The history of video games is as much a history of remaking and remastering: bedroom coders pulling apart the pieces and putting them back together, developers recreating arcade games for home consoles, or using better tech and bigger budgets to move with the times. Remasters of beloved titles – and some not so – have trodded along in the decades since, often as vibrant a part of the gaming landscape as new titles.
But, over the last few years, AAA remakes have become an institution unto themselves. 2023 feels like a tipping point with remakes of Dead Space, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4 and Super Mario RPG on hitting store shelves, to name but a few. With titles like these making up a quarter or more of some end of year lists, we have to ask: what's going on?
Back to the future
A well-done remake can be the best introduction to an iconic series
Remaking any old favorite means appealing to a ready and waiting audience. Business savvy might dictate that, licensing permitting, as wide a release as possible is necessary. So one of the greatest driving forces behind remakes is to broaden or expand on a title's exclusivity the first time around. System Shock, the cerebral cyberpunk and spiritual forerunner to Bioshock, was a cult classic on MS-DOS and Mac back in 1994 and, after a rocky development saga, the remake enjoyed a cross-platform launch earlier this year.
It's interesting that the lion's share of remakes released this year are horrors. Eerie exploration and tense resource management have become a much-needed escape from – or even an answer to – the current political and economic climate. Whether cosmic coincidence or sign of the times, the horror remake gravy train is going to keep on rolling well into the new year with the delayed remakes of Silent Hill 2 and Alone in the Dark now slated for 2024.
But, unlike System Shock, expanding on OG availability doesn't always go well. Among the most disappointing games released this year is the beleaguered PC version of The Last of Us Part 1, a port of the 2022 edition. In the recent rash of remakes, TLOU is a study in media synergy. The 2022 title – and the forthcoming do-over of Part 2 – align with the hugely successful HBO TV adaptation and aim to net more gamers in the process, perhaps even turning those who've never picked up a controller before.
It's a shrewd business move, one that sees Naughty Dog continue to cement its cross-media empire. Though, in the case of the first TLOU, it's coming close to Skyrim syndrome, in which a game is retooled and released in every conceivable way. As an IP, TLOU has had more remakes and remasters than original titles at this point. Re-introducing its magnum opus for the sake of a market being there needn't be a prerequisite. It's also serving to shrink the gap between original release and remake, which grows narrower year on year as trading on nostalgia eats itself.
"It's also been argued – compellingly so – that the spate of remakes point to the future direction of game design"
Streaming services and the box office alike attest to the power and profitability of nostalgia, and it only makes sense video games would follow. The vast majority of the biggest remakes from this year are titles that originally released in the late nineties and early noughties. They're foundational games but, crucially, ones that were played by kids who've grown up to be games journalists, streamers, and developers themselves. Why wouldn't you appeal to this pre-baked audience with influence and the income to spare? The downside, of course, is that these games fail harder if they don't hit the mark. Remember Warcraft 3: Reforged? Now compare that to a Forspoken-style mishit which, when the memes were done, just got swept under the digital rug and largely forgotten.
It's also been argued – compellingly so – that the spate of remakes point to the future direction of game design. A curtailing of the sprawling maps, player choices, and extraneous collectables of many modern games and a return to more considered level design, something more modest in size than many of today's games. Many of the most successful new titles of 2023 – Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Baldur's Gate 3, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – are all massively open-world. Likewise, the next installment of the Final Fantasy 7 remake has ditched the linear approach in favor of going open-world. The remaking of so many games that boast tight level design offer a precursor, perhaps, to a linear game renaissance just round the corner as open-world fatigue only grows.
Yet it has to be argued that the remake cycle does point to a troubling trend of playing it safe and not allowing new titles in, shutting out underrepresented voices from minority communities we need in mainstream video games, now more than ever. There's room for both to co-exist – 2023 is testament to that – but whether it's a panacea or a never-to-be-repeated flash in the pan remains to be seen.
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