FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Games

What Makes People Interested in Older Games Again?

It seems like a lot of folks are enjoying (and agonizing over) 'Bloodborne' these days.

Open Thread is where Waypoint staff talk about games and other things we find interesting. This is where you'll see us chat about games, music, movies, TV, and even sports, and welcome you to participate in the discussion.

This is all anecdotal, and I suspect it’s just in my little corner of the universe, but it seems like folks are interested again in a little PS4 exclusive that came out almost three years ago. A violent, aggressive entry in From’s Souls line (Souls-adjacent? Soulslike!), with beasts, tainted blood, and cosmic horror. Bloodborne is fresh again, and the hunt begins anew!

Or something like that. We streamed the game recently, and Natalie got her first taste of Coldblood Dew. The AGDQ run was a hit. Our very own Dark Joels is playing the game for the first time, and a few friends on Twitter seem to have a renewed interest. And I, personally, can’t stop thinking about the game—the only From game I’ve actually made it all the way through. That's thanks, in part, to its rewarding aggressive play and the way-over-the-top horror aesthetics both being a better fit for me than the other Souls games (though I enjoyed 3, and played about 60 hours of it).

It brings up a broader question for me, though. What, exactly, makes this game interesting again, about three years later? Are people (again, anecdotally!) hungering for the hunt? For another Bloodborne, perhaps, one that fixes Austin’s biggest issue with the game (the need to farm blood vials, unlike estus flasks’ auto-regeneration at campfires)?

What about you, dear readers? Is there something that mysteriously draws you back to a game, maybe a couple of years after you’ve finished it? Or given you a reason to try something a little older (though, not nearly old enough to be "retro") for the first time? Let us know in the forums!

Have thoughts? Swing by Waypoint’s forums to share them!