Video Game Remakes Should Be More Than Just HD Clones of Old Games
Directors and Hollywood studios have been remaking films for decades. Many of those remakes are considered among the best movies of all time: The Thing, Heat, Scarface, A Fistful of Dollars, The Departed… the list goes on. Each one of these examples reexamines and recontextualizes the original story, creating a recognisable but – vitally – distinct final product. A good remake retains the core essence, but provides a new perspective on the same events. This is a pathway that video game developers seem largely hesitant to follow, and that threatens to have the industry stuck in a creative rut. Nostalgia continues to exert its iron grip on pop culture, and it's asking us to pay full price for games we’ve already played.
Among the least inspiring movie remakes are those that are overly beholden to the original work. Gus Van Sant’s 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Psycho comes to mind, as does Disney’s current campaign to pointlessly clone its animated back catalogue in live-action format. Sony’s first-party studios have adhered to a similar approach over the last few years with remakes of Shadow of the Colossus, Demon’s Souls, and last year’s The Last of Us: Part 1. While these remakes are undeniably fantastic games, that’s almost entirely down to their timeless original concepts – preserved almost entirely intact like precious museum pieces – rather than any new ideas.
Developer Bluepoint Games brings astonishing and valuable visual craft to its remakes of multi-generation old games, but its dedication to perfectly replicating the original experiences means each is still trapped by the constraints of its former console. Shadow of the Colossus’ world feels barren by limitation rather than design, while both horse riding and
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