3D Realms Anthology is coming to Steam next week

The 3D Realms Anthology announced last year is a pretty cool package. It includes just about everything 3D Realms had ever produced—32 games in all—in a single $40 package, along with a "re-rockestrated" soundtrack. And now it's all coming to Steam.

The news came by way of a tease on Twitter that included a photo of the anthology clearly on Steam, accompanied by the message, "We have some big news coming next week." It didn't remain a tease for very long, though, as 3D Realms Director Frederik Schreiber quickly confirmed the looming Steam release.

"We're really excited about finally bringing all the 3D Realms/Apogee games to Steam," he said. "This is probably the biggest bundle ever to be released on Steam, besides the Eidos Bundle (34 games in total), and the price is absolutely killer."

That price will be $40, he said, with a 25 percent discount at launch taking it down to $30. The Anthology on Steam will include a handful of games excluded from the original release, including Balls of Steel, Dark Ages, and Xenophage, as well as the updated soundtrack and full scans of all the original manuals. The only downside is that games in the bundle that aren't already available as stand-alone titles on Steam, won't be; so while Duke Nukem and Shadow Warrior Classic, for example, can be purchased separately, Terminal Velocity and Paganitzu will not.

As with the original bundle, neither Max Payne nor Prey will be included with this one, since they're owned by Take Two and Bethesda respectively; however, Schreiber said that if 3D Realms is able to sell ten million copies of the Anthology, it will buy them back. "I promise!" he added. I'll leave it to you to decide how seriously to take him. The 3D Realms Anthology will go live on Steam on May 5.

Update: 3D Realms has requested that I clarify that Schreiber was just kidding, and that there is no plan to actually buy back Max Payne and/or Prey, no matter how many copies of the Anthology are sold. Sorry, folks.