Last year, I became deeply nostalgic for the days of the early web. For and , and , and yes – . I was delighted to jump back into ‘s classic edition to indulge my nostalgia, and I tried the same for .
But what I found was starkly different than what I remembered from my childhood. As of writing, the “modern” version of contains none of the rooms and fun that made the original game so enthralling. There are various public spaces and chat rooms, but they’re all pretty bland, and .
I visited quite a few times in 2023, and came away fairly unimpressed. I even found myself googling “habbo hotel classic” at one point, to see whether anyone had attempted to resurrect the spirit of original . It was for this reason I was so excited when the game’s publisher Sulake announced an official version of classic – a reiteration known as .
After a few hours with this version of the game, I can feel it all – the memories are flooding back, good, bad, in-between, and it finally feels like has recaptured some of its former joy. It’s also captured some of the malevolence of the original – in that the pool, since launch, has been consistently closed by players reliving a dead meme – but so far, the good outweighs the bad. And for those who enjoyed in its early days, presents a wonderful return to the past.
Aside from it currently being difficult to get into the pool (it seems Sulake is ), there’s plenty of warm nostalgia in . It’s strange to see Habbos being able to s.
