SEGA has announced an official Steam emulator for the Mega Drive, bringing with it full Steam Workshop support and a retro 3D hub to enjoy your games in.
The SEGA Mega Drive Classics Hub will come to Steam on April 28 as a free update. Access to the hub itself will be free for players who own any of the Mega Drive titles on Steam.
The hub is essentially a a 3D recreation of a 90’s bedroom, complete with a virtual CRT TV and Mega Drive console (of course). There’s also a shelf for cartridge boxes reflecting the retro SEGA games you digitally own, and a day/night cycle for that extra touch.
All you need to do is pick your game from the virtual shelf, stick it in your virtual console, and get playing. The mundane made incredible again, because we’re doing it virtually.
The emulator will also feature local co-op for supported games, optional graphic enhancement filters, the ability to save at any point during gameplay, and full controller and keyboard support.
Most interesting though, is the Steam Workshop support, allowing players to create and share mods of the retro games. Usually people can only share retro mods through free (and very illegal) emulators, so it’s great to see SEGA give it an official backing.
Now go. Go play Sonic the Hedgehog, Alex Kidd, Golden Axe, Ristar, and more. Remember Ristar? That game was the fucking tits. Now GO PLAY IT.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.