheel game. Still, there are a few games in this collection that show off a hardware innovation of Evercade’s own: the EXP’s dedicated Tate Mode button.

These latest mid-2025 Evercade cartridges are out now. For more on the system’s cartridge library, as well as breakdowns of compatible hardware, check out our Evercade archive.

The post Windjammers Headlines Mid-2025 Evercade Releases appeared first on Siliconera.