A Generation of Remasters - Welcome Updates or Troubling Omens? - Extra Credits

You may have noticed how a lot of games are getting remastered this generation. Tomb Raider, The Last of Us, Devil May Cry 4, DmC, Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2, which is just a re-release of a previous remastering, all the Halo games, Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0, Wind Waker, heck, the last generation had a ton, too. All the other Devil May Cry games, God of War collection, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia trilogy, Kingdom Hearts Final Mix 1 and 2, Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2 No, I said that one already. Silent Hill HD Collection, Okami, Metal Gear Solid Collection, the list goes on and on. And these remastered games seem to be getting an even bigger marketing budget and PR push than they used to. In some ways, this is a great thing, and in some ways, this could be a terrible thing. And overall, I'm just not sure how to feel about it. So, the reason we're seeing so many remasters and so many high-profile ones is because making new content for this generation is expensive, time-consuming, and risky, even more than last gen. Remastered games,

earlier platforms that were already HD, like the PS3 or the 360, cost a lot less to create. They already have a built-in fan base, and they can be updated relatively cheaply, making remasters a far less risky proposition than making some new thing. Now, normally, these games would get lost in the flood of other high-profile new games being released, but because of the time, expense, and difficulty of creating really top-tier content for these new systems, we're just not seeing as many big new AAA titles hitting the market. That means that there's more chance for these remasters to get attention from the press and get noticed by fans, which in turn means that publishers can see a bigger return on giving these sort of titles a bit of a marketing budget. Besides, platform holders like Sony and Microsoft are desperate to get more content on their platforms, especially that increasingly rare exclusive content, which means they're more likely to give a little bit of love to these types of projects than they were in the past. Which, I guess, brings us to the big question. Is this a good thing? On the On the side, I like the fact that we as a community are getting used to the idea of remastering a game not only to

function, but to actually seem appealing on current hardware. This is an important part of preserving the best pieces of gaming history. There are a lot of genuinely great games out there that if you don't have the nostalgia that comes with playing them back in their heyday, can be really hard to go back to because they simply haven't aged very well. They were cutting-edge tech when they came out, but today they may just look like a low-res, low-poly mess. This is, of course, assuming you can even still find reasonably priced copies of the game and hardware to play it on. By updating these games, we make them more accessible for modern audiences and make them more approachable for future game designers looking to understand what these games did well. This is a very good thing. I mean, it's essential that we preserve these classics in their original form, too, but I'm also thrilled that more people will be able to play them because they're on modern hardware with a fresh coat of paint. But despite that, I can't ignore the downsides. There's always the concern that a company doing a remaster might fundamentally misunderstand its own game, as with the Silent Hill HD Collection for last generation. There's also the worry that these remastering projects might claim developer talent

and resources that could otherwise be applied to crafting new experiences. But neither of those are my main concern. My main concern is that it's yet another indicator that we're struggling to make new experiences at all, at least on a triple-A console front. The parallels with Hollywood are too clear. Remakes often fall into the same category as unnecessary sequels and desperate reboots. They sound like safe bets when discussing numbers in a boardroom, but they're often creatively and ultimately financially bankrupt. And I feel even more concerned looking at what's being remade. Many of the recent or upcoming high-profile remakes are just from last gen. This makes sense financially, as these are the games that are easiest to up-res to something that looks good on modern hardware, but I'd argue that they're also the least necessary. I mean, I love The Last of Us and DMC, but those are still quite playable in their original forms on hardware a lot of us still probably have hooked up to our TVs. They aren't exactly inaccessible to people who are just now getting into games, and they certainly aren't unpalatable to those of us who are used to the cutting edge of modern fidelity, either. They don't really preserve

history so much as simply extend the sales chart a bit, which I guess is fine, but certainly doesn't seem as urgent. This is one of the problems with remastering games to modern fidelity standards, though. The games that actually need a graphics facelift the most are likely to cost just as much as making a new game, because none of the old assets are usable anymore. The original game is little more than a blueprint. Like, okay, let's talk about the recent big announcement, a Final Fantasy VII remake. The original game was released almost two decades ago. It looked like this. None of this is reusable. Not the art assets, not the code, not even the sound files. They're going to have to build it all again from the ground up. And all those tricks they used back in the day to make Final Fantasy VII's world feel expansive and interesting just won't fly by today's standards. All of those towns and landscapes we ran through that were really just 2D pre-rendered images, they can't do that anymore. Now the development team's going to have to actually build all those towns and fill them with all the details that our imaginations had filled them with, and they'll have to populate them with lovingly rendered people who walk around

and talk with actual voices. And these might seem like small things, but these are all the small things that add up to make a budget astronomical. And Final Fantasy world maps don't look like this anymore. They look like this. Look at this. Look at all this money just everywhere. All told, the remake of Final Fantasy VII is probably going to cost just as much, maybe more than a brand new Final Fantasy game. And we've seen how much time and money those take. Remember when Final Fantasy XV was announced like eight years ago, before Final Fantasy XIII came out, as like a sort of semi whatever. And this is true of most of the games that really need a modern remake. And when that's the case, these remasters suddenly move from being a financial sure thing to an enormous risk. Even with the original's popularity and all of our excitement, Final Fantasy VII might might be profitable, but only if it lives up to the gigantic hype that such a remake has. And a lot of games that really need to be remastered for a new generation don't even have that advantage. This is why I'm so torn on how to feel about seeing more remade or remastered games.

I mean, I love seeing new versions of old games that have been made visually accessible to a modern audience, but any game that's old enough to actually need it costs just as much as making a new game. And remastering more recent games is yet another safe bet this industry can cling to to avoid the risk of building rich new experiences. We've got to start finding tricks to bringing those primitive low-res game worlds to life, a way of realizing those worlds that our minds used to fill with imagined detail, or providing us a way to recapture that act of imagination today. A method that doesn't involve just rebuilding those worlds to modern visual standards. Because those old games do deserve to be experienced by modern players. But if we don't find a financially viable way to remaster the classics, the only realistic candidates left are the ones that don't cost that much to upgrade. And those aren't without value, clearly, but when those efforts could be going to the creation of great new games instead, I'm not entirely sure the trade-off is worth it. See you next week.