Atari 50 studio’s The Making of Karateka interactive documentary out this month

The Making of Karateka, a new “interactive documentary” telling the story of Prince of Persia and The Last Express creator Jordan Mechner’s classic 1984 martial arts game, is launching for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation on 29th August, with a Switch version to follow in September.

It’s the work of Digital Eclipse, the studio behind last year’s acclaimed Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, and promises a similarly styled delve into video gaming’s past, combining interviews, new video features, design documents, audio, and photos to create what the developer is calling the “deepest, most exhaustive exploration of the making of a single video game that’s ever been attempted in a video game itself.”

“Jordan Mechner,” the studio explains, “was an 18-year-old college student when he started making the martial arts adventure that would become one of the most influential games of the Apple II era. The Making of Karateka presents the story behind Mechner’s first published game through an exhaustive archive…that can be explored at your own pace.”

Notably, The Making of Karateka also includes a selection of playable games; there’s the original 1984 version of Karateka, unfinished prototypes (including the one Mechner used in his pitch to publishers), and the newly created Karateka Remastered, which introduces updated graphics, music, and gameplay. The package also features prototypes for (and a new version of) Deathbounce, a shoot-’em-up created by Mechner when he was 17 years old.

The Making of Karateka will cost $19.99 USD when it launches for PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (via Steam, GOG, and Epic) on 29th August, and for Switch in September. It’s the first in Digital Eclipse’s new Gold Master Series, a line of “interactive documentaries” telling the “full stories of games that changed the world.”