I played at least one retro game every week in 2024: Here are 10 I'd still recommend to everyone

GamesI played at least one retro game every week in 2024: Here are 10 I’d still recommend to everyoneWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: solarseven via Getty Images / Microsoft)

Retro 1990s style beige desktop PC computer and monitor screen and keyboard. 3D illustration.

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During these disappointing times I like to run back into the creaking arms ofye olden dayes.Which to me is anything between the era when games spanning four floppy discs were considered a luxurious extravagance and 800x600 was an excessively high resolution, to the time we all got excited about some weird new Quake clone with textured grass and vehicles (surely that’ll never catch on) called Halo.

These older games aren’t automaticallybetter—plenty of this year’s new releases have been incredible, and there’s a steaming mountain of old games best left forgotten—but the games below can legitimately hold their own against anything else already in your digital library, and feel as fresh and fun today as they always have.

Bright and beautiful

(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

A modern presentation of the classic arcade game Dig Dug

Arcade Game Series: Dig Dug(1982)

Namco’s game may be older than time itself and possess none of those fancy modern details like “scrolling” or “a main character with a proper face,” but it’s perfect for a quick five minutes of gaming when nothing else in particular feels like it’s worth loading up. The lively dirt-clearing scratches the same itch as neatly lining up Tetris’s blocks, and cleverly squishing the monsters pursuing poor heroic digger Taizo Hori with a well-timed big, heavy rock is always deeply satisfying.

It’s the sort of game that most people would play for a bit of fun and then walk away from, but underneath the cute flower-covered surface and happy little tune lies a classic score-focused arcade challenge just begging to be mastered.

(Image credit: Infinity Co)

A colorful arcade game with a character drilling down through blocks

Alternatively:Mr Driller DrillLand(2002)

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Taizo’s back and this time he’s brought his arguably more famous son, Susumu (Mr Driller), as well as a selection of family and friends along for the ride.This was originally a Japanese GameCube exclusive before finally being translated into English and released on Steam, ready to surprise and delight with its moreish mix of puzzle-drilling action and adorably daft hats.

First-person thrills

(Image credit: Looking Glass Studios)

A first person view in Thief with the character aiming a bow down a corridor

Thief(1998)

(Image credit: Origin Systems/EA)

A pilot controlling his spaceship from Wing Commander

Alternatively:Wing Commander(1990)

If skulking about under the stars doesn’t sound appealing, how about looking out of a spaceship’s cockpit while flying among them? Wing Commander somehow made combining epic action space battles with impressively sim-like flight control and damage modelling look easy. Then they added an incredibly reactive story that continues on whether I succeed or fail a mission. All this complexity, even though it was designed for hardware with barely double-digit CPU speeds and 1MB of RAM.

Gimme all the D&D vampires

(Image credit: Dreamforge Intertainment)

A vampire creature attacking in first person in Ravenloft: Strahd’s Posession

Love for D&D games, dungeon crawlers, and, um, a certain vampire spawn of Larian’s inspired me to seek out further dice-rolling adventures of the gothic fantasy kind this year. I was a little surprised I had to go so far back in time to play an RPG based on this setting, considering that Ravenloft’s popularity is almost as undying as its vampiric master is. It’s a shame too, because even something as old as Strahd’s Possession shows how much potential is locked up in this cursed land.

(Image credit: Square One/Black Isle)

A dwarf calls down destruction in Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance 2

Alternatively:Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2(2004)

Sometimes all you need to have a good time is a bit of character building, a lot of loot grabbing, and some of the most impressive water effects 2004 had to offer. This is one of those action RPGs that makes it very easy to promise myself just one more run for the fourth time this evening, especially as it plays so well on Steam Deck. The last boss of Dark Alliance 2 is immortalised as a tasteful marble bust on a small table in Baldur’s Gate 3’s Szarr Palace.

Spooky times

(Image credit: Konami)

A character from Castlevania Dominus Collection’s Haunted Castle whipping a ghost

Castlevania Dominus Collection(Haunted Castle, 1987; Dawn of Sorrow, 2005)

I eagerly downloaded this on launch day because I loved the thought of having a flimsy excuse to play through the wonderful Portrait of Ruin one more time, and then stayed for what was billed as pretty much some neat little bonus: a completely reworked version of the series' pariah, Haunted Castle.

Nobody actually liked Konami’s old arcade take on their classic vampire whipping series—it was unbearably unfair and stiffer than a frozen zombie—yet this remake has quietly gone and done the impossible, turning the rightly reviled game into a new classic with redesigned stages, incredible remixes of some of the series' most iconic tunes, and beautiful pixel art that looks authentic and refreshed all at once. If I’d wished for a new-old Castlevania it wouldn’t have been as good as this.

(Image credit: Infogrames)

Two characters in Alone in the Dark confront each other in a hallway

Alternatively:Alone in the Dark(1992)

Before Resident Evil ‘invented’ the survival horror genre, there was Alone in the Dark. I played this through to refresh myself on the original adventure and its pointy people/charming pixel art backgrounds before I dived into this year’s Harbour/Comer-starring reimagining of the Derceto mansion incident. I’m a little sorry to say this old game was honestly the better of the two, thanks to the puzzle box nature of the mansion’s design and the unnerving feeling of actually being, well,alone in the dark.

Modern pixels

OK so these next two aretechnicallythe exact opposite of retro, seeing as they’re both brand new releases and made with modern PCs in mind. But they so effectively embrace old ways of doing things that they fit right in with the classics of yesteryear, offering something familiar without simply copying some famous dead game’s homework.

(Image credit: High North Studios AS)

An encounter with a spider in Skald Against the Black Priory

Skald: Against the Black Priory(2024)

(Image credit: Shigatake Games)

A fighter shoots and dodges attacks from enemy ships

Alternatively:Devil Blade Reboot(2024)

This Japanese indie game looks and plays like a lost Saturn shmup, possessing the perfect mix of crunchy pixel art and ’90s arcade-style visual flexing. Everything’s explosions and bright blue lasers and gigantic slabs of metal. And like all the best Saturn shmups it can be enjoyed as a simple bit of fun or played and replayed until your thumbs hurt, every second of every stage bursting with points-scoring opportunities.

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Bright and beautiful#

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals#

First-person thrills#

Gimme all the D&D vampires#

Spooky times#

Modern pixels#