IIt’s early days, but 2026 could be the biggest dumpster fire of my lifetime. Wars start, end, and start again in a week. Gas tanks are more expensive than cars, so people rely on their hopes and dreams to run their cars. Idiots in the manosphere are making millions. There have been some depressing celebrity deaths in the lead up to the first Creme Egg of the year.
I had no idea that Antidote to Anxiety and Anger was a cheesy little title made by two French guys in what I consider to be the cringiest game genre. Retro Rewind is an indie darling of the moment, selling over 100,000 copies in a week on Steam. In this film, you run a video rental store in the 90s. Video must be purchased. Display them well. Drop out flyers. Serve your customers. Please buy more things. It’s no different than any other retail sim out there, and since I’m all about playing video games, I usually avoid them. run away From the boring world of work to an exciting world of dragons, aliens, and sporting talents.
But Retro Rewind promised a certain amount of ’90s nostalgia. That was enough for me.
Apparently, it’s realistic. My wife works in retail, and she would nod sagely as I complained about people getting annoyed about late fees, the phone ringing while they were busy checking out, or inconsiderate customers who wouldn’t rewind the tape or want to mix the colors on their Slurpees.
There’s a lot to do each day, but it’s not fast-paced and frustrating like Overcooked. The pace is tough, but manageable. This is important because nostalgic games like this rely on a sense of comfort. It accurately reproduces many small surface elements, especially sounds, such as the sound of a tape being rewound, the clatter of a tape sliding across a scanner, and the clatter of a tape being dropped on a counter. Digital media doesn’t have clicks. Not remotely tactile. Sure, you could download Crimson Desert from day one without putting on pants, but I miss the feeling of pushing a CD into a slot and feeling the machine grab it and gently pull it in. I think I could happily fill an hour just by stuffing my Amiga with discs.
But aside from its video rental store setting, Retro Rewind has nothing to say about the rest of the ’90s. There are no jokes about Oasis or Blur, no baggy jeans or vulgar sportswear. But it pays homage to the raunchiness of the 90s adult video market. The calendar alerts you to local events that may whet your appetite for a particular movie genre, and you can even order inventory to meet this demand. But two days a week, a shady man hangs out in an alley and offers nude videos with titles like “Put an Heirloom in Your Mouth,” “Wash My Smoke,” and “Hold the End of a Cigarette.”
All the movie titles in the game are ridiculous and I’d like to know if the developers used a tool to generate random words or if they’re just getting high. There are sci-fi movies like “Black Hole Loaf” and “Space Pod Code Name Couch,” and dramas like “Letting Our Performer Go” and “T. Rex.” There’s a romance called Can the Couch Feel Me, and a huge number of titles that allude to tobacco in all genres, including Intergalactic Tobacco, Tobacco Boxing, and Cigarette Shark Bait. This is what the world looked like before indoor smoking was banned.
Retro Rewind isn’t just about ’90s nostalgia. This is nostalgia for an analog life. For simple tasks with predictable results. For working hard and getting a predictable reward at a job that won’t be taken over by AI. It’s an escapism to the past decade when I felt safe. We used to think Bush, Berlusconi and Blair were bad people, but they look cute and cuddly compared to the brutal monsters in power today. And this is a game made by two developers, not a bunch of 1000 highly optimized people spread across the globe, funded by Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner. For 14 pounds it’s yours. It is completely at odds with our times, which are not yoked to runaway greed, and it actually feels very zeitgeist-y.
It made me feel all of these things without actually being a great game. It’s not as ambitious, broad, or resourceful as Arcade Paradise, the last retail simulator I played. When it comes to gameplay, it’s not much more complicated than moving sand in a zen playground. It doesn’t have the best graphics, but it can lean towards something more confident and quirky. I’d also like to see more sidequests, but with the game’s early success, that could still happen.
Despite my apprehensions, I can say with my hands on my chest that I feel like Retro Rewind is the best game on the planet to play right now.
