These kids and their remasters and damn HD remakes. When I was a wee lad, we got what we got, and we were grateful for it.
Okay, I’m 26, but here’s the thing: Even just ten years ago, remasters were mostly fun and exciting. I say mostly because while I was excited aboutAssassin’s Creed 4: Black Flaggetting an update from PS3 to PS4, all it really gave us was better-looking water. But I’ll be damned if that water doesn’t still look great.
One of the most significant ‘HD remaster’ moments of my life wasn’t even an actual remaster - it was when I switched my PS3 from SCART to HDMI, and suddenly I could see the threads on Sackboy. What a rush.
Let’s Go Way, Way, Way Back
I’m not quite old enough to tell you all about the remakes, ports, and HD versions of ’80s arcade games first coming to home consoles. You’ll have to refer to some historical scriptures for that, because anyone who can tell you is probably retired or dust. WhenIrefer to the days of old, I mean the 2010s.
If you look back at remasters and remakes in 2011, you’ll struggle to find many that came out fewer than six years before the original, with most going back to the ‘90s or even further. There are a few exceptions, like God of War: Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta coming from PSP to PS3, but for the most part, they’re significantly further apart, especially when backwards compatibility was not widely implemented.
Except for that one PS3 model that had a PS2 compartment.
There are still plenty of gaps like this now, of course. We complain aboutHorizon Zero Dawnnot needing a remaster, but that’s an eight-year gap, so it checks out. The only difference is that I’m an adult now, and time passes a lot more quickly, so I’ll continue bitterly complaining about things instead of finding joy in my few remaining years.
I think what makes things feel so different now is the fact that development times on triple-A games are upwards of ten years on average, so the littered HD returns of games we remember all too well just feel so much less inspired than they did a decade ago. A PS5 version ofThe Last of Us Part 2is all well and good, but Naughty Dog hasn’t put anything out in five years since that game, and while it makes sense given the average development timeline, it changes the reception we have as consumers.
Remakes And Remasters Still Have A Place In The Industry
This isn’t to say that all remakes are bad. I’m always for having the games we love in the best form we can, and full remakes like Persona 3 Reload or the Resident Evil Remakes prove that we can still appreciate them.Hell, even the short gap between Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royalshows that there’s even space for worthwhile remasters, but the issue is when they feel lazy or lean toward being full-priced cash grabs - even if that’s not the intention, there’s a miscommunication between studios, the time it takes, the cost of the time put into it, and the consumers reception and view of games we have available.
Not that gamers are unreasonably angry people susceptible to miscommunication, of course.
