How Remasters are Done Right — And How They’re Done Wrong
Capcom recently released a much-anticipated remake to a very classic survival-horror game from the Resident Evil series, Resident Evil 2. This game has garnered very much critical acclaim from fans and reviewers alike, with PC Gamer saying the game is “a tense, challenging, and beautiful remake of a classic survival horror game”. This was the result of some serious passion from the company and managed to not only deliver but excel in fan’s expectations of it.
The game is really an excellent example of a remaster (or in this case, a remake) done exactly the way it should be done. It took the 1998 version’s gameplay and art style, and expanded on it profusely to give new players a solid survival-horror experience, and gave veteran players a fresh new take on a game that they once played quite heavily back in the day. What exactly constitutes as a good remaster though?
In order to do a remaster right, you need two key things. Firstly and most importantly, you need to bring the game’s graphical quality up to date while still retaining the feel of the original game. Remasters are obviously made years after the original release and thus need to be brought up to the standards of that year. Without that basic change, you can’t really call a game a remaster. Of course, this kind of thing can be done quite poorly and appear rushed, and I believe the original BioShock from the BioShock: The Collection completely failed to accomplish.
BioShock: The Collection was released back in September of 2016, whereas the original BioShock was released all the way back in 2007. With all these years in development, you would’ve expected the game’s graphics to change quite significantly with the advancements made in that time. In the image above, it almost feels like the changes were mainly lighting based and some very minor graphical improvements which almost feels like a joke of a change. It’s something I feel like with more time could’ve been done much better.
Secondly, it needs to provide some sort of gameplay enhancement in order for the game to feel more up to date for new players and fresh for veterans. Halo: The Master Chief Collection definitely did this well back when it came out. It provided the player with the ability to play through all four main titles on the same game disc, as well as provided many smaller bonuses. These bonuses ranged from the ability to switch between old and new graphics seamlessly, additional missions and cutscenes created specifically for the collection, additional multiplayer content, and several other additions.
These two things combined, and you can generally make for a pretty solid experience. Resident Evil 2 is definitely a very solid example of doing both right, but another place where I feel like this was done right was with the remasters of Metro 2033 and Last Light. The developers when remaking the game, provided Metro 2033 with some much needed graphical fixes to bring it up to where Last Light was as of the remaster. It also provided a mode that was previously only in Last Light to 2033 and gave both games some gun handling improvements. When I played both games through a year ago, I felt like they were very complete experiences and felt up to date with that current year. They both remain some of my favorite games to this day.
There are many other examples of these different areas that I could go on about, but I feel like those games probably stand out to me as the best examples of each area. Unfortunately, there are a lot more cases of remasters done wrong than there are of those done right. This is generally due to there being a lot more developers out for an easy cash grab than there are those who are passionate about their work. For example, Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition which was remastered only 2 years later and gave very minor graphics improvements. Another good example of this is the Prototype remasters, which weren’t very well known to begin with and which remasters actually didn’t give very much if any changes to visuals or gameplay.
Overall though, remastered games can prove to be very effective in giving a game a new and fresh feeling if it can provide both strong graphical improvements, and give gameplay enhancements that both make the game feel fresh and new. With that being said, many remasters will give the game a bad light and will prove to be a cash grab, almost stomping on the prior fanbase that loved the game to death. Some time years down the line, maybe you’ll see a remaster of one of your favorite games and will be able to be the proper judge of it.
