Assassin’s Creed, Star Fox, Resident Evil: Why are there so many online game remakes?

You can be forgiven for pondering the listing of upcoming video video games reads like déjà vu.

Amid brand-new titles and extremely anticipated sequels like Grand Theft Auto VI, a glut of remakes of older traditional video games are on the best way, like Tomb Raider, Halo, Resident Evil: Code Veronica and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Sailing into the storm this week is Ubisoft’s pirate-themed Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, a remake of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. It might sound an odd selection for a full-on remake, as the unique nonetheless seems moderately spectacular and you’ll play it for reasonable on most fashionable platforms.

But Ubisoft says its Singapore studio rebuilt the collection fan favorite from the bottom up, bringing it as much as the requirements of its more moderen titles like final yr’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

And in a unstable market the place completely new video games sink as typically as they swim, extremely polished remakes of classics have been a few of the surest bets for builders lately. Still, it is sparked debate about whether or not gaming is caught up to now, relatively than charting new digital paths.

Why remake a online game?

Old video video games can age in ways in which different media like music, TV or movie do not. Early 3D video games from the late Nineties to early 2000s are notably clunky affairs and infrequently managed poorly, as designers struggled to determine easy methods to greatest lead gamers round a three-dimensional house.

As expertise superior and design sensibilities turned codified, a remake of an ungainly recreation from 20 years in the past can refine mechanics and controls to make it simpler for newer gamers to get pleasure from.

That’s to say nothing of the advances in graphical constancy. While 2D pixels and blocky, early 3D visuals nonetheless have their attraction, a contemporary therapy could make them look remarkably real looking and detailed.

Remakes additionally let newer gamers expertise what is perhaps a cult traditional, with out having to trace down an previous copy of the unique launch and retro gaming {hardware}.

It also can assist bulk up an organization’s launch schedule, filling within the gaps when a very new big-budget launch can take upwards of 5 years to finish.

“You might be expanding on this game, you might be making different gameplay decisions, but on some fundamental level, the game is there,” reporter Patrick Klepek instructed gaming outlet Remap.

And generally, a remake can be an opportunity to do excess of merely retelling an previous story.

Final Fantasy VII, the traditional 1997 role-playing recreation, has been expanded right into a full trilogy of remakes that actively rewrites the unique’s plot in a dizzying multiverse, metafictional retelling.

The first chapter, launched in 2020, offered 8.7 million copies as of 2025, although writer Square-Enix did not launch gross sales numbers for the second, saying it fell beneath expectations. The third, Final Fantasy VII Revelation, is due out early subsequent yr.

Safe bets fuelled by nostalgia

Camille Salazar Hadaway, a Toronto-based gaming and esports host, says mining millennial-aged avid gamers’ nostalgia with remakes is among the safer bets within the more and more risk-averse video games business.

“There’s been so many new IPs that have been kind of boasted as going to be the next The Last of Us, or the next big thing. And it just doesn’t hit,” she stated, referring to the PlayStation hit that was later tailored into an award-winning TV collection.

She cited for instance Concord, a live-service multiplayer recreation by Sony that was shut down inside three weeks after launch in 2024 due to a cool response from gamers.

It generally is a sensible enterprise determination in different methods, too. The newest Star Fox recreation for the Nintendo Switch 2 is a principally trustworthy recreation of 1996’s Star Fox 64, all the way down to the characters, plot and stage layouts. 

Salazar-Hadaway says it builds on the reintroduction of collection protagonist Fox McCloud in a cameo within the current Super Mario Galaxy Movie. It topped the gross sales charts in Japan, in response to Famistu, making it the fastest-selling recreation within the collection.

Salazar Hadaway says the upcoming Zelda remake may very well be much more profitable, contemplating its status as among the finest journey video games of all time.

“Ocarina of Time was the game that made me fall in love with storytelling in video games. So it’s a very important game that’s near and dear to my heart. And I want to experience that again.”

Reanimating a horror traditional

Patrick Boivin, a Vancouver-based online game streamer, is extra conflicted in regards to the development.

“The video game remake culture, to me anyway, feels overwhelmingly like a failure of nerve and being afraid of non-sure bets,” he stated.

And but, Boivin nonetheless holds the remakes of the Resident Evil video games in excessive regard.

Developer Capcom’s second take at Resident Evil 2, launched in 2019, tells roughly the identical story because the 1998 authentic: Rookie cop Leon and civilian Claire attempt to escape a zombie outbreak in Raccoon City.

The remake “changes nearly every fundamental gameplay decision,” he stated. For instance, within the authentic, gamers navigated the world that was framed by mounted digicam angles. In the remake, a cellular digicam follows Claire or Leon from behind in a third-person perspective that is since turn out to be widespread in video games.

“They’re absolutely stellar games and … the strength of that is that both versions retain their value.”

That remake was a roaring success for Capcom, changing into its third-best-selling game of all time with greater than 18 million items offered, and it paved the best way for subsequent remakes of in an identical model.

It’s too early to say if taking the remake route will repay as effectively for Ubisoft, however early opinions for Black Flag Resynced have up to now been principally optimistic. But some famous the awkward results of altering a beloved traditional to satisfy the ever-changing requirements of gaming.

Something new, or one thing previous?

Boivin, an aficionado of horror in video games and movie alike, admits he is doubtless extra excited by a very new Resident Evil than a remake, even when he is a fan of each. But the just lately introduced Resident Evil Veronica — a remake of 2000’s Code Veronica — has his curiosity piqued, because it’s thought-about a much less profitable entry within the collection.

“It’s fundamentally flawed…. The story is a mess. The acting was bad even by Resident Evil standards,” he stated.

“I think the idea of remaking a game better now that wasn’t very good in the first place way more interesting than taking the all-time classic greats of the past and remaking them into really great games now.”