The amount of patching that goes into online games today makes it infeasible to release each as an individual download and let players decide what version they want to run, and seamless online environments with microtransactions preclude user-run servers. The old days are never going to return POE currency trade .

Part of me wishes they would—it feels wrong that game preservation is effectively over in some cases—but I also don't want Rainbow Six Siege to be static. I love the discussions, drama, and excuses to dive back into a game that balance changes and updates create. Some of the most fun I've had in Siege was when the most recent operators released and everyone was carelessly throwing exploding shields down and accidentally getting their teammates killed. I can't wait to see what the game looks like in the first days after a woman with a giant sniper rifle is added. These ephemeral moments can't truly be recreated because they're shared experiences dependent on context.

WoW Classic has brought players back to another era of MMOs. (Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)
If you build a ship, and then over the course of a century replace all of its planks and parts, is it still the same ship?

By all accounts I've seen, Blizzard did come close to recreating the launch of World of Warcraft, which is what players wanted to experience in World of Warcraft Classic—not just the objective qualities of the original game. It's hard to see that success translating to many other games, and after another 15 years, I wonder if Blizzard will have to launch World of Warcraft Classic Classic to re-recreate that experience, and if it will actually be at all similar to the 2004 launch of WoW POE chaos orbs .

Path of Exile 2 and Overwatch 2 are fitting announcements to end the decade on. These unconventional 'sequels' are the result of a project that began 16 years ago with the release of Steam, and which has achieved dominance over the past 10, with Team Fortress 2 still kicking and seemingly no possibility of a Team Fortress 3 on the horizon. Sequels aren't completely dead—there'll be more Assassin's Creeds and Calls of Duty and all that—but more and more games are now platforms that can be added to and rebuilt forever.

There's a thought problem called the Ship of Theseus that goes like this: If you build a ship, and then over the course of a century replace all of its planks and parts so that none of the original building material remains, is it still the same ship?

Likewise, is Rainbow Six Siege the same game that launched in 2015? Or is it secretly Rainbow Six Siege 2? Have we been frequently losing games this whole time, allowing sequels not to follow—literally as the next part of a sequence—but to usurp their originals like body snatchers?

World of Warcraft provides the best example of this videogame identity problem: Classic is distinct from modern World of Warcraft, but it's also the same game, just at a different point in time.In the future, I wonder if Overwatch players will wistfully dream of the old days, too. Overwatch Classic, anyone?