5 Old Games Revived By Surprisingly Committed Fans
Few things hit the sweet spot as hard as revisiting a good old game on a weekend. Sadly, an attempt to revisit a classic from the past may turn out akin to a scene from a movie where the protagonists jump in time to the future only to see the place where they grew up all empty, destroyed, and filled with posters claiming that NFT based water or something would totally lead humankind to a brighter tomorrow. Yeah, unlike timeless games like Chess, Backgammon, Chess 2, and the Queen's Gambit board game, even the best video games of all time can end up losing their player base and end up forgotten. Not the classics below, though, as their dedicated fan communities have found glorious ways to revive and sometimes even reinvent them to make sure their existence remains fresh forever.
Fans Made Old DOOM More Brutal Than Even The New DOOM
The Old Game: The original DOOM from ‘93 is so popular and important not just for shooters but for 3d games in general that pretending there’s anyone out there who'll actually learn anything new from this intro paragraph feels really dishonest.
The Revival: Brutal DOOM is a mod that makes the original DOOM even more violent than the newer DOOM and DOOM Eternal iterations.
Don't Miss
Tired of meaningless video game violence? Then perhaps it's time to enjoy some meaningful video game violence, as Brutal DOOM makes use of the slight hardware advances we've gotten in the past 30 years to bring us better controls, weapons, hordes of invading alien demons, and way more gruesome ways of killing them.
Id, Brutal DOOM
Id, Brutal DOOM
Not into the idea of overkilling the devil? That's weird, but no problem as fans have also made sure we can now play the original DOOM on pretty much anything.
Id
Myst
The Old Game: Myst Online: Uru Live, the game that in 2007 tried to capitalize on the MMO trend started by World Of Warcraft but forgot that making compelling group puzzles is hard as heck (and perhaps never as fun as just slaying some goblins). Myst Online only lasted for a couple of years, sadly sending across the message that the MMO genre had no space for brainy and non-murder-y activities.
Cyan Worlds
The Revival: Over ten years after its untimely demise, fans got the game's original devs to relinquish the game's code and are now running the show and finally improving upon it.
Cyan Worlds, Easy Allies
And Myst Online turned out to have the last laugh, haha, as even though Myst is a nonprofit open source experience and World Of Warcraft is still making millions of dollars every month, everyone hates it now.
Left 4 Dead 2
The Old Game: The game that in 2008 brought co-op action and zombies to the mainstream (against the wishes of its maker). Left 4 Dead 2, as all Valve titles cursed by having a number 2 at the end of their title, ended up being left with no sequel. We can't blame Valve, as every single one of their games has managed to perfectly stand the test of time, but fans are always eager for new stuff.
Valve
The Revival: Fans seemingly saw a light at the end of the tunnel with the announcement of Back 4 Blood, a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, but the brand new title somehow failed to recapture every single aspect of the magic from the ‘09 original, so fans just flocked back to the original. The player count of Left 4 Dead 2, a game that’s over 10 years old now, never fell below that of the supposed successor, and here's hoping fans have learned their lesson in not fixing what isn't broken.
Dark Souls
The Old Game: Dark Souls has been a mainstay in the heads of most gamers because its clever design choices still constantly show other games what they're doing wrong, but we cannot let its seemingly eternal freshness fool us – this game is already over ten years old.
From Software
The Revival: Afraid that the closest thing we have to a Holy Grail of modern gaming would lose its sanctitude, get stolen by Monty Python, or whatever it is that happens to it in the Bible, Dark Souls fans took the very logical step of beginning what looks like a yearly pilgrimage to Lordran. No, we're not talking about actually going to the real-life locations that inspired the world of Dark Souls, we're talking about players who take the same week off every year to go back and play the original Dark Souls, causing the game's player numbers to have incredible surges every year. Anyone interested in joining just needs to hop in on Return To Lordran.
From Software
Fans Are Remaking Half-Life (To Make It Even Older)
The Old Game: Back in '98, the original Half-Life showed shooter fans that puzzle-solving can be fun and showed nerds that shooting evil aliens and evil government forces is always fun.
The Revival: Remember WoW Classic? Well, forget about that because WoW is crap now, but also try to remember it a bit because this is similar. After the release of the now legendary Half-Life 2, Valve announced a remake of the original game in HL2's source engine. Everyone felt the hype, but Half-Life Source turned out to remake very little about the original game. Fans didn't care for it, so they decided to come up with Black Mesa, a total remake of the original game.
Valve, Crowbar
On top of looking gorgeous, Black Mesa also aimed at solving a few gameplay issues that even the devs at Valve admitted the original game had, such as the final segment in the alien plane, Xen. Black Mesa had such an effect that even Valve gave its rogue devs their blessing. Black Mesa rocks and everyone should check it out, but here's a plot twist: this isn't about Black Mesa. This piece isn't about remakes, it's about revivals. So, after looking at Black Mesa's improvements and staying faithful to the original looks of Half-Life 1, a bunch of beautifully deranged fans set out to remake the Black Mesa remake in Goldsource 1.5, Half-Life's old-ass engine. Say hello to Black Mesa Classic:
It still has a long train ride to go before release but they're accepting developers so this is a revival anyone can have an active part on. Now we're just one Half-Life 2 remake and demake away from Half-Life 3 Alyx 2
Top Image: Valve
