In recent years, a relatively new phenomenon in the video game industry has emerged: the re-appreciation of games from previous generations by individual gamers in combination with the production of new games aesthetically and/or ludologically clearly based on these older games. The phenomenon has been described as ‘retro gaming’, ‘game nostalgia’ or ‘vintage play’ and has been associated with parallel phenomena like reboots, remakes, and ‘bad games’ (or Kusoge). As ‘primer’ of this special issue of the Journal of Religion, Film, and Media on ‘Paradise Lost’, the author identifies and describes all these interrelated by distinguishable notions as forms of ‘video game romanticism’: the appropriate a romanticized version of our collective past to construct an appealing digital, interactive, narrative complex.