Rebellion acquires Speedball developer The Bitmap Brothers

(Image credit: The Bitmap Brothers)

The Bitmap Brothers, best known for Amiga and Atari classics like Speedball and Xenon, has been acquired by Rebellion. The Sniper Elite developer announced plans to bring some of The Bitmap Brothers' library to new platforms and develop new entries in the series.

I spent a lot of time battering sporty cyberpunks in Speedball 2—I wasn't quite old enough to really appreciate its predecessor in '88—on my Commodore Amiga, and again on the Mega Drive, and that was probably the last time I paid attention to sport. I can't wait to become a future-jock again.

I didn't realise The Bitmap Brothers was still around, to be honest, and it looks like its last game was a Speedball 2 Android spin-off in 2013. There were also PC remasters of co-op shooter The Chaos Engine and Speedball 2 in the same year.

Rebellion hasn't revealed what licenses will be rekindled or what games are getting the remaster treatment, though the press release mentions Xenon, Speedball, Chaos Engine and 2001 3D RTS Z: Steel Soldiers by name.

Rebellion has been around for almost as long as The Bitmap Brothers, and it's become the curator of a few classic properties, including Battlezone, which was remastered in 2016, followed by a new Battlezone in 2017.

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