What is a game remake?

Ground-up video game remakes have become more popular recently. A remake is when a developer makes substantial changes to update an old game, including using a new game engine, new models, new animation, re-recorded audio and even adding to gameplay content, design ideas and a rewritten script. These are modern interpretations of old games, not old games refreshed.

Best upcoming game remakes and remasters, including Star Wars: Dark Forces

Best upcoming game remakes and remasters; Mario wields a large hammer

(Image credit: Nintendo)

The best upcoming game remakes and remasters can bring classic games back to life, and it feels like there’s something of a boom in these revamped retro games at the moment. Undoubtedly that’s partly driven by publishers hoping to cash in on the nostalgia of older players, serving up reheated content that has been a proven hit in the past for the best games consoles available now.

There’s also a sense that video games uniquely benefit from remakes, as the medium’s technology moves at such a relentless pace that games released just a decade ago can now seem positively archaic to modern eyes. For example, we recently spoke with the team behind Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake about how Unreal Engine 5 is revamping this cult classic. There are also new NVIDIA AI tools designed to make remasters easier.

Below are my personal picks of the best upcoming video game remakes and remasters, coming to PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch and PC. Keep in mind, remasters tend to focus on visual upscaling and performance improvements while remakes are rebuilt on new tech like Unreal Engine 5, feature new controls and even rework the gameplay; read our Resident Evil 4 Remake review for an example of a fantastic remake.

Due for release on 28th February 2024, the remaster of Star Wars: Dark Forces by Atari-owned Nightdive Studios may well be out by the time you read this. Nightdive Studios was behind the excellent System Shock remake from 2023, and the developer has also launched a number of well-received remasters in recent years, including Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition, Quake II and the first three Turok games. Given the studio’s pedigree, my hopes are high that this Dark Forces remaster will deliver.

Dark Forces stood out from the crowd, partly because of its technical advances. For example, it introduced the ability to look up and down, which is something we take for granted in first-person shooters, but which was an excitingly novel concept at the time. More importantly, it had a cracking good story, centring around the mercenary Kyle Katarn, who discovers the Empire’s Dark Troopers project while on a mission for the Rebel Alliance.

Before the debut of Alan Wake and Control, Remedy Entertainment was most well known for the Max Payne series, which saw the titular hard-boiled detective gunning down various ne’er-do-wells in slow motion. The first game from 2001 came out not long after The Matrix had appeared in cinemas, when ‘bullet time’ was very much part of the zeitgeist, and being able to pull off Neo-style balletic gunplay in the comfort of your own home was a thrill like no other.

This remake of the first two games in the series was greenlit after Remedy reached an agreement with Rockstar Games, who created Max Payne 3 and whose parent company Take-Two Interactive purchased the rights to the Max Payne IP many moons ago. The deal was announced in 2022, and it appears development is still at a very early stage. But we do know that both of the first two games will be released together as one title, and that they’re being developed using Remedy’s impressive in-house Northlight engine. Given what a graphical triumph Remedy’s Alan Wake 2 was on its release last year, it’s likely that this one will be something of a stunner.

Very few of Sega’s classic franchises get an update these days, with the exception of the annual outings of Sonic the Hedgehog, which is why many scramble to but the best retro consoles. (Read our Sega Mega Drive 2 Mini review, for example.) So, along with many other gamers of a certain age, I was absolutely delighted when Sega dropped the bombshell in December 2023 that five of its classic series would be returning with new entries or reboots: namely Golden Axe, Shinobi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage and, most importantly in my opinion, Crazy Taxi.

There’s little information on this new Crazy Taxi title, like whether it will be a reboot of the original game or a totally new entry, but the snippets of gameplay footage shown so far certainly evoke the San Francisco-style setting of the first game. All we know is that Sega creative officer Takaya Segawa has said it will be a 'Triple-A title', so it seems there’s been some well-deserved investment in this much-missed franchise.

The Silent Hill 2 remake is being developed in Unreal Engine 5 by Bloober Team, the horror aficionados behind Observer and Blair Witch, and the first gameplay footage was revealed in January, with the game set for release later in 2024. The trailer worried some fans thanks to its focus on combat, seeing as the original was more about atmospheric dread, but Bloober Team has responded by saying that it’s not representative of the final experience.

The game has been given a complete graphical overhaul, although it appears the original character designs and voice acting have been retained. Hopefully the first game’s legendarily dark humour will also remain untouched – there can’t be that many Nintendo games that feature references to gallows and organised crime. With rumours of Nintendo Switch 2 being delayed until 2025, this release could see demand for the current handheld on the rise.

But CD Projekt RED isn’t handling the remake itself – the studio already has more than enough on its plate, what with working on a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 in addition to a brand new entry in the Witcher series, not to mention Project Hadar, an unannounced original IP. So development of The Witcher Remake has instead been handed off to Fool’s Theory, a Polish studio headed by Jakub Rokosz, who was a senior quest designer on The Witcher III.

Beloved by critics and fans of Grasshopper’s idiosyncratic titles, which include the No More Heroes franchise, the 2011 game nevertheless sold poorly, which perhaps makes it a surprise that Grasshopper chose to announce a remaster in June 2023. Still, it’s a welcome surprise, and hopefully Garcia will win the hearts of a few more fans this time around. Few other details have been announced of the remaster, however, and it seems like it could still be some way off.

You might not have heard of Clock Tower, but it’s something of a cult classic survival-horror point and click adventure that was originally released on the Super NES in Japan in 1995. Director Hifumi Kono was inspired by the horror films of Dario Argento, and the game sees the character Jennifer attempting to escape a mansion while being pursued by a murderer wielding an outsized pair of scissors.

Three sequels to the game made their way to the west, but the original was never officially released outside of Japan. However, American studio WayForward is currently working on an enhanced version of the first game, which will feature new animated cutscenes and a vocal theme song, but will retain the pixel-art looks of the original. It’s being made using Limited Run Games’ Carbon Engine, a tool that enables older games to be ported to modern platforms, and it’s due out this year.

The original game was a visual treat, a creative stylised reinvention of the Disney art style, but it had issues with its controls and game camera.The Refurbished bit in this new release aims to tackle those issues while updating the visuals. As well as being able to again meet Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Disney's original star, and play as Mickey the Mouse, to affect the world with his magic paintbrush - paint to create, thinner to alter – the new remaster will feature new moves such as dash, ground pound and sprinting.

What's a game remaster?

Game remasters are a more light touch way of bring a game up to date for a modern audience or to run on current game consoles. This will generally mean upscaling textures on models, stabalizing frame rates, refreshing audio and visual effects, as well as offering new control schemes. Remasters don't alter gameplay, pacing, scripts or models and aim to simply ensure an old game feels how we remember.

Why are games remade or remastered?

Some old games are considered masterpieces of design, ideas and gameplay and there's a growing desire to protect and restore these titles. Unlike films, comics and books, games are partly the result of the technology they were created for, when that technology is replaced old games can no longer be played. Remasters are the easiest way to enable old games to run on new hardware, often through emulation, remakes are a bolder approach, and aim rebuild classic games for modern audiences on new tech.

Are remakes and remasters legal?

Yes, if it's made and sold by the IP holder, otherwise, no. Fans often create their own remakes and remasters of classic games, but these are for personal use or proof of concept and not for resale. Some of these are so good an IP owner will hire a fan to work on a remaster, as happened with Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered and Sonic Mania, created by Christian 'Taxman' Whitehead. Some fan teams eventually become professional studios off the back of a love or remastering old games.

What do I need to play a game remake or remaster?

Game remakes and remasters are created to run on the latest game consoles and PCs, including the best gaming laptops. Take a look at our guide to the best graphics cards if you're looking to upgrade. Some remasters are made specifically for the new generation of retro consoles, such as the Evercade EXP, which is getting a remaster of Nintendo N64 game Glover.

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Lewis Packwood has been writing about video games professionally since 2013, and his work has appeared in The Guardian, Retro Gamer, EDGE, Eurogamer, Wireframe, Rock Paper Shotgun, Kotaku, PC Gamer and Time Extension, among others. He is also the author of Curious Video Game Machines: A Compendium of Rare and Unusual Consoles, Computers and Coin-Ops (White Owl, 2023).

Best upcoming game remakes and remasters