Supergiant Games’ Transistor is the latest free game on the Epic Games Store and will be available for the next two weeks. On May 2nd, 2D Boy’s critically acclaimed World of Goo will be next. Fortunately, the 2008 title will be receiving a free update to leverage the power of current PCs (and to run properly).
Designer, artist, and composer Kyle Gabler noted, “The last time we built the PC version of World of Goo was ten years ago, way back in 2009. The game ran at a 4:3 aspect ratio and at a resolution of 800×600. Most computers now can’t even enter that old 800×600 mode without the screen flashing or glitching. The game would also crash your computer if you had more than one monitor hooked up.
“So over the last few months, we’ve rebuilt the game for Win / Mac / Linux and it should now work nicely again on everyone’s modern computers. It’ll run by default at a modern widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, and at whatever size you want. We also made a lot of improvements over the years for other platforms, like Nintendo Switch, so we brought over those improvements as well.”
Along with a doubled resolution for all visuals and some “high quality upscaling tools to start”, the developer will be tweaking things manually. If you’re really into the old art-style, there will be an option to toggle it. Unfortunately, leaderboards will not be available. Gabler revealed they never worked out because “Our poor server constantly got stressed out and shut itself down.” Leaderboards were actually removed several years ago, but the current versions of the game, including the upcoming update, have been changed to reflect this.
Here’s the kicker – the new and improved World of Goo will first be available on the Epic Games Store. The update will release for other versions later, but no timeline has been provided as to when. It’s a good deal though, especially for the low, low price of “free.” However, we’ll have to wait and see how it runs at release.