Developers need to start looking backwards more often

I grew up in the days we now call retro. Some may even call them vintage. In the heady days of the late 1980s and into the 1990s I was a child who loved games, then a teen who devoured them constantly. I was a SEGA kid, though my best friend was a Nintendo girl, so I experienced both sides of the coin, and I played my fair share of titles on home computer too.

In the past week, I’ve been focusing on retro games here at GAMINGbible, and playing a few older titles in my spare time and it’s made me want one thing from modern developers - I wish they’d look back sometimes, rather than just forward.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Unreal Engine 5, ray-traced graphics that make me drool; I want to see other worlds in 4K fidelity, with rich textures. However, it’s not a constant need in this industry to constantly evolve from an aesthetic perspective.

What’s wrong with 2D platformers? There’s nothing wrong with pixel graphics that don’t age. We can have games in major franchises that buck the trend and embrace the older days of gaming. Can we have a 2D MetroidVania where Master Chief tackles an alien threat? Why not? Is there a reason why every new AAA game has to be created over five to seven years and take advantage of every bell and whistle?

Utilising older, more basic visuals surely allows the game to speak for itself, and it doesn’t detract from the experience. It’s the reason why the recent TMNT Shredder’s Revenge is so good, or Metroid Dread managed to capture the same audience who loved the Prime trilogy. These games are powered by great ideas, unique mechanics, and brilliant storytelling and were they inferior because they stepped back with the visuals?

TMNT

Let’s look at another recent game, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, a game that, at its core is terrific, but really doesn’t need to be 3D. Sure, it’s a plus, but aren’t Gold and Silver still great? What if Nintendo and Game Freak went back to a top-down view with stylised design to showcase the Pokemon? Would it sell less suddenly? They could even use the remade Link’s Awakening visual style to take the pressure off some of the teams and they would have perhaps dodged the ugly optics we got from the latest iteration in the series.

We can also look at this from a time and energy view. Of course, games are still expensive to make and will take time, but would it take less time to create a God of War title that looks like the 2D Blasphemous?

Now, I’m not saying that every 2D game is cheap to make or would save time, there are a number of games with prolonged development times that use a retro style. However, it would keep the industry fresh, while removing some of the pressure studios face. Hi-Fi Rush was a brilliant new IP from a developer who usually puts years and years into vast 3D worlds and intricate RPG mechanics, and now it’s on several platforms as a well-loved game.

Aside from the world of film, gaming is an industry on its own that spends far too much time looking forward. Look at the current trend of live service, as an example, something that evolved over the past five years. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has been an enormous flop for Rocksteady and Warner Bros because they were chasing the current trends and this supposed future that so many games will feature live service components.

Suicide Squad

I’m not the only person to say that had they created a solid single-player, linear progression game set in the Arkham universe, it would have been better received and would likely have sold more. We only have to look back nine years to see how successful Batman: Arkham Knight was. Sure, it had DLC but that’s been a given for at least three generations of gaming.

Developers need to simplify, the ideas are there, and they’re good, but this constant need to overcomplicate and dress everything up in modern buzzwords only works for some, while others see their game fail and the studio shuttered by companies like Embracer.

Sure, I sound like an old man (I’m over 40 so you’re not wrong) but if we looked back at what worked and what built this industry, we’d still see massively successful games because the passion is still there for everyone who makes games and those who play them. If 343 Studios announced a top-down Halo shooter tomorrow it would be such a breath of fresh air it would shake up the whole Halo franchise.

Although let’s be honest, Roll7 made several stand-out games in the 2D skateboarding OlliOlli and small-budget action shooter Rollerdrome and they still got shuttered by Take-Two because of the greed that pervades this industry, so what do I know?