Military Contractor Sets Sights on Retro Gaming
- Palmer Luckey is seeking $1B in funding for retro-gaming firm ModRetro, which makes the Game Boy-style ModRetro Chromatic handheld and upcoming ModRetro M64 console.
- Some critics say buying the Chromatic indirectly supports Luckey’s defense company Anduril Industries, which builds autonomous military tech.
- The M64 is an FPGA recreation of the Nintendo 64, aiming for authentic hardware, fast boot times, and to be a platform for revived cancelled games.
Palmer Luckey, the creator of Oculus VR, now makes AI weapons for the US under his startup, Anduril. However, he’s recently turned his attention back to video games as he’s after around $1 billion in funding so he can funnel it into retro gaming.
The funding is for ModRetro, a company Luckey founded in 2024. Although it technically started as a tech forum years ago, the name as it stands these days might be familiar to readers keen on retro gaming; the company is behind the GameBoy-style Chromatic, and forthcoming N64 homage the M64. With regards to the Chromatic, Luckey outlined the mission statement behind it in a video posted to ModRetro’s site last July.
“The goal here was to build the ultimate way to play GameBoy games. Not just the next one, or one of many, but indisputably the very best way. The most authentic. The highest quality. One that will last for generations as a piece of heirloom-grade tribute art.”
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Separate the Art from the Artist
Although Luckey isn’t the CEO of ModRetro (that title belongs to Torin Herndon) he is the figurehead and heavily involved in the concept and design part of the company. As such, although the Chromatic has sold well and received decent reviews, many struggle to divorce Luckey from his more prominent day job as a tech-bro arms dealer.
One noteworthy review, by Wired, of the Chromatic in October last year said the handheld is “a faithful recreation of the original Game Boy” but “buying it puts money in the pocket of the killer chatbots guy.”
Luckey sold Oculus VR to Meta in March 2014 for roughly $2 billion and then funneled that money into Anduril Industries, the defense tech start-up that’s set to be worth an estimated $60 billion if current investment plans work out. Which they likely will, given that at least two current Anduril investors (Lux Capital and Founders Fund) are set to contribute. Lux, in particular, are well-suited to Luckey’s focus on AI technology as the venture capital firm also bankrolls Hugging Face and Runway.
Andruil makes a wide range of autonomous machines for combat situations, including submersibles, drones, and electromagnetic weapons, with names like Pulsar, Ghost and Menace. As of December 2025, Andruil supplies tech to around 10 countries, including Japan, the US, and the UAE. It also supports Ukraine in its current war effort through various US defense contracts.
From VR to 64-Bit
Unsurprisingly, many of Andruil’s weapons and systems can be controlled via VR headsets. This is a long way from ModRetro’s focus on older gaming consoles, but it’s one that Luckey touched on in a ModRetro blog post last year.
“This reveal might seem out of nowhere given that most people know me for my work on virtual reality technology and lethal autonomous weapons systems, but my background in this space is even longer-lived,” he said. “Working with and building off of original hardware is always the most fun, but I was also deep into the emulation community, both on PC and Linux-based handhelds like the Nokia N800, GamePark Holdings GP32/GP2X, and even the notorious OpenPandora.”
He also outlined how his aim with ModRetro is to “make the best of the past a staple of the present, to make you feel like you did on Christmas morning decades ago.” Whereas other retro-revivalists like Peri Fractic also offer similar quotes and involve actual engineers who worked on the computers they’re reviving, the M64 is being developed entirely by ModRetro.
However, it’s not being done in a vacuum: the M64 is based on open-source hardware, something that Luckey has been quick to mention in multiple interviews. Most notably, it’s built on the existing MiSTer FPGA N64 core by Robert Peip / FPGAzumSpass, but designed to overcome that core’s existing weaknesses (Torin Herndon has also been clear in statements that ModRetro doesn’t see what it’s doing as competition or a replacement for the FPGA N64).
These include allowing games to boot within four to five seconds, ultra-low latency/zero lag controls, and premium-grade electronics – Herndon highlighted the PCBA (printed circuit board assembly) in a blog post at the end of January this year as an example of the latter. “Black pre-preg and a clear soldermask with gold traces. There is a reason you never see this – it’s expensive and takes forever, but the result is truly beautiful,” he said.
“M64 is full of mechanical easter eggs,” he added. “A hot pink hidden latch under the cartridge flaps can optionally keep them open all the time. An easy eject mechanism allows you to eject the cartridge without pulling the console off the ground. A special light pipe will uplight the cartridge so you can see your game art in the dark.”
The M64 was revealed late last year, but was beaten to the punch by Analogue’s own N64 replication, the 3D, which started shipping in November 2025. However, that console’s release was marred by multiple delays, which in turn lost Analogue orders and a good chunk of its reputation.
As with the M64, the 3D is also built on an FPGA core (widely understood to be the UltraFP64 in this case), has Bluetooth functionality, and promises to be able to play any and every N64 cartridge. Where the M64 may end up surpassing it is in Luckey’s plan to release previously cancelled N64 games, as well as ensure that there’s plenty of stock so no one pre-orders an M64 will be left waiting for months and months to get it; it’s currently in mass production, so it shouldn’t be too long before a concrete release date is revealed.
