Earthion: Proof 2D Never Had to Die
One of the more pervasive lies in gaming is the notion that 2D games were simply a stepping stone on the way to the 3D promised land. Industry insiders repeated this mantra so often in the late 90s and early aughts that even players started to believe it. By the time the PlayStation 2 hit its stride, the big publishers had written pixel art and side-scrolling gameplay out of the medium’s future.
The historical record proves otherwise. Two-dimensional video games weren’t an evolutionary dead end. They were, and remain, a distinct medium in their own right. Unlike the film industry’s move from silent to sound, or black-and-white to color, the leap from 2D to 3D was not an upgrade in kind. It was a fork in the road. What the AAA studios actually did was abandon one entire medium to chase another.
That abandonment looked smart at the time. Sony and Microsoft were betting big on polygonal graphics, and Nintendo hedged its bets by wrapping classic design around 3D innovations. The market was flush with cash, 3D was the fashionable novelty, and few players noticed what was being lost.
But with the benefit of hindsight, we can see the cost: Whole lines of gameplay; whole aesthetic traditions and schools of design, were prematurely discarded.
Related: Game Over for AAA
Marshall McLuhan’s media theory makes the distinction clear. Old-school 2D games like Mega Man 2, Castlevania, and Contra were cool media. They required significant imaginative participation from the player. Limited graphics and sound forced your mind to fill in the blanks. Instead of robotically pressing buttons when prompted, gamers collaborated with their games.
In sharp contrast, post-Ground Zero 3D games are hot media. On the surface, they promise you the world: photorealistic graphics, cinematic cutscenes, professional voice acting, and orchestral scores. But in terms of interaction, they demand less from the player’s imagination. They chase immersion at the cost of involvement.
By discarding 2D, AAA publishers effectively threw away one of video games’ greatest strengths. They decided that cool media wasn’t “real” anymore.
Yet, players never fully abandoned 2D. When indies like Shovel Knight, Cuphead, and Hotline Miami hit the scene, their success wasn’t an accident. These games tapped into a hunger that never went away. They demonstrated that lean and mean 2D games could still sell, and sell well, even in the era of billion-dollar cinematic blockbusters.
But perhaps the best proof that 2D never had to die is an ambitious shoot ‘em up handcrafted by veteran devs of the 16-bit golden age: Earthion.
Released this year by developers Ancient Corporation, Earthion is a retro shoot ‘em up built for current and retro platforms. On the surface, it looks like a Friday rental you might have played on the Sega Saturn. Which is a feat in itself, since the game was built for the Genesis, which I played it on. Pixel art sprites dance across lushly detailed backgrounds. Bullets traverse your interlaced screen in dazzling patterns. And the energetic, melodic, and unapologetically electronic score, courtesy of legendary Sega composer Yuzo Koshiro, hearkens back to the days when video game music wasn’t afraid to be video game music.
But Earthion transcends nostalgia. It’s what 2D gaming might have evolved into if the industry hadn’t turned its back on the form in the late 90s. The controls are buttery smooth. The design of each level pays subtle homage to the past while packing in more dynamic enemy patterns and customization. Multiple ships with unique play styles add replay value without bloating the game.
Playing Earthion makes you realize how much was lost when publishers married themselves to polygons. This is the kind of game that could have existed in 2005, had the money men not declared 2D “obsolete.” It’s the missing link between the 16-bit golden age and today’s indie renaissance.
Related: Should AAA Studios Revisit Retro-Style Games?
The success of projects like Earthion underscores a hard truth for AAA: their abandonment of 2D was premature and unnecessary. Instead of growing alongside 3D, 2D was treated as yesterday’s trash. This decision left the field open for indies, who have since eaten AAA’s lunch when it comes to creative, mid-budget titles.
Image: Ancient Corporation
Meanwhile, the AAA industry has boxed itself in. Development costs spiral ever higher, release schedules bloat, and the pressure to deliver photorealistic graphics leaves little room for risk. Yet players keep flocking to games that cost a fraction of a blockbuster’s budget, because those games dare to innovate within a form AAA declared dead.
The situation represents a great cosmic irony. The same executives who took it for granted that players would buy every slop sequel no questions asked now find themselves losing market share to two-man studios making retro games.
The lesson is simple: 2D never needed to die. It was killed off by corporate fiat, not consumer demand. The enduring success of retro-style titles proves there is still money to be made in the medium, and Earthion demonstrates that 2D design still has untapped potential.
If AAA studios had any sense, they would revisit 2D; not as a gimmick or nostalgia bait, but as a viable parallel track to their top-heavy 3D franchises.
Will they?
Probably not. The sunk-cost fallacy runs deep in corporate boardrooms. But their loss is indie gaming’s gain.
Players, on the other hand, don’t have to wait for AAA to wake up. Games like Earthion prove that the 2D medium is alive, thriving, and still capable of surprising us. The future that AAA abandoned in the name of chasing polygons is being built elsewhere. And that’s something worth celebrating.
For a unique action-adventure that busts through the dead end of twentieth-century mecha by merging the best of East and West, read my military SF epic Combat Frame XSeed!
Brian Niemeier is a best-selling novelist, editor, and Dragon Award winner with over a decade in newpub. For direct, in-person writing and editing insights, join his Patreon.