Alpha Protocol is making its return, complete with improvements and music rights

The ambitious, yet flawed Alpha Protocol is available for purchase once again. The 2010 game, which was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Sega, was removed from all platforms in 2019 because Sega’s music licensing rights had expired. The game is making a comeback as a DRM-free exclusive on GOG.com, available today for $19.99, with an additional 10% launch discount lasting through April 3.

What’s now available is a definitive edition, of sorts, containing all of its original music, as well as support for modern wireless controllers (including the DualSense, Switch Pro controller, and Xbox Series X controllers), text localization support for 8 languages, Windows 10 and 11 compatibility, and cloud save support. The game also sports achievements on GOG, which were previously only available on consoles. What this re-release of Alpha Protocol is not, however, is a remaster. The visuals and core game are unchanged. GOG.com produced a mini documentary on how it brought the game back, and I’ve embedded it at the top of the post.

Alpha Protocol’s return to an online game store is a rare thing to see in the news cycle, especially in 2024 when it’s more often to hear stories of the opposite happening. For instance, in early March, Warner Bros. Discovery surprised indie devs with the news that games published under its Adult Swim Games label would be “retired.”

Polygon reached out to Sega to see if it’s planning to bring this updated version of Alpha Protocol to more platforms, but it didn’t respond in time for publication.

“Ambitious yet flawed” is a fair description for Alpha Protocol. The game was basically “little fun things” sprinkled all along, from multiple interactions with characters depending on which path you take, both in narrative and in gameplay, as well as secrets all around.

The actual shooting and fighting was far from ideal, especially in bossfights, but the game still feels at least little unique to me for coming out with a “The US military industrial complex is fueling conflicts and supplying terrorists to keep its profits up” plot in the midst of so many CoD’s “The arabs are evil and our brave soldiers need to keep the peace” stories

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i have never purchased something again so fast in my life, i was just thinking about this game last week. what a silly, flawed, fun game. my favorite part was how you could be a james bond type but everyone reacts how people would if you were a james bond in real life: i.e. they hate you because you’re an annoying asshole lmao

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It’s so good! For a time it was in my like, top 3 favorite games.

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Oh FUCK yes

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The music rights were the first question I had about it coming back lmao. We are SO fucking back

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I’ll have to give this a try! I remember it getting panned at the time, but it comes up fairly often as a hidden gem. I never realized it was an Obsidian game.

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It’s good! The actual gameplay mechanics are a little touch and go is the thing. I would recommend anyone who isn’t familiar with it to do their first run as a stealth/pistols character just because it’s super overpowered so you’ll get a good idea about the really good bits, branch out on subsequent playthroughs. (It’s super short, like you can probably breeze through a playthrough in a weekend, your real mileage comes from playing it multiple times and seeing how many permutations of various things there are - it’s a very responsive game to various choices you make.)

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I’ve always been super curious about this game but never picked it up until sometime in mid-2020 I spotted a copy for PS3 for like $2. Figured why not.

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I played it first on PS3, loved it, picked up the PC version later on a cheap sale, and it was uuuuunplayable lmao

I recall hearing the original PC version was riddled with issues. I hope this one fixes those!

I only played on PC and it was a bit of cointoss, sometimes it’d work flawlessly, sometimes you’d struggle a bit.