In 2026, and streaming sucks. Movies and shows are split across a dozen services and apps that are all getting worse and more expensive. But it wasn’t always like this. There was a time, years and years ago, when you’d head to a building to rent a movie. You’d grab a VHS tape, maybe a soda and a candy bar too, and then head home to watch the latest flick. You can’t go back in time, but you can play Retro Rewind – Video Store Simulator, a newly released Steam game that lets you run one of these old-school movie rental shops.
Out now on PC, Retro Rewind is yet one more of those “store simulator” games that have been flooding Steam for a few years now. I’ve played many of them, and most of them lack any personality and feel like they were spit out by a factory. That’s not the case with Retro Rewind, which is filled with charm and character.
Every part of this store sim feels like it was made by people who cared. It also feels like the devs grew up going to places like Blockbuster and other local rental stores, as Retro Rewind captures the vibes perfectly. All the fake movie covers you encounter ooze the mid-’90s. You can also decorate your store just like most rental places were decorated back then, with movie posters and cheesy carpet designs featuring popcorn buckets. Customers will occasionally bring back movies late, and you’ll have to charge a fee (or not), and some people even break tapes, forcing you to toss them into the trash. RIP. And yes, throughout the day, you’ll have to step away and rewind returned VHS tapes before putting them back out on the shelves.
Like all of these store sims, the basic loop has you starting with nothing and slowly building up your store day by day as you get more shelves, better movies, and new decor, soon even hiring employees to help run the place as it expands. Doing all of this in Retro Rewind is never a slog. For example, stocking movies is a treat as you get to hold up to 10 at a time and can just drop them if you want. And you should do that at least once because it makes a wonderful noise. Every tape is a physical object that makes a satisfying plastic thwack when it lands in the return box, on the floor, or on the counter when someone plops it down for you to scan at the register.
Retro Rewind also features plenty of events and other things that can change up the day-to-day flow of running a rental shop. Weekends are busier than usual. Holidays and weather can affect what kind of movies people want. Events in the town can lead to crowds. And new releases, while expensive to buy, can help bring more people in and cost more to rent, making it easier to rack up some cash to buy more shelves or more movies.
Oh, and keep an eye out because every so often, a shady figure will appear behind your shop with some bootleg movies and porn. These are cheaper than the stuff you get from more legitimate avenues, but some customers might not want to deal with seeing them on the same shelf alongside the movies they came to rent.
I’m only a few hours into Retro Rewind, and I’m excited to get back to my rental place and help customers find a good movie while managing the phone and restocking films. Plus, I want to see what new movies are coming and expand my store so I can rent even more movies to more people.
Sure, in a lot of ways, I’m just working a job, but it’s a job that basically doesn’t exist anymore. Rental stores are dead. Streaming killed them. That makes me sad. But at least Rental Rewind is here to provide me with a digital time machine that take me back to a time when movies came in big plastic boxes and weren’t suggested to you via some AI algorithm.
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