The Last of Us: Part I Remake has been a regular topic in gaming news ever since it was first announced. The discussion surrounding it has been more or less consistently focused on one question: should it exist? Die hard fans, of course, say “yes, it absolutely should.” On the other hand, lesser fans and other critics say the opposite, and argue that it’s still a relatively young game that’d already gotten the HD remaster treatment back in 2014.
There are perhaps good arguments for both positions, but the curious thing about this conversation is that so many participants are acting like this is a unique case when it isn’t. Rather, it’s just the latest entry in a quickly growing library of bare-bones remakes and rehashes. So it’s not just a question of whether or notTLoU: Part Oneis worthwhile, but also one of whether this sort of remake is worth gamers' time, money and attention at all.
While it’s fun to see old, nostalgic favorites all spruced-up with fresh visuals on new hardware, there’s no denying that many of these games are basically the same as their original iterations. That could be considered a good thing, but are visuals enough to justify a forty dollar plus purchase? Perhaps if the original game is old enough to no longer be easily accessible, but even then, wouldn’t a cheap, simple port be better?
The Last of Us Part I Remake and Skyrim are current poster children for excessive remasters since they’ve both received multiple re-releases since their initial launches, but even one-off remakes aren’t necessarily good things. TakePac-Man World Re-Pacfor example, a remake in the same vein as theCrash N’ Sane TrilogyandSpyro Reignited Trilogy.
That is, visuals aside, it’s virtually identical to the original version. It looks good, plays as well as it ever did and is even more liberal with extra lives. That’s exactly the issue though: there’s nothing new here. An HD port would’ve accomplished the same things, and it likely could have been sold for cheaper. It’s not that these games are bad or anything. They’re good enough to make a return after all. It’s just that these pseudo-remakes offer nothing new beyond admittedly good visuals and/or art direction.
This isn’t to say that all remakes are unnecessary. True remakes likeFinal Fantasy VII Remakeactually do add something to what came before. They offer something besides nostalgia, something that makes them distinct from the original and makes them worthwhile for fans both new and old. Old fans get a fun mix of new and familiar, while new fans get an entirely new experience plus an incentive to back and finally give the original a try. In other words, true remakes add value to their IP while the best a remaster/visual-only remake can do is simply maintain it.
Preserving old classics is a good thing, and game companies should do their best to ensure that their past labors survive into the future. That said, why not simply preserve the originals and redirect manpower from visual remake projects into true remakes paired with modern ports of originals instead? Such projects are no doubt more difficult to produce, but the trade-off is a more valuable property, a growing, more enthusiastic fanbase and likely more money from sales of both the new game and the old. Fewer remasters and more full remakes would be a win for everyone, maker and fan alike.
