Collaborating with Nightdive Studios on retro games
It’s not the first time we’ve talked about retro games. They’re part of video game history and they have the unique quality of bringing us closer to our roots, by summoning the powerful, bittersweet taste of nostalgia.
Some of our senior team members are not just fans of retro games, but they also had the chance to experience them back in the day, and even work on some of the titles. Our CEO, Stefan Seicarescu, comes from a design background, and he often endearingly remembers the time when working with pixel art was not a reference or a stylistic choice, but the reality of current technology.
Apart from our personal interest as gamers, we’ve also been involved in multiple well-known retro gaming projects, including a long-standing partnership with the team at Nightdive Studios, widely recognized as the “masters of the remaster” for their exceptional work in bringing 90s and 2000s cult-classic FPS games to modern platforms with enhanced graphics, improved controls, and QoL updates. As a trusted service provider with Nightdive, we’ve been able to put classic games back into the hands of old and new gamers alike – essentially preserving video game history.
Whenever we see the opportunity to talk about such prolific collaborations, we have to seize it. Also taking a bit of inspiration from the GDC 2026 panel on the business side of retro gaming, we’d like to share a bit about our collaboration on this beloved part of game culture.
In search of lost code
The fan community has been requesting the revival of old titles for years and, in the meantime, they’ve been modding games, sometimes getting them as close to a remaster as possible. But the passionate team at Nightdive Studios, with Stephen Kick (Studio Head), Joe Johnson (Director of Operations) and Larry Kuperman (their recently retired VP of Business), took it into their own hands to professionally remake classics and give us versions that are now playable on new-gen technology.
Nightdive has the utmost respect for retro games, they see them as museum pieces which should be restored in the same manner as art is being restored to preserve its original nature. Since 2023, they have become part of the Atari Group, a company which played a crucial role in the development of the early gaming scene. Their collaboration seems like a meeting between history and historians.
The challenges of reviving retro games are many. More often than not working with code and assets which are either obsolete or missing. There are two main ways in which they bring back old games:
Remaster: An updated version of the original game with better graphics, optimized for current devices or ported for consoles (in case of PC games).
Remake: A modernized version of the classic title in a new engine, with updated graphics and gameplay elements that are suited for contemporary audiences, while still preserving the original game and mechanics.
Nightdive famously works on releases with their proprietary KEX engine, designed specifically for retro games in mind. The engine facilitates the process by offering split screen support to compare old and new, the possibility of loading old code into it, an environment clean of bloatware, all-platforms support and other useful features.
Our involvement in retro gaming projects
We’ve been partnering up with Nightdive Studios as service providers for +5 years. During this time, we’ve had the absolute privilege to work on a substantial number of retro games. The list contains the following titles (in order of release):
- System Shock Remake
- Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion
- Star Wars: Dark Forces
- Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition
- PO’ed: Definitive Edition
- Killing Time: Resurrected
- The Thing: Remastered
- System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster
- Turok
- I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
- Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
- PowerSlave Exhumed
- Outlaws + A Handful of Missions: Remaster
- Blood: Refreshed Supply™
On some of these games (i.e. System Shock, System Shock 2, Outlaws), we’ve been lucky enough to be involved early on and be part of the full restoration.
As an external partner, we’ve offered Quality Assurance, Localization, User Experience and Support services, including:
✔️Full functionality testing
✔️Gameplay balancing
✔️Basic compatibility
✔️Community support for
✔️Steam, Reddit and Discord
✔️Compliance QA
✔️Translation and Localization QA
✔️UX feedback
Comparing the original game with the remastered versions was an important step of the familiarization phase, always using the source material as a reference. Older games have complex level layouts, the gameplay is difficult and the UI is not intuitive. However, at the same time, this is part of their charm. Therefore, lots of critical thinking, careful attention and patience was required in the testing process.
Some of the biggest challenges we’ve encountered while testing retro games were:
➡️Key/button bindings: Testing the key and button bindings can be overwhelming and difficult to cover, especially on PC where we have different layouts (QWERTY, AZERTY) and a really large number of special characters (i.e. á, é, í, ó, ú).
➡️Ad-hoc on Nintendo Switch: The Ad-hoc feature offers the possibility for local multiplayer for up to eight consoles without an internet connection. This peer-to-peer connection allows nearby systems to link directly for gaming or local data transfers, sometimes interference from WiFi signals hindered the process.
➡️Various multiplayer modes: Older games had multiple multiplayer game modes, thus testing all of them can be a challenge.
Through generations
In the process of restoring or remaking a classic, the source material is sacred. Nightdive updates graphics, optimizes controls or improves gameplay, but the whole playing experience should still feel close to the original.
In this spirit, some of the legacy issues and quirks were preserved for flavor (the so-called jank which seasoned players find endearing because they remind them of their first time playing those games back then).
With younger generations testing the games, it was like a meeting of two worlds. What seemed classic to us, looked difficult for younger testers, especially since retro games are known for their lack of “handholding” and a steeper learning curve. We’ve witnessed a powerful exchange through which younger generations got a taste for retro gaming and educated themselves in video game history, while also providing valuable feedback on how to bring these games closer to current audiences.
And that’s the beauty of what Nightdive accomplishes. With their restorations they pass down experiences and artifacts through generations. App Developer magazine called it “future-proofing video games.” Different generations see them with different eyes, yet in the end, the experience ends up being similarly enriching. The original mission behind the studio was to share their childhood experience and this is what we’ve seen happening.