Video game remakes are big money for the gaming industry

PublishedApril 16, 2024

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This is the full transcript for season 7, episode 5— Video game remakes: Revival of the fittest — of the Quartz Obsession podcast.

What are video game remakes?

Alyssa: They’re a fascinating thing that has become something of a major trend in the industry, especially I’d say in the last decade or so.

There’s also three kinds of them, which is fascinating: Remasters, remakes, and reboots. They can be a little bit confusing, but they’re really interesting because they rely very heavily on nostalgia, on established IP, to kind of hopefully guarantee that they’ll earn revenue or bring in new fans or reignite old fans’ love of something and it’s really interesting to see that trend because it feels more like a safe bet that the industry is making when they make these kinds of games because rather than sort of trying something brand new with new characters and a new story set in a new universe, they lately have been retreading old established money-making ground.

Gabriela: That’s totally fascinating. And something else that you’ve brought up to me too is that they can help surface old games to people who’ve never even encountered those games before.

Alyssa: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the game industry has a huge issue with preservation, especially with, like, the move to digital and stuff.

And just the fact that unlike with movies or television, there have been so many different ways to play video games throughout the years that it’s very unlikely that you have a console from 1992 lying around. And if you can find one, they’re on eBay for thousands of dollars in most cases, or they’re not in working condition. So games that came out on those older consoles are unplayable for a lot of people. So when remakes or remasters kind of bring back old games onto new consoles, that literally ushers in an entirely new player base that quite literally could not play without it.

Gabriela: Maybe they’re encountering games that existed and went obsolete before they were born.

Alyssa: Yeah. Yeah. It’s really interesting.

Defining terms: remaster, remake, reboot

Gabriela: What is the difference between remaster, remake, reboot?

Alyssa: I actually thought of this literally as you were asking me, but I think the best way to describe it is sort of like, take like a Camaro, a car, right? So a remaster would be in some cases like a fresh coat of paint, right?

So they’re more or less faithful to the original game. Sometimes it’s just like improved visuals that are better for modern televisions and monitors, you know, that the fidelity looks better. It’s just making it look a little nicer, a little zhuzhed up.

A remake is going into an existing Camaro and swapping out the engine or making changes so that it runs faster and more efficient. They kind of rebuild games from the ground up. So source code could be changed. Character animations can be updated. The lighting is completely overhauled. Combat can change or be updated. Sometimes even story beats are swapped around. So that’s like going in and making adjustments to a car.

Meanwhile, a reboot is like when they came out with the new Camaro in the 2010s. It’s an entirely new, like, imagining of something that already exists. In a lot of cases, there’s no one game that it’s based off of, but a series or a franchise, and it’s a reboot. It’s a completely different take on it.

Gabriela: OK, so we’re talking like, code of paint versus horsepower versus model here.

Alyssa: Exactly.

What are some of the best remastered games?

Gabriela: So let’s talk a little bit about the first one, the code of paint, the remasters. Games that are more or less faithful to the original, but updated technical elements. We’ve talked before about, like, resolution, just like your image clarity and your crispness. So what have been some of the notable remastered games over the years that gamers or even just, like, passing fans might recognize or are pretty notable?

Alyssa: Mass Effect Legendary Edition is a huge one for me. But then there’s the Halo: Master Chief Collection, which is really interesting because it took all of the Halo games, I think before Halo 5, and packaged them into one package called the Master Chief Collection, all with updated graphics. And in cases of, like, the really old games like Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 and 3, you could actually swap back and forth between the old graphics and the new graphics if you wanted in the settings menu.

Gabriela: Ooh, so it’s like a toggling. I love that.

Alyssa: Then there’s stuff that it’s kind of changed, like The Last of Us has done that as well. They’ve done remasters, not the toggling aspect, but what’s interesting about remasters like The Last of Us is they come not that long after the original game released. So in terms of the Halo Master Chief Collection, there’s a, you know, 10 years in some cases between the game and when the remaster version came out.

In terms of something like The Last of Us, which just released a Part II remaster. The original Part II came out in 2020. So there really isn’t that much of a difference between visual fidelity and things like that. So some people kind of soured on the idea of these quick turnaround remasters with stuff like that because it does sort of feel like double dipping.

The Last of Us: Part II came out just a few months before the PS5 dropped, and then the PS5 had supply chain issues for years. So in many cases, people didn’t have access to the updated console. So in some cases, I can understand doing it, but in others, it just kind of feels like, OK, this doesn’t really look that different, does it?

Gabriela: Oh, and by PS5, you also, you’re talking about the PlayStation 5 — I’m saying this because I, myself, am a video game noob, a novice. This is a foreign world to me. I’m pretty sure the last time I picked up a video game in earnest was me playing Wii Tennis in probably 2009.

It’s interesting, we’re talking about, like, the latest hardware comes out, and so people are going back to the software to make it better, to be upgraded to the new hardware.

Alyssa: Yeah, and I’m not really picky about this kind of stuff, but a lot of gamers really care about frame rate and resolution, and, you know, if you want faster frames per second, which kind of smooths out movement in games, you will sacrifice resolution in some cases for that, but with better processing power and newer consoles, you can kind of have, you know, higher versions of both.

So, for people who are really, really picky about how their games look, remasters are definitely something that appeals to them. For someone like me, I’m like, it looks pretty. I’m having fun. So, I’m not really all that picky about it, but I can completely understand, you know, the allure for people who are really interested in visual fidelity.

Gabriela: So something else that you’re tracking here, Alyssa, is that in the Halo example, there’s like 10 years, about a decade of time that elapses between these remasters. But then when it comes to something like Last of Us, it’s just a couple years that elapse. And so, what I’m hearing here is like, the velocity is increasing, like, the speed of which a remaster is turned around is increasing.

Why might that be?

Alyssa: I mean, it could be a couple things. I can imagine that remastering a game that has that much of a gap between the original release to what you’re releasing it on now, there have been major leaps made in terms of processing power and visual fidelity and all of those things, and so going in and doing a fresh coat of paint is more like, you know, sanding off everything, redoing the primer, redoing the paint. Whereas in some cases it’s something like The Last of Us Part II, it’s like a top coat, just to make it a little shinier, because it already has a lot of the visual fidelity that you’d expect from something that’s brand new. But for the people who are very eagle eyed and notice these things, it’s like, the slight changes that can be made between a couple of years, I can’t imagine would take as much effort as refreshing something that’s a decade or in some cases two decades old.

What are the best video game remakes?

Gabriela: So let’s transition now to video game remakes. Those are games which, for one reason or another, are just do-overs. So, what are some examples that you can take me through here? What are some of the remakes that we should know about?

Alyssa: It’s kind of wild because there are so many remasters and remakes, but the three that I would think about are also the three that have come out within the last year and a half, just to give you an idea of how often these are happening.

There’s the Resident Evil 4 remake, which came out in 2023, that’s a remake of a 2005 game. And it’s a horror game, that series, but this injected even more horror elements into it, added new enemies, gave an autosave feature, which you think would be something that would be in most games, but in older games, and in some games, you actually have to manually save your progress, so that can be a huge issue if you forget to do that. And then you get into a situation where you fail a level or die in the middle of something and then you’re sent back way before where you just were and have to go all the way back through it again. And so modernization added an autosave feature, they added combat mechanics. Obviously it looked so much better, the visual fidelity was incredible, and it was so good it was nominated for Game of the Year at the 2023 Game Awards.

Gabriela: Wow. Was that a milestone?

Alyssa: I mean, it was definitely controversial. Some people were sort of like, “This is just the remake of it, what do you mean? What about all the brand new games that were made?” But it was very good! Hence the nomination.

And also I think horror games are great for remake territory because they rely so heavily on visual fidelity and audio fidelity to scare you. And old horror games, I can’t imagine with what we’re used to now in gaming.

Popping in an old horror game from 2005 with graphics where they’re at and expecting it to scare you. Whereas now a lot of these horror games that are getting remade, they’re adding different audio things and ratcheting up the horror in ways that they couldn’t on older consoles, or maybe because they didn’t have the development time, and now they do.

And that’s something that they did with Dead Space, which was also remade and pushed out in 2023. They added more horror elements. They opened up the map, whereas in the original game, you had to go through it in sections. Now it’s this big, open, empty, derelict spaceship that’s basically got the game’s version of xenomorphs.

It’s bigger, it seems scarier because you don’t know where to go the entire time. And it also, really interestingly, added a voice to the protagonist who was silent in the original. So it’s really interesting to see those kinds of changes. And then you’ve got remakes, like the second one in the Final Fantasy VII Remake Trilogy, which just came out a couple of weeks ago.

And that is fascinating because it almost doesn’t even count as an official remake. It’s like a meta sequel because it takes a 1997 RPG, expands it into three different gigantic games, like triple, quadruple the size. And obviously the graphical difference between 1997 and 2024 is huge. The story is different.

In some cases, it’s, like, overhauled. Some of the characters changed, like the path that they’re going down. And in some cases, I don’t want to spoil anything, but in some cases there is the belief that it’s almost kind of created its own alternate reality within the Final Fantasy world. It’s very confusing and very interesting, and that’s kind of like a whole other beast of a remake.

I don’t even know if you can fairly call that a remake because it’s completely different from others.

Gabriela: I’m so drawn in by this idea that as opposed to the remaster where we’re really just talking technicalities here? Remakes to me as someone who’s looking at this from the outside hearing about this from the outside It sounds to me like remakes are impressing some sort of intention.

Maybe games from, you know, 20 years ago, things that are supposed to scare you seem a little retro now, or a little hokey. But by updating, like, the realism of, like, sort of the horror of the games, it’s just impressing its intention more strongly on you. Or I just like this idea that a voiceless protagonist now has a voice and, you know, is given, like, a whole characterization that didn’t exist before that’s fascinating to me

Alyssa:Yeah, and it really makes you think like when these games were first made first played and people were first critiquing it and talking about it, you know, were those pain points?

Did the developers recognize that maybe people wanted to hear more from this protagonist or maybe they thought this part wasn’t scary? Or were they just, you know, kind of sickos and were like, “How do we scare people more than we did the first time around?”

I’d love to know the thought process that goes behind some of these, the behind the scenes conversations of “What are the priorities for what we’re going to do here and why?” Fascinating to me.

What are the best video game reboots?

Gabriela: So let’s move on ahead to the last category that you mentioned, reboots. These are games that have been totally reimagined. What are some examples of reboots that, like, really rippled out in the gaming world?

Alyssa: Reboots are definitely, I would say, the least common, because they are gambling a little bit with the IP, right?

So, again, the gamble, the chance you’re taking. It’s established IP, sure, you know this character, but we’re telling the story different. We’re reimagining who they are. I think God of War is probably the best example of a massive change to an existing character, an existing IP, an existing story, that even the original creator isn’t a huge fan of.

And that is because, I believe, and many do, 2018's God of War was a reimagining of the franchise that did things like change up the camera and the main character’s weapon, but it also fleshed out who the character was. In many cases, he was kind of just this sort of one-note, hyper masculine fighting man.

And in the reboots, there are layers to him. There are emotional beats. There’s a deeper story at play. There is resolution in some cases with his character and this history of violence and the decisions that he’s made along his path. And that was something that the original series didn’t really do. It was just sort of “be big man, kill people.”

And this is kind of questioning that, calling that idea into question. And that I find really fascinating. And that’s something that a reboot, I think, is meant to do. It’s meant to kind of take this thing you know and put a new spin on it.

Gabriela: It also sounds like reboots are used to be able to adapt a game to sort of contemporary ideas and contemporary norms.

Alyssa: Yes.

Gabriela: Just be able to bring it up to speed with sort of the expectations we have around our game. games and the storytelling within them?

Alyssa: Absolutely, yeah. I think the one-note, hyper masculine character has been done over and over and over and over again in games. So expanding on that, questioning that, wondering what it would be like if you weren’t just that, is fascinating. And it’s the reason why the reboots are beloved by most people.

Gabriela: You’ve also talked to me about how some games have been updated to meet a new sociopolitical climate.

Alyssa: Yeah, that’s especially fascinating. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is kind of a franchise within a franchise. Call of Duty has a million games.

It’s not a million, but there are tons of games that are sort of war simulators, first person shooters. There are different kinds of branches within that. There’s Black Ops and then Modern Warfare, which kicked off right around the aftermath of 9/11. There was obviously a lot of open support for militarization and military funding and all of those kinds of things and they were mirroring in some ways the perceived enemies of those wars, and there are a lot of depictions that are looking back considered somewhat problematic So in 2019, they rebooted the franchise.

They said in interviews that it was sort of thinking about how modern warfare is actually considered now, the term “modern warfare.” And it also moved the franchise away from mirroring one-to-one current conflicts going on, and it’s a little bit more, I’d say it leans a little more like, “select group of super soldiers working.”

It gives more Marvel’s Avengers than say Jarhead. So it’s a little bit of a difference.

Gabriela: We pay more attention now to how we depict people on the margins in our popular culture. Things that were flying in 2004, 2005, 2006, when this came out, don’t resonate the same today.

Alyssa: Absolutely.

How does this phenomenon relate to other media, like movies and TV?

Gabriela: I feel like we’re also seeing similar threads and similar discussions coming up across other entertainment industries. We’re seeing this happen in movies. We’re seeing this happen in television. Maybe it’s not as cleanly broken into remaster, remake, reboot, but we’re seeing a lot of revivals of existing works being redone.

There are cinematic universes being built out. Mattel’s now trying to build one, you know, kicking off with Barbie. I was just watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith, like, last month, which is made for TV remake of a movie from probably 20 years ago.

Alyssa: Yep.

Gabriela: Mean Girls started as a movie that became a musical that became a movie again. Like, it’s fascinating. Do you think there’s a reason that we’re seeing these echoes sort of, like, radiate out across multiple entertainment industries at all, and, you know, like, what’s video games’ relationship with that?

Alyssa: Yeah, I mean, I think it speaks to a little bit of what we were kind of saying, that these things cost increasingly more and more to make, whether it’s movies or television shows or video games.

And what’s interesting about the Marvel and the DC and all of that stuff, that bleeds directly into video games, and there are video game companies working on Star Wars games and Marvel games and DC games, and they all fight over the rights for those games and that it’s again, it’s doubling down on something that you know people already like.

And I think fandom culture is a huge aspect of this as well. The push towards fandom culture, the push towards making something, essentially your personality, that you really like, it means that you are, in a lot of ways, a guaranteed customer. And if you are making a Marvel game, you can almost guarantee that a huge chunk of Marvel fans, be they gamers or not, will be interested in it, whether they’ve never played a game before, but they want to see a new take on Black Panther, they’re probably gonna buy that game. And I think that’s just kind of showing that with how much money everything costs to make, gambles are scary, and a lot of studios and production companies don’t want necessarily want to gamble. And so why wouldn’t you walk in feeling confident with your odds and double down on stuff like that? And I think, yeah, it’s not a coincidence at all. It makes a lot of sense.

The millennials are especially like good for the nostalgia play because we were already on the internet. We got embedded in these cultures the first time around. And I became, you know, a Twilight girl with a bunch of people on Tumblr. And now if you bring back Twilight, I’m gonna go, “Oh, remember when I was 20? Maybe I’ll watch that again.” So yeah, I think it’s a, it’s definitely a business decision that is being made kind of across all these different media.

Gabriela: Right. The proof of concept is already there in that the fan base already exists.

Alyssa: Exactly.

What will happen next with video game remakes?

Gabriela: So, with all of this in mind, we’re looking at the remasters, we’re looking at the remakes, we’re looking at the reboots. What’s the state of play with video game remakes?

Alyssa: I think the games industry is in a really interesting place.

There was rampant hiring and growth. In 2020 that was very quickly determined to have been a little bit too much and that’s why there have been, gosh, we’re somewhere in like the seven or eight thousand layoffs. It might even be more than that already in this year, and so I can imagine that the business idea of going back and retreading ground that you know was already successful may continue? Taking chances on new IP and new stories… it’s something that when games cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make scares people, I can imagine.

And something like Final Fantasy VII, doing as well as it does, granted, I would not call that a traditional remake or a remaster in any sense of the word, but when you can see how something that is doubling back over established territory, it is doing incredibly well. Or Resident Evil getting nominated for Game of the Year. I can’t imagine that they’re going to be going away anytime soon. Remasters, remakes. reboots are a little different. Again, that is a gamble.

So I think as the game industry kind of shifts to understanding what it can actually maintain and also understanding how to keep its developers healthy... The games industry has a really bad history of crunch, which is kind of people working incredibly hard, incredibly late for very long hours on games in order to get them to a ship date… I can imagine that as we’re trying to figure out our weird, growth, step back period that there will still be a reliance on remakes and reboots and remasters going forward. So I don’t think it’s gonna end anytime soon. I can imagine this will continue. And there are people who are demanding remakes, reboots, and remasters of games all the time on Twitter. You know, “When’s this? When’s that? When am I gonna see this?” So there’s just so many things you can go back and redo that haven’t been done yet, so I think it’s a trend that is here to stay for a little bit.

Gabriela: There will be many more Atari consoles unwrapped under Christmas trees. Alyssa, thank you so much for being here. I think you’ve inspired me to go dust off my old Wii controllers.

Alyssa: I’m so excited for that. I mean, if you ever want to game with me. Just let me know.

Gabriela: My second Wii controller will have your name all over it.

Alyssa: Yes, I promise I won’t embed it in the television when it flies off my wrist.

Gabriela: Alyssa Mercante is the senior editor for gaming site Kotaku. This episode was produced by Ready Freddie Media. Additional support from Juan Palacios, Quartz Executive Editor Susan Howson, and Head of Video David Weinstein. Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suguira. If you like what you heard, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you’re listening.

And tell your friends about us! Are you a gamer? If so, put on your headset, dust off your avatar, log on, and share this episode link with five people you love to play with. Then head to qz.com/obsession to sign up for Quartz’s weekly obsession email and browse hundreds of interesting backstories.

I’m Gabriela Riccardi. Thanks for listening.

So I’m currently looking at a screen and it says “run game.” Oh, I figured it out! I hit the mushroom, mushroom coming! I ate the heck out of that mushroom. Yes, I got my power up! OK, jump, jump, jump, jump. Alright, alright, next pipe. This pipe is very tall. Oh gosh, I think I need a running start. Oh, didn’t make it. One more try. Nope, didn’t make it.

Alyssa: You’re doing great, sweetie.

Gabriela: Oh, thank you.

Alyssa: Noooo.

Gabriela: She’s dead.

Alyssa: RIP.

Gabriela: She’s dead. Game over. Wah wah.

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Video game remakes are remaking an industry

Kotaku senior editor Alyssa Mercante explains how the gaming industry is making big bucks on reinventing old favorites.

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