Recently, I heard a saying about nostalgia - that when it comes to connecting with something that is gone, it is okay to visit the grave, bring flowers to the grave, talk to the grave - but you can’t dig up the grave.
You cannot revive something to be the same as it was, as its time has passed, and you have changed yourself in that time too.
I found it striking, and have been taking its sentiment surrounding nostalgia and holding it up to different areas of life and childhood - trying to not get trapped in my appreciation of holiday spots, TV shows, music, material things and places that are intrinsically tied to vast collections of memories and experiences. Revisiting some of these things, to access the golden humming feeling of nostalgia, is perhaps best enjoyed with friends. But upon arriving at gaming, and this perspective on accessing and embracing nostalgia, I wondered if gaming as a pastime, an activity, and a means of storytelling, somehow circumvents the shade of melancholy that we feel when trying to access nostalgia through other means.
The call back to memory that we get from the music, visuals and the physical exertion that we receive from gaming, is something that slightly affects us before we pivot back to fully immersing ourselves in the activity. I witnessed this recently when I invited a friend over and watched him play Mario Kart for the first time in years. I saw another friend's eyes gain a misty quality when he entered the room and the song “Secunda” from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Original Game Soundtrack was playing in the background of my living room as said game was paused on my console. While the popularity of these two games specifically haven’t waxed and waned to nearly the same degree as other titles across genres and platforms, it’s the distance in time from when we first played a game to when we rediscovered it that catches people off guard the most. From this observation we can ponder on how the appeal of nostalgia is utilised in promoting new games and associated material to players. Have new marketing methods whittled us down to just a few target points of visual and narrative archetypes to hit before we purchase what has been waived before us in game stores?
There is more and more of a reluctance to try out newer material and games. Purchasing new games that we aren’t already invested in, that are separate from any sequels or larger franchises, is something I see less and less of in my own circles and discussions with other gamers. Instead there seems to be a greater level of enjoyment gleaned from investigating the worlds of games we already have access to, replaying the titles we already have and picking out moments, lore and trivia from each game that we can reinvent or spin to our more current sense of humour. I have not seen nearly as much chatter about the addition to the greater lore of Zelda that the release of Tears of the Kingdom might have brought about as I have seen about the ultra realistic and sometimes cringe-worthy graphics. The release of The Elder Scrolls VI has been anticipated for a long long time, and yet the most interesting and popular conversations about it are happening around how it might reinvent and connect to the lore established in Skyrim. Communities surrounding long running gaming franchises such as The Sims are similarly more invested in community developed challenges, engagement and modifications to enhance the pre-existing games and their lore.
For the gaming industry, nostalgia is presented as an irresistibly charming tool for breadcrumbing interest and allowing for community led discussions and work to uphold the popularity of certain games. However, the inability to harness the feeling of nostalgia to drive the creativity and innovation of newer releases within franchises without potentially pandering to audiences or overpromising on consumer hopes makes nostalgia a quality and property in gaming that is most useful to consumers through our individual and unique feelings and relationships to the concept and our own history with gaming.