Are indie devs technically making outdated games.

[u/Reasonable_Airline89]

Many people share the view that videogames can be outdated which i personally don't share. And im not someone who grew up with retro games and i have no nostalgia when i play witcher 1, monster hunter 1, castlevania 1 etc. What i'm trying to get at is if indie developers intentionally copy how these games feel and play. Does that mean theyre technically making outdated games. I just want to see if your views are consistent.

[u/OrangePeelPotatoes]

Lower budget =/= outdated.

They are making modern low budget games. They are making games with modern sensibilities and knowledge. If they intentionally make an artistic choice to carry over retro design choices to a modern game, then that retro design choice also becomes a modern design choice. Those design choices were clearly not dated if modern designers wanted them in their modern indie games. If they were dated then those designers would have improved upon them with modern game design knowledge.

[u/Benson92 → u/OrangePeelPotatoes]

You said everything I was trying to say in 1/4 the space. cheers.

[u/armypotent → u/OrangePeelPotatoes]

This is a fantastic answer

[u/linux_mint_rules → u/OrangePeelPotatoes]

So for some context to this post, I have a master's degree in Musicology (music history).

There's an interesting parallel between what you say here and a long-standing debate in the classical music world.

Basically, in the last 70 years or so, we've started to learn more and more about the differences between how we perform classical music today, and how it was performed when it was written. In particular, I'm talking about music that was written before the Romantic era, so before roughly ~1800-1825.

For example, the modern piano was not really developed until around the middle of the 1800s (maybe earlier or later depending on how you define it). Keyboard music before that was typically written for other instruments, such as the harpsichord or an earlier version of the piano known today as the "fortepiano," which played and sounded a bit different from a modern piano. So if you perform music by Bach or Mozart on a modern piano, technically you aren't performing it the "way it was intended."

Many people, of course, perform Bach and Mozart on modern instruments using modern performance sensibilities, but there's been a growing movement over the last half-century towards "historically informed performance practice," i.e., performing older music using the instruments and performing styles that would have been available to the composers at the time.

For several decades, the idea of "historically informed performance practice" contained an implication that performing older music with a more modern style and instrumentation was somehow wrong or lesser, and that we should instead be performing older music in its original style in an attempt to be more accurate to what the original composer wanted.

But as you've probably guessed, there's been a backlash against this idea, with lots of people pointing out that there is nothing artistically invalid about playing older music with more modern stylistic choices. In fact, Richard Taruskin (a famous musicologist) pointed out that choosing to play in a "historically informed" style is actually in some ways a "modern" performance practice decision, because it's only been since the middle of the 20th century that anybody cared about playing things in a "historically correct" manner. Like, very few people in 1925 were caring about playing Bach on the "correct" instruments. So Taruskin made the argument that historically informed performance is actually modern performance.

Anyway this post is apropos of nothing other than to say that your argument applies well outside of the sphere of video games. It's also Monday morning and my brain is just starting to wake up.

[u/Benson92]

I think the question is too vague because it conflates three different things. indie, retro, and outdated.

“Indie” just describes how a game is developed/published. It says nothing about whether the game is retro or modern.

“Retro” usually means deliberately drawing on the design, aesthetics or mechanics of older games. A modern indie game can intentionally use pixel art, fixed cameras, limited saves, old-school combat, etc. without automatically being “outdated”.

“Dated” is a different judgement entirely. That is more about whether something has aged poorly compared with modern expectations. For example, an awkward control scheme, terrible camera, no autosave/checkpointing, excessive loading, unreadable UI, or graphics that were aiming for realism but now look rough.

So an indie developer intentionally copying an old mechanic doesn't prove that “outdated games” are being made today. You'd first have to define what you actually mean by outdated, rather than treating old, retro and outdated as interchangeable terms.

[u/Reasonable_Airline89 → u/Benson92]

I'll ask you this, most people think castlevania 1 is outdated because of how it feels to control and limited lives. If an indie developer does the same thing, does that mean they're making an outdated game. I'm trying to understand people who think videogames can be outdated.

[u/Witty_Milk4671 → u/Reasonable_Airline89]

You are talking about outdated in the sense of mechanics and gameplay systems.

In this case, yes, it is making a game outdated in the sense it lacks modern quality of life that is expected from a game in 2026.

[u/Benson92 → u/Reasonable_Airline89]

Right. so I think the premise you're getting at is: “If a mechanic is considered outdated in an old game, does deliberately reproducing that same mechanic in a modern game make the modern game outdated too?”

Copying an old mechanic doesn't automatically make the whole game outdated. There's a difference between deliberately using an older design convention as an homage and simply reproducing a limitation or frustration that has since been solved. It's a part of their artistic intent.

A developer might even intentionally take an “outdated” mechanic and reinterpret it with a modern twist. Castlevania's fixed jump arc, for example, could be deliberately reproduced because the whole game is designed around that commitment and because the developer wants to evoke that specific style of play. Limited lives could also be used intentionally, perhaps with a modern twist that changes what losing a life actually means.

So yes, a mechanic can be outdated in one context and still be used deliberately and effectively in another. Sometimes that contrast is the entire point of the homage.

Also, I’d leave “indie” out of the question entirely. It has nothing to do with the argument. Any developer, indie, AA or AAA, can deliberately revive, reinterpret or modernise an older design convention.

One example of this is 'Octopath Traveller' which has a modern twist on pixel art graphics that wouldn't have been possible back in the era of snes etc. It was also produced by a major publisher (Square Enix) not an indie.

[u/ShadowTown0407 → u/Reasonable_Airline89]

No even if they make castlevania 1 again they are not making outdated games, what once was tecnical limitation or barriers put in place to streach run time can still be tackled as an genuine obstacle by the player today. Maybe in castlevania 1 you had really bad air control because of tecnical limitations or they just didn't have the idea to give you proper air control but today you can take that as a challenge, meet the game on its own terms and learn it's mechanics

[u/DharmaPolice]

Outdated is actually a fairly useless way of describing something when it comes to art/entertainment, it's usually a cover for a different judgement about something. Obviously something can be technically outdated, but that's not usually what people are referring to.

But if someone makes a game that is deliberately retro in style then calling it outdated would be particularly stupid. Some noir movies/TV shows are made in black & white to ape the style of classics in the genre (the recent Spider Noir is an example of this, although it's offered in both formats). You might not like black and white movies but calling Spider Noir's b&w version outdated would be pretty dumb when it's a conscious design decision to offer it like that.

Boomer Shooters are a video game example of this same phenomenon. They are deliberately copying many things about older games. Some of those things may not appeal to you but that's clearly a subjective thing.

I would argue there some things that we shouldn't try to ape everything about older games. Accessibility options & remapping controls which I don't think should ever be omitted just because that's not what many games did in the old days.

[u/Longjumping-Style730]

Indie developers often copy the feel of retro games but that doesn't mean they copy them exactly

Shovel Knight and Mina the Hollower are both stylized like retro games but have very modern sensibilities in terms of their game design. Most indie throwbacks are like this. It's not like you could throw these games in the 90s and no one would know the difference.

So no, just because indie developers make games

[u/lordberric]

I can't think of a single game I've played recently that I would consider groundbreaking in terms of the use of the medium that wasn't an indie game.

Major studios tend towards safe concepts that reiterate their past works. I would say they're more stuck in the past than indie games.

[u/Itchy_Athlete_4971]

The newest and most innovative games are indies.

That doesn't mean ALL indie games have new ideas, or even most, but it's still true. On the entire other end of the spectrum, the bigger the budget, the more chance that it will feel like a copy of a copy.

[u/Remarkable-Fail-4734]

I think if there is one word I would like to see retired from gaming discussion, it would have to be "outdated". If something worked 20 years ago then it will work today as well. If something sucks today then it will suck 20 years from now.

[u/Trash_Connoisseur]

I wouldn't say so. Sure, they're trying to emulate the look and feel of older games, but they're always informed by the successes and failings of those games in some way. The games are never 1 to 1 copies either of course. They're still new experiences.

[u/Tony_in2026]

No the game aspect is usually pretty cutting edge but the graphics can look outdated because they’re using those styles. But i still think they’re using them in with a modern sensibility. There are a lot of games with pixel graphics but i can’t say it looks like they were made in 1985.

[u/theClanMcMutton]

I do think it's possible for games to be outdated, or at least to have outdated elements.  Like, say, "lives" systems. These have been abandoned by the industry as a whole, and I think that's for the best.

[u/temhotaokeaha]

Very good question and people are giving good answers too, no idea why is this downvoted (classic reddit).

I believe games definitely can be outdated in certain aspects. Say, UI/UX, for me it seems like they only got recognized as its own "discipline" around 2015 or something, but they can make or break games. For example Fallout 1/2 are fantastic games in my eye, but it gets annoying interacting with the pipboy stuff; and just to be clear, I'm NOT talking here about UI being diegetic, i.e. the fact that the UI is stylized in the same overall style as the rest of the game (that part is actually a good thing). I'm talking about actions being confusing, no indicators of what items can be used where, unnecessary shortenings, and so on.

Inb4 the "OMG ZOOMERS WITH THEIR NEED FOR CLARITY, IN MY DAYS WE CLICKED EVERY PIXEL IN OUR ADVENTURE GAMES!" crowd: yeah, okay, cool. 95% of people don't like that and don't enjoy that. People don't like being confused and sitting there without any explanations or at least hints, it takes a special kind of masochist to like it.

(could've written a lot more here but I"m tired)

[u/BoxNemo]

I mean, games can be outdated. I loved Adventure on the Atari 2600, and it'll always have a special place in my heart, but I wouldn't argue if someone says the gameplay and graphics are outdated after 46 years. It pretty much fits the definition of the word.

I don't think 'outdated' is necessarily a pejorative, though.

What i'm trying to get at is if indie developers intentionally copy how these games feel and play. Does that mean theyre technically making outdated games. I just want to see if your views are consistent.

Do you have examples? Be much easier to judge what you mean with a few examples.

[u/DarthOrganism]

I'd separate old constraints from old design goals. Limited lives existed partly because of hardware and arcade economics, but commitment and tension are still valid goals today. A modern game can reuse limited lives while adding fast restarts, clear feedback and shorter runs. Then it isnt outdated, it's an old idea rebuilt with current knowledge. Copying the constraint without understanding the experience it was supposed to create is what usually feels dated imo.