Video game nostalgia: why old games still feel so good

The word was coined in the seventeenth century for a medical condition afflicting homesick soldiers. That reputation lasted a long time. The turning point came with a series of studies by Tim Wildschut, Constantine Sedikides and colleagues, who asked people to describe nostalgic experiences and then looked at what those memories contained, what triggered them and what they did.

Their findings changed the field. Nostalgic memories usually starred the self alongside close others, often at meaningful events. They were mostly positive, though frequently bittersweet, and often told a story of difficulty that turned out well. They were commonly triggered by a negative mood, and loneliness in particular. And experimentally inducing nostalgia raised positive feelings, self-regard and a sense of being loved and connected.

A later study by Xinyue Zhou and colleagues showed the loneliness link directly. Loneliness reduced people’s sense of social support, but it also increased nostalgia, and nostalgia in turn increased their sense of support. The authors describe this as a restorative function. When we feel alone, we reach back to times when we were not.

Sources1Source 1Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. (2006). Nostalgia: Content, triggers, functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(5), 975–993.2Source 2Zhou, X., Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., & Gao, D.-G. (2008). Counteracting loneliness: On the restorative function of nostalgia. Psychological Science, 19(10), 1023–1029.

Tim Wulf, Nicholas Bowman, John Velez and Johannes Breuer brought this research to games. In an online experiment they asked players to write about a gaming memory, varying whether it was from the past or recent, and whether it was social or solo. Past memories produced more nostalgia, as you would expect. So did memories in which the player had felt competent and connected to others at the time. Social memories raised nostalgia indirectly, by increasing that sense of relatedness.

The same study linked nostalgic gaming memories to present-day benefits: players who felt more nostalgic also felt more socially connected, more energetic and more optimistic. This fits the general nostalgia research, but it is worth noting that it is based on people recalling memories rather than on long-term tracking, so it shows how nostalgia works in the moment rather than how it changes a life.

In other words, the games we are nostalgic for are rarely just games. They are the co-op campaign with a sibling, the handheld swapped on a school trip, the high score a parent could never beat. The memory is of mastery and company, and the game is the doorway back to it.

Sources3Source 3Wulf, T., Bowman, N. D., Velez, J. A., & Breuer, J. (2020). Once upon a game: Exploring video game nostalgia and its impact on well-being. Psychology of Popular Media, 9(1), 83–95.

Nostalgia does not need an old game. Wulf and Matthew Baldwin studied Pokémon Go around its 2016 launch, in Germany before release and in the United States after. The more meaningful Pokémon had been to people, the more nostalgia they anticipated and felt, and that nostalgia predicted a more meaningful kind of entertainment experience, which in turn predicted psychological well-being. A brand-new game worked as a time machine because it drew on a world players had grown up with.

In a 2023 review, Bowman and Wulf describe video games as unusually strong nostalgia triggers, partly because they are interactive: you do not just see the old world, you act in it again, with the same muscle memory. That helps explain why remakes and retro collections succeed, and why a simple, familiar mechanic can feel like coming home. We looked at how that played out on the streets in Pokémon GO and the power of place.

Sources4Source 4Wulf, T., & Baldwin, M. (2020). Being a kid again: Playing Pokémon Go contributes to wellbeing through nostalgia. Studies in Communication and Media, 9(2), 241–263.5Source 5Bowman, N. D., & Wulf, T. (2023). Nostalgia in video games. Current Opinion in Psychology, 49, 101544.

Because nostalgia works, it is also sold. Remasters, anniversary editions, miniature versions of old consoles and a steady supply of reboots all trade on the feeling that the past was better. Much of this is harmless and some of it is wonderful: a well-made remaster can let a new generation share a game their parents loved, which is nostalgia doing its social job in both directions.

It helps to know what you are actually buying, though. The research suggests the feeling is mostly about the people and the sense of mastery around the game, not the game on its own. A remaster cannot bring back the friend on the other controller or the long empty summer. Players who replay an old favourite alone sometimes find it thinner than they remembered, and that is not the game’s fault. The memory had other people in it.

The same insight suggests a better use for nostalgia. If a game from childhood still pulls at you, it may be worth playing it with someone from that time, or introducing it to someone new. Sharing the experience is closer to what the memory was made of than any upgrade in resolution. Our piece on how games kept people connected shows how much of games’ value lies in who you play with.

Sources3Source 3Wulf, T., Bowman, N. D., Velez, J. A., & Breuer, J. (2020). Once upon a game: Exploring video game nostalgia and its impact on well-being. Psychology of Popular Media, 9(1), 83–95.5Source 5Bowman, N. D., & Wulf, T. (2023). Nostalgia in video games. Current Opinion in Psychology, 49, 101544.

Some games date quickly: their graphics, their interfaces, their assumptions. Others are close to timeless because their core is a rule you can hold in your head. Falling blocks, sliding tiles, a crossword grid. The history of these forms is long, and we cover it in why crosswords, jigsaws and sliding puzzles endure and in the history of sliding block puzzles.

OutBrick is a new game that grew from one of those old rules: in its classic boards, still playable in the browser, a brick glides until something stops it and leaves through the gate of its own colour. On iPhone and iPad it now adds swaps and three-in-a-row matches to the slide. Part of the pleasure, for many players, is recognition, the feeling of a wooden tray puzzle or a parking-lot puzzle from childhood, now in colour. If that rings a bell, try a board in your browser and see what it brings back.

The research gives few reasons to feel guilty about revisiting old games and some reasons to do it on purpose, especially with the people who were there the first time.

• Replay with company: the social part of a memory is what makes it nostalgic, so invite the old co-op partner.
• Notice the trigger. If you reach for an old game when you feel low or lonely, that is nostalgia doing its restorative job, and a message to a friend can do the same.
• Let new games in too. Familiar mechanics in a new setting can carry the old feeling forward.
• Do not expect the game to be as good as you remember; expect the memory to be.

Sources3Source 3Wulf, T., Bowman, N. D., Velez, J. A., & Breuer, J. (2020). Once upon a game: Exploring video game nostalgia and its impact on well-being. Psychology of Popular Media, 9(1), 83–95.2Source 2Zhou, X., Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., & Gao, D.-G. (2008). Counteracting loneliness: On the restorative function of nostalgia. Psychological Science, 19(10), 1023–1029.