If you love retro games, 2025 is about to be a feast.
From remakes to remasters to series revivals to games inspired by the classics, plenty of games with a heavy retro influence are already slated for 2025. While titles like Ghost of Yotei and Grand Theft Auto VI will capture most of the mainstream gaming zeitgeist this year, remasters like Capcom Fighting Collection 2, reimaginings like Double Dragon Revive and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, and indies like Demonschool could be well worth your time.
These different pockets of retro-inspired gaming often exist in disparate parts of the game industry, so it can be a lot to keep track of. To help, I’ve combed through the video game release calendar and pulled out 50 retro remakes, remasters, reimaginings, and revivals currently in the works. Many of those are set to launch in 2025. If you consider yourself a retro gaming fan, you should have no shortage of games to choose from this year.
Rambunctious remasters
The best place to start is with all of the remakes and remasters of retro classics, as these will give players new opportunities to revisit their favorites or check out classics for the first time. Ys Memorie: The Oath in Felghana kicks things off on January 7, but many more will follow. Digital Eclipse is one company that has spearheaded the recent wave of retro game collections through titles like Tetris Forever. Right now, it’s only announced upcoming game is Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection, which bundles several Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance Games together into a single collection. It arrives February 27.
Meanwhile, the first-person shooter remaster gurus at Nightdive Studios are working on their long-awaited remasters System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition and SiN Reloaded; hopefully, we will hear more about both projects this year. Limited Run Games is also continuing its push to become a retro game rerelease publisher with a smattering of titles slated to come out throughout the year. As seen in the LRG3 2024 showcase, it’s bringing some Square Enix-owned franchises like Fighting Force, Fear Effect, and Gex back with rereleases of their own.
Limited Run Games is bringing a little-known Turrican successor to the West this year with Rendering Ranger R2 Rewind, helping Konami re-launch the obscure GBA platformer Ninja Five-0, and creating Bubsy in the Purrfect Collection, which will make the infamous platformer character retro games available on modern consoles for the first time. Aspyr will launch Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles on January 23 and Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered on February 14.
Classics like Power Stone and Capcom vs. SNK will make a comeback as part of Capcom Fighting Collection 2 later this year, while Sunsoft’s obscure beat ’em up Shounen Ninja Sasuke is getting rereleased on Steam as Justice Ninja Casey. Plus, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos is getting an intensive remaster as part of Argonauts’ comeback, and Konami is finally remastering the first two Suikoden RPGs.
Real remakes
While all of the remasters I’ve mentioned are essentially preserving the original experience and just offering it up on modern gaming platforms, there are retro remakes on the way that are rebuilding these classics from the ground up. Amerzone — The Explorer’s Legacy is a cult classic PC adventure game from the creators of Syberia, and Microids will release a modern remake of it in the second quarter of 2025.
In the wake of Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake, Square Enix will give the same treatment to the first two games in that iconic RPG series with Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake. Meanwhile, the Trails series is beloved by many, but hard to broach due to the complex, interconnected narratives of this massive RPG series. To help, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter will help give players a clear starting point by remaking the beginning of the saga later in 2025.
The highest-profile remake in the cards heading into this year is Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. Digital Trends considers Metal Gear Solid 3 to be one of the best games of all time, so it’ll be tough for Konami to rebuild this classic in Unreal Engine 5 without the help of Hideo Kojima and still create something that feels inspired. Konami and Bloober Team managed to pull that off with Silent Hill 2’s 2024 remake, so hopefully, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is just as respectful to the classic it’s based on.
Radical revivals
While I enjoy a good remaster or remake, I get more excited by retro reimaginings that take a classic game or series and reinterpret it with modern game design philosophies. If The Game Awards 2024 was any indication, many of those are on the way in 2025. There’s Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, a new 2D platformer in that beloved Koei Temco series from the developers of Blasphemous. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves revives one of the earliest fighting game competitors to Street Fighter with all the learnings SNK has taken from its recent The King of Fighters games; it’s out on April 24.
Fans of strategy games can look forward to Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero and Commandos: Origins, while shoot ’em up players can anticipate Sonic Wings Reunion, a new game in the Aero Fighters series. A new Backyard Sports game is in the works alongside the rerelease of more of Humongous’ classic sports titles, while series that began in the early 2000s, such as Mafia, Fable, and Metroid Prime, will all get new games in 2025. Netflix is building on the success of its Carmen Sandiego TV show by bringing the classic edutainment series back with a new game, and Paradox might finally make 2025 the year where the long-awaited Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 releases.
Shadow Labyrinth builds on Pac-Man’s odd Secret Level episode and transforms the arcade classic into a Hollow Knight-inspired action platformer. Atari will also continue its efforts to reinterpret its 2600 classics with the futuristic racer Fatal Run 2089.
Finally, Double Dragon Revive is the latest reinterpretation of the classic beat ’em up series, and we already know that it’s launching on October 23. Arc System Works tells Digital Trends that its goal with Double Dragon Revive was to “make a natural evolution of the series,” and it will do so by adding “more depth to the game mechanics to increase the thrill and tension in every fight.” While the classics should be preserved, I love to see these series evolve and change over time thanks to new ideas from different teams of developers. That’s why these are the games in this roundup that I’m looking forward to the most this year.
Inspired indies
While every 2025 release I’ve mentioned thus far has been tied to some classic game or series, we can’t forget about the brand-new games that take old-school aesthetics and create something original with them. Some are outright made for older consoles, like the upcoming Game Boy and Chromatic game Chantey, but most take their inspiration at the visual and gameplay design level. Some feel like spiritual successors, like how Demonschool is a tactical RPG that looks like the earliest Persona games, and Agent 64: Spies Never Die is trying to replicate the look and feel of Rare’s Goldeneye 007. The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest is also like that; it’s a tribute to Castlevania with a ridiculous title.
Warside follows in the steps of Wargroove to offer up an indie alternative to Advance Wars. Fields of Mistira is expected to exit early access sometime this year, too, and could potentially become the most beloved Harvest Moon spiritual successor since Stardew Valley. Known entities in the video game industry are also making new retro-inspired titles. Yacht Club Games is working on Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope DX and Mina the Hollwer right now, for example, while Veewo Games just revealed Neon Abyss 2 at Day of the Devs: The Game Awards 2024 Edition.
Takaya Imamura is a former Nintendo artist best known for his work on F-Zero and Star Fox and for inventing Tingle. On February 28, he’ll make his mark as an indie developer by releasing the 16-bit visual novel OMEGA 6 The Triangle Stars. Indie publisher Playism plans on launching the pixel art action game Blade Chimera on January 16, while Retrovibe is putting out a sports-inspired boomer shooter called Sportal later in the year. Keep Driving, a brand new The Oregon Trail-inspired game with beautiful pixel art about driving across the country, impressed me during the last Steam Next Fest, as did the GBA-inspired action roguelike Rogue Labyrinth.
Finally, if you’re a horror fan, then upcoming ones with retro aesthetics like Dead of Darkness, Hell Drive, and Labyrinth of the Demon King should all be on your radar. If nothing else, this massive list of games should show you that there will be no shortage of ways to experience retro gaming goodness in 2025 if you actively seek it out. Tons of long-dormant franchises are getting revived through remakes, remasters, and reimaginings, while indies keep the retro gaming spirit alive with original titles. There’s certainly no shortage as to what we can enjoy.
