Atari has filed for bankruptcy to ditch parent company

In a press release spotted by Ars Technica yesterday, Atari announced that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to "separate from the structural financial encumbrances of their French parent holding company, Atari S.A. (formerly Infogrames S.A.) and secure independent capital for future growth, primarily in the areas of digital and mobile games." The most recent PC title published by Atari was Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. It also handled most of the Dungeons & Dragons products in recent years, as well as the North American editions of the Witcher franchise.

It seems it will continue to exist under the Atari name, but the stated focus on "the areas of digital and mobile games" casts some doubt on whether it will remain relevant in the PC gaming world. The next upcoming Dungeons & Dragons title, Cryptic's Neverwinter, will be published by Perfect World. The Witcher series is currently published in the EU by Namco Bandai, which may be positioned to take over the North American and Australian releases.

You can read the full press release on PRNewsWire , and for more reading, Ars Technica broke down just how today's Atari compares to the Atari of the '70s.

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Len Hafer is a freelancer and lifelong PC gamer with a specialty in strategy, RPGs, horror, and survival games. A chance encounter with Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness changed her life forever. Today, her favorites include the grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis, and thought-provoking, story-rich RPGs like Persona 5 and Disco Elysium. She also loves history, hiking in the mountains of Colorado, and heavy metal music.