“I hated going back to games – until The Last of Us Part II Remastered came along” – Keith Stuart (Pushing Buttons, Guardian)

“Replaying a linear narrative game is like rereading a favourite novel: nothing changes apart from you. The way you feel, the age you are, the experiences you’ve had – these all contribute to your new experiences with the text. Vladimir Nabokov once said, “One cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.” Perhaps we should think about linear narrative games in the same way.

Now that I’ve opened this experiential door, I will definitely keep it ajar. I guess movies and short novels are easier to re-experience thanks to their comparative brevity, but if we look at story games as an escape, a vacation from the new, they’re always worth revisiting. And they have things to tell us about ourselves”

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/jan/24/pushing-buttons-last-of-us-2-remastered-replaying