My guess is that they're doing remasters mainly for the money. The target are mostly old gamers that buy them for nostalgia, not so much for gameplay. At the same time they also target younger players who don't find old pixel/low-poly graphics appealing.

It depends on the game and the plattform I would say. I am console and pc gamer. For consoles remasters are really useful way to keep the games alive. Old consoles and their discs and cartridges won't last forever. So a remaster is good thing to preserver these games.

On the pc side remasters are not necessary imho. As long as these games are not using some super fancy gpu features that cannot be emulated my modern gpus pc games still look great these days.

it also depends on how remastered the game really is.

I am against a complete overhaul of the graphics when the orginal art style is killed during the overhaul. I always prefer the original graphics style in most cases.

But if the graphic artists remain faithful to the original style remasters can look neat.

Although still prefer the original Gamecube version the remaster of the first Resident Evil Remake is really well done. The same can be said about the remaster of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3.

The Spyro and Crash Bandicoot remaster are also well done.

I think they primarily target console consumers too. Most people who loved something like Dead Space aren't going back to the 360 to revisit it. New version with higher res and frame rate on current gen box though? Take my money!

Meanwhile in PC land all of these games are "remastered" just by cranking up the settings, and perhaps some mods.

Definitely little more than a cash grab.

The recent System Shock Remaster sold me completely on it. When it is done faithfully and to improve the GUI/Controls, then I'm all for it.

I am really looking forward to the Ultima Underworld Remastered at some point..

appiah4 wrote on 2023-07-26, 07:48:

The recent System Shock Remaster sold me completely on it. When it is done faithfully and to improve the GUI/Controls, then I'm all for it.

That's a full-on remake, not a remaster.

Remaster generally means keeping all the original assets (with possibly minor texture improvements) and not significantly changing the gameplay, while allowing the game to run at a higher resolution and on modern platforms. Remake means a complete overhaul of the original game using all new assets and while making significant gameplay changes.

For example, Final Fantasy 7 has both a remaster and a remake. They are completely different things.

Remasters don't usually mean much to me. If I have the vanilla game, I continue with it. If the game is popular, there are also mods for it, well usable in single player. For multiplayer, my mind doesn't divert much from the gameplay, and higher framerate is another factor so I don't want to have an FPS downgrade.

I used to sing praises to remasters but then reality set in and I realised they are 99.99% of the time cash grabs with least amount of effort possible put into them. There are exceptions like Homeworld remasters but even those were supposed to be low effort "put something quickly together and throw it out to make a buck" and became what it is only because the dev team went over and beyond what they were supposed to do. Until Gearbox shut down the development that is, the devs finished the patching process on their own time without anyone paying them and released the final fixes unofficially.

I suppose there is something to be said for modern PC support for the layman, better that old classics are being played than not played at all because the original game doesn't work well, but I still feel distain for all those modern PC support at higher resolution = $30 bs releases.

But add in actual quality of life improvements and you might get my attention, I've been thinking about giving Baldur's Gate a go again (for who knows how manyth a time) and I personally rather play the Enhanced Edition than suffer through the original.

Edit: typo avalanche

I have nothing against a remaster or remake - they introduce the game to a new audience at least. There's a remake of Gothic in the works apparently - I can't imagine it'll top the version I have installed already (original game + years worth of community patches and mods on top of it) but I'll give it a go if the reviews are half decent.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-07-26, 07:48:

The recent System Shock Remaster sold me completely on it. When it is done faithfully and to improve the GUI/Controls, then I'm all for it.

I am really looking forward to the Ultima Underworld Remastered at some point..

There is a fully playable Unity port of UW, which was enough to convince me that well-done mouselook is sometimes all it takes to revitalize a game...

i can see the value in resurrecting a game for newer systems and new players - if doing that then may as well 'remaster' and add options for widescreen and maybe new controls too. If the company is making money from "old IP" then its ok i guess.

for me a remaster, of most games* but especially of a game from the mid 2000'd / ps3 era onwards, is of little value and sometimes risks spoiling the game by distracting emphasis on how cool 'water' looks now or somesuch

it can also change the art style so much that the game loses its specific 'look', like the blue gray misty quality of GTA 3 or the clean corporate / industrial look of half life

.
*i mean most - remember frogger in the arcades? there were many free versions created over the years on 16 then 32 bit systems, some with great graphics and some even managing to reproduce same tight gameplay of the original (and hence being a kind of 'remaster') - but they we're not better games because of it

In the case of Crysis, the remaster was just in time.
We were at the brink of having a generation of CPUs and GPUs that actually COULD run Crysis.
The remastered version puts that moment a few years into the future again.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-07-26, 07:56:

Remaster generally means keeping all the original assets (with possibly minor texture improvements) and not significantly changing the gameplay, while allowing the game to run at a higher resolution and on modern platforms. Remake means a complete overhaul of the original game using all new assets and while making significant gameplay changes.

I agree, that seems to be the definition of remaster and remake.

Remasters are fine for consoles when the new generation is not compatible with the old generation, like PS3 -> PS4. Otherwise is plain stupid. Example. Last Of Us for PS4 was ok, maybe there were people who didn't own PS3. Last of Us Part 1 was plain stupid, PS4 disc should already be fine.

Remake... they are ok after some time, if the new textures and graphics are really much better, for example Rise of The Triad (2013) was ok, it was a new engine, much newer, but it also was basically a new game.

Quake II RTX... well, this blurs the line between remaster and remake, but I'd still consider it a remaster, basically all maps, monsters, weapons and gameplay are identical, however the engine and textures are newer.

What's sad is when a remaster is sold at almost full price, when nothing was really added, except maybe some textures and the ability to run the game in higher resolution.

Quake remaster is debatable, but I think it's wrong. It's my favorite all time game, but that should not be sold as a remaster for PC, but maybe as an addon, at a much lower price.

Now, what should be done, and it's almost never done, it's a proper remaster/remake for very old games. Example: Blood. It's the same game, same textures, same engine. Yes, it runs on modern hardware, but the original also runs on modern hardware on DOSBOX. What I would really like to see is something using the same maps and monsters, but truly remastered, instead of sprites use high poly models, use new textures (but very close to the original), etc. And everything in a new engine. Same for Shadow Warrior, we only got a reboot 🙁 Same for Doom - although there's a banned mod that's awesome, but that's banned and unofficial. Same for Duke Nukem 3D, there are some hires textures pack + models, but again, it's not official...

I have bought and played some remasters, but most of the time I prefer to just play the originals. I have Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango and a bunch of others, but I want to play the original first before playing the remakes.

Games like GTA , i prefer to play the originals instead of buying a remaster.

I feel some remasters just serve as clout fuel for those not part of a game's development or the engineering of the remaster...... (not going into specifics)

In my experience, remastered games are mainly interesting for very old games, that don't work properly on a modern system. Like games that don't support 16:9 resolutions, or are limited to relatively low resolutions, so you can't play them natively in 4k res and such.
I recently completed the remastered version of Alan Wake. The original works in 4k, but it clearly wasn't designed for it, so the HUD is very small on screen, and text is very stretched and blurry.
The original game itself doesn't even look that bad, as it's from 2010, so not all that old.

I also think that remastered games can be very useful to keep certain games alive on modern-day systems. But That's just a console problem. On PC remasters are not necessary for most games.

I am quite indifferent towards remasters.

Remasters bring the game to more platforms as a first-class citizen. Nice upscaled visuals and audio, and platform integration like modern controls and trophies/achievements. DOSBox isn't available on consoles, and I guess some people prefer their favorite couch to a PC chair. So all to say, there are tangible benefits than just audio/visual.

My only concern with a remaster is if it was done by someone incompetent, and the result loses some details or quirks the original game has.

wbahnassi wrote on 2023-07-27, 09:00:

My only concern with a remaster is if it was done by someone incompetent, and the result loses some details or quirks the original game has.

yes i'd agree, even when the game is essentially the same but something distracting is introduced, i saw a GTA SA graphical mod that essentially just made everything look wet, like it had been raining - quite distracting! 😀

Warcraft III Reforged permanently ruined remasters for me. I used to see no downsides at all to them. Now they run the risk of replacing the originals with an objectively inferior version. It's astounding that modern game companies took what was at worst a neutral value proposition, and found a way to make it something to be feared.