Game remakes and remasters instead of new releases. Good or bad?

[Harrison]

With this current generation of games consoles and PCs we have seen a huge percentage of releases as remakes or remasters of older existing titles. In fact in 2023 90% of the highest rated games were remakes or remasters.

Obviously remasters makes sense with the PS5 and Xbox Series X because they opened up gaming to 4k, meaning games from the last 2 generations could be remastered to take advatage of it, and also due to the more powerful hardware add higher resolution textures, lighting and particle effects, and fix anything that was limited by older hardware.

On the PS5 some of the PS5 updated versions are noticeably much nicer looking. Ghost of Tsushima f.ex. looks gorgeous on the PS5 and you really do notice the difference. But that wasn't a free upgrade. If you already owned the Director's cut of the PS4 version you had to pay £9 to get the PS5 version. They obviously put a bit more work into the game than just add 4K support and up the texture resolution, but when you have already recently paid for a game should we be expected to pay again for what is still a minor update? Something that on the PC is just a patch to support newer GPUs. And taking the same game as an example, if you didn't own the Director's cut, to upgrade the standard game to the PS5 version cost £29.99. So basically a mid priced full release cost.

Other games such as No Man's Sky show the completely opposite approach. But rather than remastering the original it's developer has just been constantly working on that game for the past 7 years. The game we have today is far removed from the broken one we originally got, and each yearly major update adds a huge amount of new content, not to mention major upgrades to the game engine such as a whole new planetary weather system a couple of years ago. And this costs nothing. If you purchased the game 7 years ago you still got all of the updates free. Probably the most devoted developer of any project to date and one of the best value for money.

Should we be paying for updates and remasters for games we already own? I think it depends on the game if the game and the amount of work that has gone into the remaster. But it's also great customer service to often cheap or free remasters over having to pay again.

No Man's Sky could easily have released each of their big updates as a DLC. But I think they didn't because they wanted the game everyone was playing to be at the same version. This makes sense for bug fixing the continue development.

The same is true for Minecraft. You can buy the game for as little as £6.95 and enjoy yearly big updates for free. But that game model is a bit different because they make money from their marketplace with paid maps and skins. So similar to the DLC model.

Anyway I digress. Should remasters be free? Why should we pay twice? If they are remastering a PS3 game to run on the PS5 then OK. A good extreme example of this is Last of US. Originally released on the PS3, it saw remasters on the PS4, then the PS5. But these were paid. But they then fully remake the game, meaning to get the best version you had to pay again. That's a huge cash in on single game.

Another is GTA5. That jussi keeps getting rerelases on every playform for each generation. That has to be the worst example of cashing in.

Remakes are a bit different as they are fully remaking the games from the ground up. So for these I would always expect to pay again. But how long should thy wait to remake something?

An example of a great remake (if you are a fan) is Final Fantasy 7. This was originally released in 1997, so is now shockingly 26 years old! The first installment of the remake was released in 2020 (already 4 years ago!) 23 years after the original. This really highlighted how far hardware technology has advanced in a quarty of a century. The remake of part 1 was great but they are again really cashing in of this game by splitting it into 3 parts. Give this does give them the chance to expand more characters stories and events.

Part 2 is just released and ia huge. Far larger than that section of the original, estimated to take 170 hours to complete everything. That is just mad and if you did do that is amazing value for money. But many are already saying thy size has made it a bit boring in places. I've yet to play it, but I am liking forward to finding out. I still don't like the realtime combat though.

So what are your thoughts on remasters and remakes?

[Harrison]

Should a remake or remaster just deliver the same game so people can play it on newer systems? GT5 f.ex.

Or should they expand on the original story and ideas a d deliver a game based on the original, but expanded to take full advantage of the newer technology? Final Fantasy 7 f.ex.

And should we be paying for them?

Minor remasters that should just be offered as free patches or larger remasters that take more time and effort.

Should we have to pay again for a game we only just purchased within thy last couple of years?

How often should developed remaster or remake games?

Has current gaming fallen mostly into a state of most modernity? We hardly see a new idea and haven't seen a completely new concept in a long time. Wev moved thought the glory days of video games in the 80s. With the 16bit era we saw so many new genres being invented and expanded. Since Doom and the FPS what have we seen that's completely original and new? For the most part each new hardware generation since the PS1 has only offered better version of what already came before.

I suppose the newest completely new genre was possibly Horror with games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill revolutionising the genre and for thy first time making it rmtruly scary or uneasy. But that's really for another discussion.

[Demon Cleaner]

This is a huge topic to discuss, and I really don't know what exactly to think of it. For one, if you don't want to pay for it, just don't, I played TLoU on the PS4 and I definitely won't be playing it again on the PS5, free or paid, as I don't see the point of playing a game twice only because graphics were updated. My pile of shame is over 1000 games big, there is and there will be no time to play the same game again whatever the reason.

FF7 is obviously a different story, the game is not the same anymore at all, it's like playing a new game. Anyway I don't understand why they are remaking or remastering 5 year old games, is just beyond me.

In my opinion they should stop with all this and concentrate on releasing new games, but that's probably more difficult and time consuming plus it is risky, fail and you're in trouble whereas remaking/remastering is a win-win-situation if you don't mess it up (like GTA3 trilogy).

Biggest problem is people who are constantly asking for remakes, just take ANY PSX game (or any system in that era), check it on YouTube and read the comments. First 2 comments are usually "ah what nostalgia, my childhood", third one is "this game should get a remake".

And then there's the other story you mentioned, Rockstar keeping games alive, cash grab, release the game again on a newer platform, cash grab, rinse and repeat. Hello Games on the other hand stayed/stays true to the community, also perhaps they had a bad conscience after the big promising release announcement, but showed to be the trustworthy company and are loyal even 7 years later, like you mentioned, they had already several huge updates and could easily have sold them as DLC, and people WOULD have paid.

[Harrison]

That is a very good point about risks vs just rereleasing a remaster of a known well performing game. And the larger a game company becomes the more they will always head in that direction.

I totally agree they should stop remaking games after only 5 years. I even have some difficulty in understanding remaking assume PS3 games as they still look good on the PS3, although obviously we have the issue of not being able to run PS3 games natively on either newer Playstation, which is an issue.

And most PS4 games still look great and really don't need the time to remaster them for the PS5. However there are exceptions like Ghosts of Tsushima I mentored above. But I think that was always meant to be released on both, based on the time it was released.

This has made me think of another angle. We see game released for some time that come in both PS4 and PS5 versions. Obviously if you already own a PS5 you are going to buy that version. Hever if you still own a PS4 but are planning to buy a PS5 you can get stung by having to buy the PS4 version now and then daub having to pay again to upgrade to the PS5 version later.

I think a game being sold with dual PS4/5 versions should come with both versions as standard. Some games do this, whereas others you have to pick. Or you have to buy a more expensive version with both included.

We had a different situation with Spiderman. The first one was only available in PS4 version to buy, whereas the second was available for both platforms. However they did remake the first game using the newer second game's engine but you could only get it if you bought both games again as a bundle. At the time I already had the second game so wasn't going to buy that again. Just stupid. Thankfulky they have since given it away from on PS Plus extra.

Finally The Last of US. This was always going to see a remake because of how pipular the TV series became. Many hadn't played the original PS3 version or even the PS4 version. So they were always going to cash in on a PS5 version too. But I must say they did so a great job and it does look great. I played it originally on the PS3, so it has been some time and I've really enjoyed playing it again. I think had they not done all the previous PS4 remasters and remakes this would have been a good gap from the PS3 version to have remade it.

Another franxhise we have been seeing new remakes of is Resident Evil. We have seen many of these, especially the first game, remade on many different systems over the years. For me one of the best versions of the first game was in the Gamecube. But the complete recent remakes of the 2nd and 3rd games were brilliant. I've not played the 4th one yet as I wasn't really a fan of the original, but I will get to it at some point. I definitely think these were worth them remaking.

[Harrison]

Are there games you wish they would remake?

For me I don't get why they skipped Resident Evil 1 when they started to do the remakes. The first game would be brilliant with the game game engine.

Another is Silent Hill. They are remaking the second game, but but the first. Why? The first Silent Hill remains my favouite horror game. For me it was far better than Resient Evil. Much more of an adventure game with some good puzzles, but also a true Japanese horror feeling if unease.

Imagine Silent Hill 1 in VR. Then again maybe not!

[Demon Cleaner]

Imagine Silent Hill 1 in VR. Then again maybe not!

I never played any of the Silent Hill games.

There's ReSi 7 in VR, I have it but didn't dare to try it out yet.

[Harrison]

I know you like your horror films. You really need to play Silent Hill at some point. They are currently remaking Silent Hill 2 so that would be a great opportunity to try one of them when it releases. 2 is a great game, but none of them matched the original. Far better than RE. Proper disturbing psychology horror instead of jump horror.

I did try out RE7 on the original PSVR. I think I will stick to viewing it on the TV. Horror in VR might be a bit too close to reality for my liking.

[Demon Cleaner]

I also never played any Resident Evil game, not a big fan, Silent Hill always looked better to me, might play once one of them.

[Harrison]

I'm a bit surprised. I thought you would have played one of them. Both RE and SH are puzzle adventure games at their core.

RE is more traditional horror with a lot of shooting zombies and jump horror, but still a lot of puzzles and a mystery to solve. But ultimately it is about blasting zombies and other larger bosses.

But SH is less of a shooter and not about zombies.. it's about a split reality that shifts between the real world and a hell reality, where the world will suddenly shift between them. And enemies are twisted and mutated humans. So there is still some shooting, but it's far more about uneasy suspense and solving clues and puzzles.

Although for me my favourite horror game to date is still Parasite Eve. Really wish they would remake that as the first game never got a PAL release.

[Demon Cleaner]

I never liked the fixed camera angles and the shooting in RE, but I remember now that I played a bit of one of the remakes some time ago, cannot remember which one though but I stopped at some point, didn't really enjoy it.