The era of remakes. Why are old games making a comeback and why is it great? (Topic)

Resident Evil 2, Ghostbusters The Videogame, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, MediEvil, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awaking are all remakes, if not legendary, then at least great games that we saw [and more see] at the end of last year and this year. However, this is only a small part of all those updated games that came out or will come out yet. And to be honest, you can't list all those re-editions that came out today without outside help. We only have to remember once in a couple of seconds another re-released project, cheerfully shouting: oh, of course, more Shadow of Colossus and ... and Catherine Classic! Whoa, and Phoenix Wright and Doom! And so for a very, very long time

In case you haven't noticed, the last couple of years, major gaming companies have been remaking games that were iconic about 10-20 years ago. Today it is a trend and, to be honest, one of the best current trends in the industry in my memory. But why is this happening? Why are there remakes and remasters of old games? And is it really good?

Duck speculation

Speaking about why remakes of games are so popular today, it's hard not to remember cinematography, for which such a thing is not new. For the game industry, the concept of a remake was alien due to the fact that it is young, unlike cinema, which has its roots in the theater. And what game development is going through now is a long-gone era by Hollywood, and I can describe it as the "first wave of remakes".

Something like this can be called the period when the American cinema machine, in the era of its heyday in the distant 50s, began for the first time to shoot remakes of silent films or pictures of the 30s. These were the very first remakes, but along with them a lot of original works came out. And somewhere in the 80s, when technology has stepped forward, remakes of films began to appear in huge quantities. This continued until about the beginning of the 2000s, and such re-filmed films as: "Scarface", "The Mummy", "Batman" by Tim Burton, James Bond films, "Ocean's Eleven" and many others, were perceived by the public as original and distinctive, even though it was not so.

That was the golden time, when creativity was still present in the minds of filmmakers, before the main business tycoons realized that it was possible to cut money from this concept, speculating on nostalgia. And here we are, when another wave of remakes began, but they rarely boast even a drop of personality; try to parasitize on the feelings of the audience. As the best example of the current paradigm, just look at the Disney remakes to see how plain they are.

Yes, we have to admit that now they do it due to the lack of ideas and parasitism on proven films that will definitely pay off at the box office without the risk of losing money.

But it's not like that with games.

We are not like them

Speaking about remakes of video games, one must understand that since they began their development only in the 80s, only now they have reached the level at which, let's say, cinema was in the 80s and 00s.

If you take the countdown when the first game remakes appeared, then in fact something like that arose back in the 90s with the arrival of 32-bit systems and more powerful computers a few years later. So, we saw the release of Doom 64 and Lunar: The Silver Star, King's Quest, Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. Although the point here is even more in emulation, because the games remained the same, they could just be made better on the image by transferring them to new hardware.

But specifically, the era of remakes in games began at about the same time when someone came up with the idea to transfer the game from one engine to another. And it became possible at the beginning of this decade [I would call 2012-2014 a starting point] and everything led to the fact that there are more and more of them.

But why exactly?

There are quite a few reasons and they are all more than obvious. First of all, let's not forget that there is a rule: "what is sold once is likely to be sold a second time." It is profitable for companies to make remakes of well-known games, since they catch two target audiences of oldfags and newfags at once. I am sure that many did not play the first parts of Resident Evil until the remaster of the first game and a complete rethinking of the second came out, which could reach a huge audience and attract the attention of even those who had not even heard about what the games of the Resident Evil series are and where to insert them ... What can I say, from a commercial point of view, it's great.

For the same reason, the market has been flooded with game remasters, which I would call the younger brothers [sisters] of the remakes.

And we absorb it all for one simple reason: nostalgia and the desire to see everything in a new way. Speaking about the first, we all perfectly understand that for the majority it is a positive thing. It helps society to form its own "I", to connect it with its roots, forms ideals, moral attitudes and even contributes to the fact that it can reconcile people of radically different beliefs. You and another person may look differently at Fortnite if you are over 20, but the two of you will definitely shed a tear remembering, for example, WoW 2007.

The next reason is the opportunity to look at an old product in a new way. Nowadays, a lot of developers try their best to make remakes cool. Some people go so far as to create a new game from scratch, focusing on the original. If you recall the recent remake of Spyro, then everything remained in place, even dodging in different directions. But your heart warms, for example, that the dragons you are freeing have become different, and Spyro himself gently wags his tail, stirring the grass under him. What a delight.

If we have a good story, why not make it better? It is because of this approach that our projects are reborn. However, I can't say that we lack original games.

Add to all this and the fact that many games that you loved very much are impossible to get. Some are not for sale, some are only on disc, and some were released for the PS1. These titles, once exclusives or lost gold, are returning to make it possible to find what was lost. And yes, many companies are now doing remasters and remakes of their exclusives, thanks to which we can play Yakuza or the already mentioned Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Nintendo is generally throwing trump cards onto the card table, reviving not only Link's adventures on Switch, but also using many of their old games in general.

And not only studios

The fact that we simply love remakes and can revive our favorite project is evidenced by a huge number of fan remakes. So, we have a lot of mods from enthusiasts who simply improve the graphics, as well as entire studios who revive classics like Black Mesa, Dino Crisis and Ocarina of Time.

Demakes

At the same time, we have a fashion trend for demakes, which arose as a second side to the hobby for remakes. There are many young and independent guys who are downgrading modern games, making them look like a project from the days of arcades, the first consoles like the SNES or PS1.

What can I say, the fashion for the past gives us warm sensations, and we are ready not only to follow it, but also to plunge headlong, both reviving the cult projects of antiquity, and aging modern classics.

The Topic of Article: The era of remakes. Why are old games making a comeback and why is it great?.
Author: Jake Pinkman