Nike announce new Air Max 1’s ripped straight out of the 90’s

Nike have officially unveiled the ‘Big Head Origins’ Air Max 1s, a shoe inspired by gaming’s earliest ventures into the 3D realm with a polygonal look and a colorway that looks like something you’d see in a Rare game.

Though the Nintendo 64 wasn’t exactly a successful console for Nintendo at the time, its greatest hits and early attempts at 3D games pioneered the photo-realistic blockbuster games we know and love today.

For a long time, pixel graphics have been viewed as the ultimate form of video game nostalgia, with many indie games trying to recapture that essence decades after the original 8 and 16-bit games hit arcades.

But, as the years have gone on, there’s been a growing love for that blocky, somewhat jagged, polygonal look. The new Nike Air Max 1 Big Head Origins take all the motifs of that era and put them into a shoe that’s decided more slick and an absolute must-have for people who grew up with old-school gaming classics.

New Air Max 1’s are a love letter to gaming’s golden era

It’s easy to forget how humble gaming’s beginnings were when looking at how big the industry is today. Super Mario 64, Golden Eye, Tomb Raider, Banjo Kazooie, and the original Resident Evil are just a few of the games that embraced the low-poly many look back on fondly.

Nike has taken all the hallmarks of classics like these and put them into a shoe that pays homage to the era while still staying stylish.

The polygonal accenting on its brown suede combined with the remixed Nike logo on the side and pixelated text on the shoe’s tongue really gets the point across here without disrupting the actual silhouette of the shoe.

Additionally, small, collectible-esque icons dot the shoe’s soles, bringing back memories of collect-a-thon platformers that really defined this early era.

Rare

It’s easy to look at any of Rare’s classics from the time and see where they got inspiration for this colorway from as well.

However, if you want to get your hands on these shoes, they’re going for an eye-watering $160. Certainly not Nike’s most expensive shoe ever, but certainly not cheap. And that’s if you can get your hands on them before they get bought out by resellers.