Leon @ Made-In-Heaven

Nearly 10 years ago, when I started ROE, one of my favorite things was taking the games I grew up with and seeing how good I could make them look. It started with emulator settings, then texture packs. When the Seamless HD Project came along for Resident Evil, I was ecstatic. It became my favorite way to revisit the originals, and I have a lot of appreciation for the team and the work they put into it. That appreciation extends to the many modders restoring, reworking, and preserving these games in different ways. Exploring their projects and sharing them with you has been one of my favorite parts of running ROE. Over the years, the conversation around visual upgrades has changed, especially when AI is involved. I remember being excited about what upscaling could bring to older games. I also understand why people care about how those tools are used and how closely an update preserves the original artwork. It makes me wonder how our tastes will continue to change. After spending years chasing sharper textures and higher resolutions, maybe more of us will find ourselves drawn back to the original low poly models and pixelated backgrounds. There’s a particular atmosphere in those visuals that’s part of why we fell in love with these games. I still love seeing what’s possible with mods, and enjoying the original visuals doesn’t take anything away from the incredible work being done by the modding community. I’m grateful we have so many ways to experience these games. It’s funny how you can spend years trying to make an old game look new, then find yourself appreciating its original look more than ever.