I don’t quite remember when I realized I was playing football with dead people. Tecmo Super Bowl has been a part of my life about as long as I could remember. It exists at the perfect junction of accessibility, depth, realism, and fun. Its legacy is so well regarded that decades after launch, unlicensed cartridge versions with updated NFL player and team rosters are still released annually. But it wasn’t until last year that I first connected the death of NFL linebacker Junior Seau with the classic video football game.
Seau’s remarkable career made his death by suicide at age 43 national news. He’s one of a number of players from the Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl rosters who have died since the games’ NES-era releases. Others include Terry Long, Mike Webster, and Andre Waters.