Remakes and remastersare a massive trend in gaming right now. We’re seeing dozens of studios goback into their historyand pull out their best games to polish up and sell again in a new form. Remakes and remasters are nothing new, but it is easy to see why they’ve become so relied uponthis generation. They represent what is almost certainly the safest bet a studio can make on a game. They have the benefit of an existing IP, but without the risk a sequel makes in losing out on the portion of the audience that didn’t play the first game. If that initial game was a hit, unless something goes terribly wrong in translation, so will the remake or remaster.
But those two terms shouldn’t be used interchangeably. The line between them has been blurred as each studio seems to make up its own rules as to what constitutes what, but there is still a baseline distinction we can look at. These types of releases are only going to become more common in thecoming years, so it’s better to get an understanding of the differences now rather than later.
We will touch on reboots and ports, but our focus on the broader catagories of remakes and remasters.
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What makes a game a remake?
It needs to be built from the ground up
The Last Of Us Part II Remastered
Let’s begin defining what a remake is. The easy way to describe it is right in the name: it is a game that has been completely remade. There are a few ways this can be done, but the core idea is that every asset is new and made to resemble the original game. We’re talking about new graphics, models, music, and more. They use the base game as a template, but update everything to various degrees.
A remake is a new director, cast, and crew using the same script (plus or minus some changes) from an existing film.
Whether or not a game remains faithful to its source does not exclude it from being a remake. Final Fantasy 7: Remake changes almost everything that could be changed from the original. The gameplay is unrecognizable, the camera perspective is altered, and even the story takes many diversions. The same points could be made for Resident Evil 2 Remake. These types of remakes that take more liberties with the source material can border on becoming a reboot, but that is a more granular distinction than we need to make.
On the other hand, remakes can be almost completely faithful to the original and qualify as a remake. The first Resident Evil Remake does make a few tweaks here and there but it is largely the same game as before. Still, because every model, background, and sound is new, it is a remake.
Another way to think about it is to compare them to films. A remake is a new director, cast, and crew using the same script (plus or minus some changes) from an existing film.
What makes a game a remaster
A bit of shine and polish
Remasters are a completely different beast. These are games that a developer takes and uses whatever current technology and hardware is out there to make them to make a game look and play as good as possible. Very little, if anything, is made new here. These are your HD remakes, for example. Depending on the game, a few quality-of-life features might be bundled in as well, such as save states, rewind functionality, and new controls, but not much more than that. The core game is what it was before, but now looks and runs a bit better.
A more tricky question for certain games is whether a game is actually a remaster or a port. There’s no specific way to tell, but generally the game is benefitting from any improvements just because of being on a different platform without any work from a developer, then it is generally just a port.
To return to our film analogy, game remasters are exactly like film remasters. A 4K remaster of a classic movie is still the same film, but upscalled and transferred to modern technology.
Developers don’t make it easy to tell at a glance what a remake or remaster is in many cases. Alternate names like Director’s Cut, Anniversary Edition, and Definitive Edition all intentionally muddy the water in an effort to charge consumers more than they probably should. Now that you know the difference yourself, you can at least make an informed decision on whether a remake or remaster is worth a purchase.
