If there’s one guarantee in the world of gaming, it’s that we’ll always go back to the classics. Whether these classics are 1978’s Space Invaders, the 1989 Game Boy or the late-2000s Farmville craze, we all have fond memories attached to the nostalgia of games of the past. It’s no surprise that there is a growing trend of reviving the retro classics. But how is this retro revival winning over Canadian gamers?
Baldur’s Gate Re-Release Lands Them a Sequel
Canadian games developer Bioware’s 1998 classic Baldur’s Gate took the essence of role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons to create an engaging game for fantasy fans. The game was considered to “reign supreme” over any other role-playing game and helped put Bioware on the map as a force to be reckoned with. The game received its own revival, Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, in 2012 for Windows (and later iOS, Android, and Linux).
The franchise then saw a huge boom in 2019 with a re-release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. The success has led to a sequel, Baldur’s Gate 3 being slated for release. This shows that nostalgia-inducing games are powerful, that nostalgia works in the gaming industry, and that fans of gaming are being won over not by shiny new concepts, but by classics they know and love.
Good news and bad news. BG3 won’t hit August, but it’s just around the corner. We’ll be announcing the release date, as well as big news on the Panel From Hell alongside @geoffkeighley, @LarAtLarian and the Larian crew. Tune in Aug 18th. https://t.co/mz5Nsx5YaR pic.twitter.com/cyUPwztb6p
— Baldur’s Gate 3 (@baldursgate3) August 4, 2020
Remastering the Classics
The growth of technology means that games developers can delve back into the back catalogue of successful gaming franchises and update them. This has been done with Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon to bring essentially the exact same gameplay from the late-1990s, but with a modern sheen. The Pokémon and Mario franchises do this too, but with slightly different concepts for each generation of games. Pokémon regularly re-releases classic games with a graphics update for newer consoles.
The sheer success of these re-masters shows just how popular games based on the classics can be. The Retro Revival of Crash Bandicoot’s N. Sane Trilogy sold 1.21 million units and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 6.6 million units in 2018, for instance. These figures demonstrate the appetite to engage with nostalgic games, especially when the essence remains the same and the graphics are the only thing altered in a major way. Franchise revivals are also a safer bet for developers than completely new concepts as the fanbase is there. Sales figures reinforce widely held beliefs about the power of nostalgia when it comes to gaming.
A fan-made remake of the Goldeneye N64 game, set to be released in 2022 to tie-in with 25 years of the game’s release – and which had gained traction by many fans – has been legally suspended by MGM/Danjaq (the production company behind James Bond). Fans have expressed disappointment online but have vowed to play the nameless spy remake when it is released anyway. The fact the 25-year-old game has such a strong following is testament to how powerful retro can be.
Retro Across the Board
The retro revival can also be seen across other gaming features. The PS5 announcement revealed that the console will have back compatibility with the PS4, which shows a commitment and acknowledgment of (albeit recent) past successes. Arcade games are making a comeback as games bars and arenas are popping up to feed into the nostalgia of playing classics in an arena resembling that of the 1980s.
The Retro Revival shows the sheer power of nostalgia and how dedicated and loyal fans are to games of the past. The sales figures and engagement rates alone show just how influential these games are. As the Baldur’s Gate sequel shows, not only can a retro revival reconnect us with the past, but it could shape and inform the future of gaming too.
