If you’re like me, you have been playing games pretty much your whole life. My earliest memories often include sitting in front of my grandmother’s NES playing The Legend of Zelda and Duck Hunt. I remember having my mind blown by the incredible graphics of Ocarina of Time when it got released. At the time, games like Ocarina were radical achievements in technology, but if you were to dust off the old N64 you might laugh at how outdated the game looks and feels.
For as long as games have been around, they’ve been caught in a race with technology. Often still, gamers cling to a sense of nostalgia and want to relive their formative gaming experiences. Luckily, developers heard this desire, and are starting to remake games that were released when I was a kid. This brings me to the question: What are the best ways to design remakes?
It’s worth saying that revisiting old games isn’t necessarily a new idea. Remasters have been commonplace for a long time. Games like Uncharted and Fable have gotten HD remasters to take advantage of current generation hardware. These remasters however, are usually just graphical updates or frame rate improvements. Sometimes, the updates end up looking worse than the original. Even though there are more polygons in Fable Anniversary Edition, the color palette looks bland and washed out compared to the original. Other times, like with the aforementioned Uncharted Collection on PS4, developers improved the gameplay mechanics in addition to aesthetic improvements. Unfortunately, improvements to the systems are often sidelined for more easy visual polish and a quick grab at nostalgia-addicted players’ wallets.
Fable (Xbox) and Fable Anniversary Edition (X360) Comparison
Where remasters reuse the original game, adding a bit of polish, remakes are usually crafted from the ground up. Over the past few years, games like Shadow of the Colossus, Ratchet and Clank, and, most recently, Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 remake have shown that AAA developers are starting to take remakes more seriously. I’ve listed below a couple design practices that have made these remakes so successful.
Modernize Gameplay
As a designer, you must realize that there is a good chance that the players of your remake are the same age that you were when you first played the original. Beyond the obvious visual improvements, Capcom got rid of the infamous static camera angles from the original RE2 and updated the movement with a more contemporary third-person control scheme.
Make Sure New Additions Are Meaningful
In the Ratchet and Clank remake, Insomniac added skill trees to the weapons. This increased the feeling of power when using your favorite weapons while also encouraging players to try out other weapons to see how they would fair when upgraded.
Taking on remakes of this caliber definitely come with more risks and require more resources. But when remakes are crafted by teams that are just as invested as fans of the source material, it can lead to some beautiful outcomes. I’d love to see more remakes treated with the same care that Capcom and Insomniac have given their franchises and given Nintendo’s recent announcement of a Link’s Awakening remake, I’m sure there are many more on the other side of the horizon.
Sources:
Fable Anniversary - Graphics Comparison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX8ugxA-F94&t=1s
Resident Evil 2 is everything a video game remake should be https://www.polygon.com/reviews/2019/1/22/18192509/resident-evil-2-remake-review
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening - Announcement Trailer - Nintendo Switch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U-_XfDGgDw