If you count the 8 bit era from the release of the Famicom in 1983 and the end of the 16 bit era at the release of the PlayStation in 1995, that’s 12 years. The first deliberately retro style game I can remember playing was Mega man 9, released in 2008, and games made in the style of the 2D classics of yore are still being pumped out today, 17 years later.
And because someone is going to mention it, yes I know there were other consoles and computers before the NES/Famicom. The first console my family owned was an Atari 2600, wood grain and all, but there are far fewer modern games reminiscent of that style.
It’s less about copying and more about the man-hours that it takes. The difference between a 2d and a 3d game is several magnitudes of work. On top of the art being more complex, you now have to deal with camera controls as well as 3d character control, significantly more complex physics and shaders, etc. The difference between high-fidelity 2d art and pixel art is similarly at least a magnitude of work.
Indie developers simply don’t have the manpower to achieve that in anything remotely close to reasonable amounts of time, and (successful) indie dev times are usually already quite long.
This, but also pixel art is an art form in its own right. It started with technical limitations, but exploring the limits of those limitations has created something uniquely and independently appealing for its own sake. Good pixel art just looks better than a lot of 3d stuff. And these days you can chose whether or not to stick to all the original limitations or not, giving more creative freedom and flexibility.
Very few indie games use 8-bit or even 16bit style.
I read this while taking a short break from Monster Sanctuary.
