Summary
Last year, when theDead Spaceremake was well-received butultimately led to the series being re-abandoned, I mused as towhat exactly the point of these remakes was. To make money, sure, but then part of the problem is they don’t make that much money because their audience seems mostly limited to people who played it the first time around. As I look ahead to the upcoming slate, the domination of remakes becomes more confusing and more disillusioning.
I’ve never bought the belief that remakes allow studios to test the waters for making future games. You know how popular Dead Space is. You have the sales data from the first time around. It was a decent cult hit, you ruined it with 3, and then you killed it off. Reports at the time suggested that if the Dead Space remake had been a success (what level of sales that required is unclear), it would have been followed by a Dead Space 2 remake. Hardly exciting stuff.
Fans Deserve New Games, Not Old Ones Reskinned
I complained about all of this at the time,as did my colleague Jade King. We’ve been there and done that. Remakes just lead to more remakes and it’s hard to get excited for that.Dead Risingis back! Except, is it? Or are they justmaking its corpse dance around for money? Is anything worthwhile going to come of this, or will its success just lead to Dead Rising 2 being remade? Wow, they’re gonna make a game I already own and charge me again for it, it’s like Gamer Christmas!
I’m just as big a sucker for this as the rest of you. When it’s a game I like, I’m curious to see the changes. I’m also a little insulated from the whole ‘being charged twice’ deal as I often review these games or otherwise get sent codes, and even when these codes go elsewhere at TheGamer, the fact I can write about these remakes justifies the purchase. I understand the impulse to go ‘Lollipop Chainsaw! I liked that game! Can’t wait to play it again!’, but I can’t help but feel we need to move on.
Yes, the prospect of playing an updated Lollipop Chainsaw with the irritants and foibles (many of which have dissolved in my nostalgia) is enticing, but wouldn’t a totally new game be better all around? Sure, sometimes sequels suck. But sometimes remakes suck! You ever played Silent Hill HD Collection, which is neither a complete collection nor particularly HD? Ever seen the Nicolas Cage Wicker Man? The safety of remakes is what holds them back, and new entries should always take priority, despite the greater risk of going wrong.
2024 Is Full Of Remakes
As you can see above, this year has been crammed with remakes already, and several more are on the way. That’s not even all of them. Occasionally remakes can transform themselves into new games (like the three-game retelling ofFinal Fantasy 7, orResident Evil’srestructuring of its past hits, most successfully withResident Evil 4), but mostly they’re just spinning their wheels, making just enough of their money back from fans who already played the game years ago to justify their own existence, then heading back into hibernation.
It’s clear studios don’t really know what to do with their old games.Jet Set and Crazy Taxi are both set for true remakes, as wellas online MMO reimaginings. Why not just make a proper game? Both of these ideas scream insecurity -Segais clearly unsure how profitable these titles can be, so is milking nostalgia with a remake and Hail Marying the game into the cash generator genre in the hopes it stays spinning long enough to make a quick buck. Fans might get excited for a remake and be prepared to hold their nose to try an MMO, but no one really wants this. All they want is a new game. Make one.
This is not rocket science. If you ask the fans of any series what they want, they’ll say ‘a new game’. They might flock to buy remakes (though as the Dead Space sales figures seem to prove, that flocking may be below projections), but every fan sees a remake as a consolation prize. It’s nice that the series is still getting games, and that old classics will look - and maybe play - better than ever. But no one’s wishlist includes their favourite game from childhood, now in Unreal Engine 5 and yours for just $70! ($120 for the Collector’s Edition).
Remakes are fine but there are too many and we’re running out of things to remake. Games are also getting too big to be reliably remade in the future, so leaning on remakes is a short-term strategy. We need new games, whether that’s sequels or completely new ideas. Remakes don’t sell as well as you hope they would and we don’t like them as much as we thought we would. Let’s all move on.
