Remakes and remasters are big business these days. As technology improves, these rereleases allow players to revisit a game with fresh eyes and enjoy their old favourites on modern platforms. For developers and publishers, rereleases are an efficient way to land in the hands of more players. And that’s particularly important in the current climate of the games industry, where budgets are tight and developing new projects takes years of effort – and there is not always a guaranteed return on investment.
Sure, the seemingly endless re-releases of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us have become a bit of an inside joke. But even the Nintendo Switch 2 launch lineup is filled with updated versions of existing games, while earlier this year the remake of Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion proved to be a more notable release than many brand new games.
As it stands, many developers are leveraging AI technology to assist with their remaster projects (a notable example has emerged this week, with Forever Entertainment’s Front Mission 3 using questionable AI assets that have caught a lot of derision online). Soon, if we are to believe the discourse, publishers and developers will be able to use generative AI to perform the whole remastering process.
AI is a sore subject for many in the gaming space; everyone hated the Microsoft-backed gen AI tool, Muse, and there is an undeniable environmental impact to using power-hungry gen AI tools, not to mention the human cost of AI to the acting community that sparked the SAG-AFTRA strike.