John Romero

Game development nowadays has become a bloated, expensive affair. That’s not to say that modern games are bad; plenty of games that have come out in recent years are of high quality, and games like Baldur’s Gate 3, Red Redemption 2, and Resident Evil 4 show what high production can do for an already good game. 

Resident Evil 4

However good these games are, they exhibit many symptoms that hinder modern game development. They’re overproduced, with incredibly high development costs that stretch in the millions. While they’re still detailed, masterful experiences, the slow development cycles and high budget mean they must sell many copies to make back their money. And these are just the good games that face these issues. These problems are far more pronounced in less well-received titles, with releases like Starfield, Skull and Bones, and Homeworld 3 showing what happens when a game that takes this long and costs this much doesn’t have the quality it’s supposed to have. It flops.

Homeworld 3 Steam Page

As bleak as modern game development can feel, though, it wasn’t always like this. Go back a few decades, and you’ll see plenty of development stories where the bottom line wasn’t the sole reason people made games. Let’s stop focusing on modern games for a bit and go on a trip down memory lane, back to the time when retro classics were made.

Passion, not Profit

In the corporate world of modern gaming, money drives sales. Games are expected to sell an outrageous number of copies, and development studios are routinely shut down for not meeting quotas. The love for games is still present, but it’s constantly stifled by a lust for profit and the need to sell more copies.

Escapist Article on Dead Space 3

Even when passion projects do make it big, they’re often not exempt from things that can destroy a studio from within. The adventure game Disco Elysium was a notable success and a high-quality game, but it even ran into issues when its studio ousted its creative heads. Stories of strife, politics, and internal disputes about money and creative rights ruin almost any chance of a sequel.

Disco Elysium’s ex-creator tweet

In stark contrast, look back a few decades and see the complete opposite. Many classic games we love today survive because of their creator’s passion. Tales like that of Pac-Man’s development show that much care and thought went into making it. Similarly, the avant-garde stories of John Romero, Hidetaka Miyazaki, and Hideo Kojima are nothing to be scoffed at. They did not bow to the whims of their corporate overlords. Instead, they strived to make something unique, something different. Something that could scratch a creative itch they’ve been having.

Courtesy of Screen Rant

These games were made with passion, and that same passion is what allowed them to survive.

Ambitious to a Fault

Just like any passion project, these games were the brainchild of someone’s interests. Ambition was baked into their design, and it allowed gaming as a medium to be pushed to bigger, grander heights. Something like System Shock 1 combined an adventure game with first-person RPG elements, and its successor, System Shock 2, would later be seen as the creator of a new gaming genre, the immersive sim.

System Shock 2

Similarly, John Romero’s Doom did something that older FPS titles like Wolfenstein 3D and Catacombs 3D did not. It pushed the limits of how people saw shooters, made it faster-paced, and more visceral. Other future FPS titles like Duke Nukem 3D and Blood would push the genre further, adding more personality and interactive elements to a genre that was previously just all about shooting stuff. And that’s to say nothing of Half-Life, Thief, and Deus Ex, all titles that shaped the gaming landscape in their own way.

While most games today are content to stay in their lane, the game developers of old pushed ideas that would have seemed too controversial and weird at the time. While there are titles like Elden Ring and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that seek to push the boundaries of video gaming - they are few and far between and are more outliers than the norm.

Living Up to Legacies

Looking at it, it’s clear that classic and retro games have a certain quality that most modern games lack. While modern games might have the budget, marketing, and reach, it’s the classic games that really pushed the limits on how we understand and appreciate the games of today. 

That’s why we here at Mega Cat seek to live up to their examples. At Mega Cat, our games are a mix of classic retro-inspired titles and more modern releases meant to evoke the charm and whimsy of older games. 

Retro releases like JESTER, and Kudzu harken to an older game style, taking inspiration from classic titles, Game Boy releases, and early NES/SNES cartridges. Playable on retro consoles and available in collectors packages, our retro games are meant to evoke a classic feeling of nostalgia for a time long past.

Kudzu

Similarly, releases like WrestleQuest and Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood may be on the more modern side of game design, but that feeling of whimsy remains in its design. They’re colorful, fast-paced, and light-hearted titles that, while modern, have more in common with the feel and vibe of the older retro titles that we adore so much.

WrestleQuest

It’s not much, but we at Mega Cat Studios can’t think of a better way to honor a legacy than to spread that love to others. If we want gaming to evolve and be better, then what better way to do so than to reintroduce a genre that so many overlook? Retro games might be old, but the passion their developers had for them remains, with no strings attached. No microtransactions. No battle passes. No limited-time content. Just pure love for gaming.

If you love gaming as much as we do, then give retro games a shot, and learn how the game developers of old made their games a success. They say people make the same mistakes over and over again, but that’s only true if we don’t learn.

Together, let’s learn and enjoy the bygone age of retro gaming and push to improve the medium as a whole. Stay connected with us and follow us on our social media platforms @megacatstudios!