Release, Remaster, Repeat: The problem with “Remastered” games

Any guesses as to which two PS4 games did particularly well on the UK games chart last week? The Last of Us: Remastered and Metro: Redux. Both remastered editions of acclaimed games, both released on next gen consoles, and both essentially unchanged with the exception of some nicely upgraded and expanded visuals.

Are all these remakes and remasters starting to steal the limelight a bit? For a time, I thought high definition remakes were great for breathing new life and improved graphics into old franchises for fans, while allowing newer gaming generations to experience the games they missed when they were younger and more ignorant. I remember as a 9-year-old thinking that Beyond Good And Evil looked like the most boring game in the world. After playing the HD version, I’m kicking myself, and I would never have known better if the adventures of Jade and Pey’j hadn’t been put out for all to enjoy again on Xbox Live.

The Metro games are the latest to be re-released with graphics in mind.

On the other hand, the recent influx of remastered games and announcements of re-releases have raised questions about where it is we should draw the line. Where we say that people are just being manipulated into buying a product that they have no need of owning. Where glossy marketing campaigns about polished graphics are pulling the wool over people’s eyes so they pay over the odds to relive the “glory” days of games that are barely out of nappies yet. Where remakes and “harking back” are becoming more of a priority than pushing forward.

For me, the line is crossed when highly anticipated next-generation consoles are released, only to dwell on touching up games from last generation. There’s no new band of gamers being introduced here. There’s been no time for these games to sink into the general consciousness, so that we’ve had time to play them, think about them and want to revisit them with fresh eyes. These remakes don’t  transcend the moniker of “cash-in” bestowed on them by detractors of HD remakes with any nostalgic purpose. They just seem to be there to make money out of old content, and that’s worrying.

And yes, The Last of Us is, and always will be, a fantastic game. With its enhanced visuals The Last of Us Remastered is a seemingly obvious purchase for the new PS4 owner who for whatever reason never played the original. But the whole point of having a new console is not that I get to spend £50 on a recent title that’s been made to look slightly more decent, but on something new. It’s a simple sentiment, but one which some publishers either don’t understand or deliberately want to avoid addressing.

The Last Of Us was a fantastic game, but did it really need to be “Remastered”?

You might think I’m saying that all remakes and remasters are pointless, but that’s not case. The reason why the HD remakes of the 360/PS3 generation worked was because they seemed like genuine (and timely) gifts to the gaming consumer. A chance to relive our young days spent sneaking around as Sly Cooper or Solid Snake, or beating up demons as Dante in Devil May Cry. Alternatively, they allowed us to play the games we’d missed at the peak of their graphical capability, and see just why it was that people never stopped banging on about them when they first arrived.

But most importantly, those remakes didn’t serve to interrupt the flow of innovation from what were, at the time, fledgling games consoles. HD remakes didn’t become overly prevalent until God of War Collection was released in 2009, giving each of the “big three” time to release their own games, and forge their own place in the world of gaming without shackling themselves tightly to their predecessors’ dated mechanics and graphics.

The problem is that now gamers have shown how much they love to look back on the past with rose-tinted glasses, developers are showing how much they enjoy resting on their laurels. Just look at the brevity between the release of 2013’s Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (whatever “Definitive” means) and the announcement that the first Resident Evil, a game that had already been remade for Gamecube in 2004, is being remade again for release in 2015. I suppose they’re going for the third time lucky approach, which coincidentally makes me three times less likely to go anywhere near it.

The Sly Cooper Trilogy was one of many beloved franchises rereleased in HD. 

This year’s big release season is doubtlessly going to be an important one for showing off what the Xbox One and PS4 can do, with a number of potentially exciting new titles for both consoles. But it seems like the hype for games like Destiny and Sunset Overdrive has been undermined by the way that people are supposed to care about a re-mastered Master Chief, or Lara Croft having a slightly sweatier, more glistening look as she impales herself on a spike for the twelfth time that day.

It’s clear that, at least for the moment, graphics aren’t going to be making the kind of jump they did back in 2005, so it might make sense for developers/publishers to upscale their content for brand new consoles while their games are still current. And why on Earth wouldn’t they, when the new titles are only about to start coming out this month, following the now famed gaming drought that is the summer holidays?

But whether it’s the game-makers’ fault for trying to cash in too early on the past, or us for continuing to validate them by buying all these old games made glossy, this surge of remakes threatens to be poisonous to the overall industry attitude. We should be looking to use these new consoles to make something unique, rather than promote the idea that giving something a few more onscreen pixels makes for a brand new experience that should be recognised as such. And where does it end? Is The Sims 4 going to have a “Re-Simmed edition” announced for it the week after it comes out? Maybe it’ll even have a “Standard Definition” remake. Who knows, somebody will probably buy it.

I think that collectively the games industry should focus on pushing these remakes, remasters, reduxes and other “re-s” to the side so that the new can shine through. This generation of consoles needs a chance to forge its own identity, or else so much time will have been spent reminiscing that we’ll having nothing to show for the future. [divider_top]

What do you think about remastered games and remakes? Tweet @BoarGames