Video games, despite being the newest form of entertainment, are developing a storied history in their own right. Just as movies, books, and even music have iconic examples that would go on to reshape their respective landscapes, so do video games. The influence of these games has a long reach, and will affect the medium for as long as it exists.
However, time andthe decades of innovationsin the medium often render these iconic games inaccessible to modern audiences, both literally and figuratively. If you want a similar experience to these games, but either don’t want to deal with old-school jank or just want a new experience in the same vein, here are some iconic games and their modern counterparts.
7Fallout 1 & 2
UnderRail
If you’ve never played the first two Fallout games, you might assume that they’re very much like Fallout 3. However, you would be wrong. Fallout 3 takes the series in a vastly different direction, spinning off into its own genre as a RPG-shooter hybrid. The original Fallout games wereisometric turn-based CRPGs, not shooters.
If you’re looking for a similar experience, then try Underrail. Both games share a lot of DNA in that they’re both CRPGs that have deep character customization and a focus on player freedom to the point that they do not hold your hand and are happy to let you make lethal mistakes and story-altering decisions. They also are quite dark thematically, filled with tragedy and black humor while later Fallout games were more a little more hopeful, more comedic than dark.
6Diablo 2
Path Of Exile
If you were there for its release, then you’d know that Diablo 3 was met with a backlash when it came out. Some of the criticism was because of how it functioned. Being always online made it difficult to play without getting disconnected, and it had a broken, easily exploited real-money auction house. However, the bulk of the criticism was just that the game was just too different from its predecessor.
Diablo 2 also has Diablo 2 Resurrected if you’re just looking for the same game with a new coat of HD paint and some accessibility modernizations.
And while a few years of tweaking and improvement made it a great game in its own right, players who wanted a more similar game were left wanting. Until the release of Path of Exile, which felt like a true successor to Diablo 2. Both games shared a dark mood, deep and complex character customization, and a robust player economy not found in Diablo 3.
5Harvest Moon
Story Of Seasons
If you were a fan of the Harvest Moon series before 2014 and then came back to see how the series developed since then, you might be a little confused. Games bearing the name Harvest Moon are quite different from those comfy old gems, leaning more into farm sim territory than thecozy town-life gamethat you might recall. This is because itactually isa different series.
If you’re feeling particularly nostalgic, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is a more modern shiny remake of the Harvest Moon game of the same name, with some of the names changed due to licensing issues.
Because of inter-company and licensing weirdness, Natsume, who used to publish the game Bokujo Monogatari (formerly called Harvest Moon outside Japan) retained the rights to the Harvest Moon name. Meanwhile, new entries in the Bokujoseries are released in the west as Story of Seasons, cute and homey as you remember.
4Metroid
Hollow Knight
Metroid had such enjoyable gameplay that it would spawn its own genre alongside Castlevania. These 2D sidescrollers where notable for their exploration and nonlinear progression, and would later be known as Metroidvanias.
However, both the Metroid and Castlevania series took their gameplay in different directions. Both made the leap to 3D with the former becoming the Prime series, taking the formula to first person, and the latter becoming the Lords of Shadow series of action-platformers.
If you’re looking for the next stage of evolution in the Metroidvania genre, you really can’t do better than Hollow Knight. It’s a game that retains that original ethos of non-linear exploration and discovery, as well as adding a moody atmosphere. All this in a world that feels truly unique: a city of sentient insects, on the verge of collapse.
3Heroes Of Might & Magic 3
Songs Of Conquest
Heroes of Might & Magic was a series of turn-based strategy games characterized by play in two layers: strategic overland control and resource acquisition, and tactical unit-vs.-unit combat. It’s not exactly a prolific genre, but it’s one with a fanatically loyal fanbase.
HoMM is not to be confused with the Might & Magic series of RPGs, which take place in the same universe.
One of the few such titles, and arguably the best to bear HoMM 3’s legacy is Songs of Conquest, which modernizes the genre with its gorgeous sprite art, epic music, and compelling world-building. If you’ve played HoMM 3, you’d be right at home in Songs of Conquest. The most major differences between the two being a lack of overland spells, and a more complex and rewarding combat spell system that is intrinsically linked with your units.
2Rogue
Caves Of Qud
Super lo-fi adventures that look more like a spreadsheet than the graphical wonders that we’re used to are a rare sight. You won’t find games like Rogue all that often, games of arguably unparalleled depth, driven mostly by text and your imagination. Where you may do anything, but death is permanent if you make enough bad decisions.
Yes, this is in fact THAT Rogue, from which theroguelike and roguelitegenres take their name.
Caves of Qud is such a game, and unlike most entries in this list, it might actually bemoreinaccessible than its predecessor. Instead of a dungeon crawler, it’s an open-world game with meticulous simulation, giving you even more freedom to pursue your goals in any number of ways, or even determine what those goals are.
1Team Fortress
Marvel Rivals
Class- and character-based shooters are a dime a dozen nowadays, so prolific is the genre that most of them are dying out from coming into a saturated market. So it might be difficult to remember, if you’re even old enough, a time where such games did not exist.
Team Fortress was a Quake mod and the source of this genre’s lineage, as it would gain life as its own game, and then would be followed by the wildly popular and also iconic Team Fortress 2. This, in turn, was a likely influence on Overwatch, whose popularity and profitability led other studios to throw their hats into the ring.
While TF2 is by no means dead, Marvel Rivals still embodies the original TF’s team-based class-driven shooter gameplay and interesting characters and is the most modern entry in the genre.
