In what is set to be another big year for gaming, 2025 will have to shoulder some of the most significant invasive changes it’s had to for quite some time. While a lot of this is due to advances in artificial intelligence, there is also a market for the revision of classic games due to the global nature of the gaming world and the number of people who aren’t seeking the latest games.
The market for retro casino gaming
There’s always been a massive market for retro games. Obviously, some of these styles were contemporary at one point, so there’s now a nostalgic element involved in retro game design. Casino gaming has constantly tried to strike a balance between introducing a new range of casino games and a selection of ideas that incorporate some of the original foundations of the designs that initially made them so successful.
Flicking through a list of the best online casinos, it becomes clear that platforms combining new games with classic retro games cast the net wide enough to attract the highest number of customers possible. When talking about retro casino games, we primarily refer to slots that have a relatively basic design.
Classic games are released with primarily traditional features, such as video poker, which has been on the market for over 40 years. More modern adaptations of this game have looked to spice it up a bit and add different themes, backgrounds and side bets, but there are retro versions of the game that showcase it in its most basic form.
Is retro gaming a popular genre in 2025?
Retro gaming continues to attract an audience because of its vastness. It touches on the nostalgic element of gaming and covers remakes of classic games as well as new concepts with similar graphics that are playable on some of the latest gaming PCs, mobile devices and home video gaming consoles.
So, retro gaming continues to be hugely popular as we head into 2025 because, like many other genres, it has effortlessly adapted to today’s technological advances, whether through gaming software design or the implementation of new graphic capabilities and AI.
Retro-themed games influenced by card games
Many upcoming retro-themed games are proving exciting for gaming enthusiasts over the next 10 months. Our first pick today is a game with an imminent release date later this month. Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection is available on the Nintendo Switch, and includes a range of games originally released for Game Boy, Game Boy Colour and Game Boy Advance. Yu-Gi-Oh was part of the enormous card gaming craze in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Now, we don’t want to start a fight with anyone, but Pokémon probably had a bit of a lead over other games, at least in terms of popularity. Not only did the game transform the world, but it also had a revamp more recently when Pokémon Go went viral in 2016.
Arguably, this is the best example of how to revamp a retro game for a modern audience and make it work. Yu-Gi-Oh still has immense popularity within the retro gaming community, and many people are looking forward to the release of the Early Days collection later this month.
High-profile retro remakes to look out for
The definition of retro gaming can cover a universe of games, ranging from the early days of Pac-Man and its subsequent evolutions to some of the highest grossing games on classic consoles like the PlayStation 1 and the Nintendo 64.
With this in mind, we can’t discuss retro-themed games without discussing the remakes of Metal Gear Solid: Delta Eater. It comes from true gaming royalty; few retro games have matched the success of Metal Gear Solid, and it’s widely considered among the best PlayStation 2 games ever made. That doesn’t guarantee success though, even with the might of Konami behind it.
While no game designer or prominent software company will want to have this unwanted moniker attached to them, this is what Rockstar managed with their woeful remaster of GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas. This has been a clinic in how not to do remasters. They don’t just disappoint fans, but if they are done badly enough, which the Definitive Edition was, then they result in a tarnished memory of the originals — at least it did for me anyway.
Retro-themed indie games
If you’re partial to a retro indie game like we are, then we’re going to fire through a quick list of some of the games that we are most looking forward to this year:
- The Stone of Madness
- Tears of Metal
- Crowsworn
- Croak
- Hyper Light Breaker
If you’re active in the retro-themed gaming community, you’ll know all too well that a range of games have been set for release over the last few years that still haven’t come to market. Hollow Knight: Silksong is the glaring example.
However, all the games in the above list seem to be moving toward a 2025 release date. We recommend keeping an eye on them to get a better idea of when they’ll be available. We expect them all to have scheduled release dates over the next couple of months.
Conclusion
The worst-case scenario for retro games is that they do not have the same level of care and attention as their original classics and end up being a cheap money grab. However, with such a vast market and passionate audience for this small but committed gaming area, it’s unlikely that the games and the gaming remakes we have touched on today will experience the same issues that Rockstar had with GTA.
While it depends on the type of retro game you most enjoy, indie games always strike a chord with a significant chunk of the online gaming fraternity. As the year unfolds, we will see plenty more updates and news about possible retro gaming releases between now and the end of this year and some of the projects that could become big hitters in 2026.
For now, there are definitely more than enough gaming titles to sink our teeth into between now and the end of the year.