[DoctorEldritch]

@DracoTarot I fear true originality is in short supply these days, and many creators turn to nostalgia, @GoLLuM13 and I just noted that about November game releases. But the thing about trends is that they can guarantee demand, so it is tempting to follow them, it would ensure that your book, or film, or game, would find a big audience. Big companies rarely experiment and do not follow the trend, it is mostly Indie companies that have the creative freedom to do so.

[GoLLuM13]

@DoctorEldritch a new FIFA, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed almost each year is the perfect example of it. They don't take risks and just use and abuse of known licenses. The Remake / remasters trends is another example, they know it will sell, it will work, it's risk-free, so they just do it, and if it really works they'll think about doing a new game for this license Crash Bandicoot is a perfect example for this

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 I agree about FIFA and the rest, but I think Remasters have a larger function than just sales. There are remasters that make previously PS-exclusive games to be available on PC (like most Yakuza games) or that allow classic games to be played on modern systems, like this year's System Shock. They may be safer options and there is a nostalgia element too, of course, but overall, I think that they also do help more people access those games, which is a good thing in my book.

[GoLLuM13]

@DoctorEldritch having access on other machines is more like an extra bonus than the real purpose of a Remaster, I'll take for example the anniversary compilation of Mario on Switch that included "Super Mario 64", "Super Mario Sunshine" and "Super Mario Galaxy" they all work with an emulator 😅 and when we know that there is already a Virtual Console for N64 on Switch, I really don't see the purpose of such a compilation ? OK the two others were games from Wii and Game Cube, but it also means they can do a Virtual Console for those two too.
Another example is Resident Evil 4 that has been around on every machine since PS2 era through PS4 era calling the latest remaster "Resident Evil 4 HD" on the PC it didn't changed much, maybe slightly refined textures but not that much, the real change came from the Remake of this year, with a game made from scratch with a new engine and all. While I can totally see the need for new generations (or even nostalgic people) to discover or rediscover those great games with new graphics and a modern gameplay, I really don't understand why the remasters ? Especially on PC, a simple update can fix everything no need to do a "newer" version and sell it at the price of a "new game" (I'm talking about remasters).
And I read recently that Sony wants to release a remaster of "Horizon Forbidden West" calling it "Complete Edition" on PS5 and few months later on PC, that will have all DLCs and "better textures" knowing that it's a game that was released on PS4/PS5 in February 2022. Let's be honest, Remasters are just an easy way to make cash, while Remakes will demand more work for an "already known" game

[DracoTarot]

@DoctorEldritch It's sad when it happens. Originality is always a win for me. There's nothing wrong with change but still, boundaries must be set.

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 Maybe it's case-to-case basis? The examples you mentioned are of big franchises and really do look like a way for a quick cash-grab. But then again, Yakuza is a reasonably big franchise as well, and I am biased when using it as an example because I like it, but their remasters I was happy to see. For newer games they just improved the graphics and ported to PC, but the first 2 games got very reworked with new engine, added activities and quests, you may remember we talked about it in great detail before. This is how I'd like to see the remasters be done.

Though that being said, there are less positive examples of that, too. One of my favorite games of all time is called "Mor.Utopia" (or Pathologic in English) by a Russian indie studio, I mentioned it in a few places before. It was first released in 2005 and it was a very ambitious but niche project that later got a cult following, but it had technical problems. Then after over 10 years they made a simple remaster to improve graphics and make it run on modern machines, but developers also wanted to make a remake. And in that they wanted to actually make a new game from scratch, even though in the same setting and with the same story and characters, but differently (sort of how there are many Dracula movies, for example). And although it was not bad, it did not perform quite as well as they hoped, because it's niche, it was a commercial fail, even though it is a good game. So that's an example of how making a remake can also backfire.

Then what is your take on the remake of Dead Space? Or the Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe?

[GoLLuM13]

@DoctorEldritch The Yakuza Kiwami games are remakes and not remasters, which I prefer, because a remake is like a new game but with a known story, sometimes they add new things or change things like with Final Fantasy 7 or the Resident Evil Remakes. And why don't I like remasters ? Because they are simple ports a copy/paste of an old game, sometimes with better textures, but it's so subtle that you probably won't notice and obviously they charge people the full price, like it was a new game 😅 and it's even worse to do that on PC, because they could just provide this with an update.
So there is clearly a difference to be made between a remaster (simple port of an old game) and a remake (redoing the game from scratch with new engine and all, even if it's the same story and no addition is made to it)

As for Mor.Utopia case (I never heard of it) but that's true, doing a remake is risky, especially for a "niche" game and if you don't have a marketing budget for that, seriously I haven't seen anything about it before you told me about it, and maybe that was the problem ? The game look "fine" though.

As for the two remakes you're talking about, I haven't played them, but I saw Dead Space, and I think you already know what I think about remakes, that's OK even if there is some creative laziness on the story side

I just wanted to add this video that compares the difference between the Last of us on PS3 (original) PS4 (Remastered) and PS5 (Remake), while there is a little difference between PS3 and PS4, 720p vs 1080p, that makes it sharper, the difference stops there, but when you compare the PS4 (or PS3) vs PS5 you have that feeling that we are dealing with a new game, while someone can skip and probably don't find a reason to buy the PS4 version if they already have the PS3 version, they will have a hard time thinking when it comes to the PS5 version 😁 it's more comfortable and convenient to (re)do the fame in these conditions

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 With Yakuza I meant more games 3, 4 and 5. The first 2 are indeed remakes with more work put into them. Though I am not sure how much work they spent on those 3-5 remasters. Though I want to note that these remasters for me served as a publicity element, too. Like you said, some games have bad PR departments, Mor.Utopia case and point (though that one was always niche and the studio itself is a peculiar one). I did not know about the Yakuza series before those remasters, as it was PS only, it flew over my radar. So maybe it is a less conventional tactic to draw attention to older products? Certainly, it would at least partially seem this way for Horizon.

As for The Last of Us, the newer one does seem more like a new game, that is true, though I only have surface experience with differences in generations of PS, preferring only the PC.

I have been thinking about this in relation to Alan Wake since yesterday, the first game recently also got a remaster. The usual antics with graphics aside, it seems they did it for sales and awareness before rolling out Alan Wake 2. Which is fair enough, I get capitalism, but there was also an element of replacing some product placement in the game for various brands like Ford. That "commercial deal" has expired, so the remaster got those removed.

Not sure if it warrants the remaster, and with Alan Wake I would not care, but something similar happened to Yakuza, too, with that music of theirs. Luckily, you can bring those back with a mod. Though I guess if they just updated the game, there would be a mod for that, too...

[GoLLuM13]

Yakuza whether we like it or not is also a "niche" game that's why it flew under your radar, at first the game was intended for Japanese and US market only, for example there weren't any localization text or vocal for French, Italian or Spanish. I think they started to add subs in other languages recently, and we're talking about a big publisher like Sega, so no wonder a smaller studio/publisher struggles.
For Horizon (and Sony) it's just a way to get more money, if the game already exists on PS5, the DLC was also exclusive to PS5 (PS4 was excluded out of the equation) I don't see the need to do a remaster on PS5, I can understand the GOTY version side of it, but not the remaster, the PS5 version was supposed to have better graphics, they wanted to charge the PS4 to PS5 upgrade, but it finally became free, because they promised it will be free and the people didn't like the fact they didn't respect the promise. Sony for this generation is just super greedy which is a shame 👀 and like many people say, it went from "For the players" to "For the payers" 😜

For The Last of US, the PC version is based on the PS5 version, so we have the best version on our machines 😁

And you're right, sometimes deals expires, whether it's for an ad, a music, a skin... etc but on PC we have this advantage we can use mods (when devs don't ban people with mods 👀)

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 It may be niche, but it is the niche I usually follow. I'd say the reason was different: I did not upgrade my PC for 7 years, before the last one, so I was a bit out of the loop in general: did not want to look into games I can't play yet anyway. But when I upgraded and did look into it, I found it good that those games were so readily available for me.

But I may be biased to put such value into that because of Fable 2 which just can't make its way to PC no matter what, even if it could be done by a patch, as you say. It seems to have other hurdles...

As for Horizon, I agree, it looks like the case of them trying to milk it. I personally would not mind much if it helped the industry, I mean, there have been so many layoffs lately, if companies making extra income would help to battle that, then I may be willing to pay, but somehow I don't think that's the case... I am not sure if you've seen it, but some time ago I used this in my discussion with @DracoTarot, and maybe it's applicable here:

But hey, at least it's (probably) not as bad as the whole Fallout 76 debacle?

So there is no option at all for mods for PS?