10 Video Games That Were SAVED From Destruction
History was almost robbed of these classics.
The best thing about 2024's Silent Hill 2 remake - aside from its superlative art direction, vastly improved combat and ability to annoy idiots - was that it finally gave modern gamers an easy (and entirely legal) way to experience Konami's seminal survivor horror.
To provide context for that statement, the original Silent Hill 2 has been something of a bugbear for video game preservationists. Due to Konami's bafflingly cavalier attitude towards their revered horror franchise, the complete source code for Silent Hill 2 has long been lost to the mists of time. As such, it's extremely unlikely that the 2001 version will be making an appearance on any online stores any time soon, despite the best efforts of initiatives like GoG's Dreamlist.
Yet hope still remains. As this article will show, there have been numerous games whose demises have been greatly exaggerated. From once-lost code being found by heroic dataminers to stone-cold classics that were a hair's breadth away from never reaching store shelves, this list will look at ten games whose brushes with death left them shaken, not interred...
10. Goldeneye 007
Given Goldeneye's historic impact on the gaming industry, it seems absurd to think that Nintendo would ever have had cold feet over the N64's most famous FPS. Yet at one point, the Kyoto company's extremities were left positively arctic over the thought of associating their brand with cinema's suavest purveyor of death.
As explained by Cinema Blend, Nintendo initially balked at the level of violence in Goldeneye. According to respected games journalist Simon Parkin, there was even talk of Nintendo cancelling the game due to a genuine fears of it being associated with the N64.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and Goldeneye went on to make history (and a lot of money for Nintendo). And it did so even without the advice offered by legendary game designer and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who suggested that the game should end with James Bond visiting all his victims in the hospital and shaking their hands to show there were no hard feelings.
Which is a tad hypocritical. After all, when was the last time a Mario game ended with the plumber apologizing to the Goombas he flattened, or sheepishly handing back shells to the Koopa Troopas he denuded on his journey to batter Bowser?