Right now, we are in the age of the remake.
From Dead Space to Demon's Souls, and from The Last of Us to Like a Dragon,
it seems like every publisher is now ransacking its back catalogue
to look for games it can reheat and sell to us all over again.
But there's one studio that's doing things differently - and that's Capcom.
Specifically its Resident Evil team.
Over the last two decades, Capcom has remade Resident Evil 1, 2,
3, and 4 - and these games feel like way more than just recycled retro favourites.
So - what are they doing differently? And how do they pull it off?
Well - I'm Mark Brown, and this is Game Maker's Toolkit.
Do you remember when Gus Van Sant remade the movie, Psycho?
This was no ordinary remake: instead, it was a near-perfect, shot-for-shot recreation of the
original film, with the same script, camera moves, and musical score - but a few modern updates,
like shooting in colour, and adding more gore and nudity to that infamous shower scene.
If you don't remember it, I'm not surprised - I think everyone involved would rather you forgot.
The remake bombed at the box office, it was savaged by critics, Roger Ebert
called it "pointless", and Hollywood has never tried such a thing again.
*Pumbaa Farts*
For the most part.
But in the world of video games...
well this is actually how a lot of remakes work.
Despite using all new engines and assets,
the goal is to be as faithful as possible to the original game.
To make a beat-by-beat recreation of what came before.
But with a few conservative tweaks to the gameplay or content.
Now this can certainly lead to good games.
And I've used these remakes to catch up on titles I missed upon release.
But I think there are two big problems with this approach.
For one, it can lead to games with absolutely cutting edge
graphics - but gameplay that feels dated and surpassed by later titles.
And two - if you've already played the original,
then this perfect recreation offers little incentive to pick up the remake.
So that's why Capcom doesn't follow this trend - while its remakes are heavily
influenced by the original games, it liberally changes both the gameplay and the content.
For gameplay, take Resident Evil 2.
The PlayStation 1 original has these fixed,
CCTV-style camera angles, and Leon moved around like a tank.
For the remake, Capcom did experiment with keeping this viewpoint...
but ultimately went for something more modern: turning it into an over-the-shoulder shooter.
And for content, look at Resident Evil 4.
This remake mostly follows the beats of the original game,
but regularly makes changes - content is moved around, played out of order,
expanded, shrunk, cut entirely, and replaced by brand new stuff.
So even if you've played the original, this remake is full of surprising twists.
Take the iconic village siege from the opening of the game - seems familiar enough,
but then I went up this tower and, oh, that's not how I remember it.
And then I rounded this corner and, oh no, what's happening now?
Capcom says "if we remade the game so players do the exact same thing as the
original, that's not really going to be fun or interesting".
Of course, it's not enough to just say "throw out the source material and do something new".
Remakes are playing to our nostalgia for the original,
and any changes can feel like blasphemous meddling with perfection.
There are no shortage of remakes that have angered fans by changing things too much.
Whether that's Ratchet's characterisation,
Peter Parker's face, or Venture Beat describing Shadow of the Colossus's new graphics as "too good".
So, Capcom says its remakes "show love for the original work through their content,
which includes both where the remake makes changes and where it remains the same as the original".
They know when to stay faithful, and know how to stray from the source.
One way to do this is to focus on capturing the sensation of
playing the original game - even if you're not copying the exact details.
For Resident Evil 2, Capcom says a guiding principle was that "whenever
people play this, they should get the same feeling we got back in the day,
even though the outer layers are different".
So while it loses the forced camera perspective,
the developers still wanted the game to be tense and claustrophobic - and so made
it difficult to aim exactly where you want, and kept the camera tight behind Leon's back.
A smart approach is to identify some pillars of the original - things
define the DNA of what made it so beloved in the first place.
For Resident Evil 4, that included stuff like its lighting-fast pace, its b-movie dialogue,
the way you can tackle encounters in different ways, and how fun the game was to replay.
The designers behind the Dead Space remake had a similar idea - with "sci-fi horror,
unbroken immersion, and creative gameplay" as the pillars.
"Any novelty, enhancement, enrichment,
or whatever had to fit inside one of those pillars" - the developer says.
Importantly, these pillars should be feelings, not features.
Aesthetics, not mechanics, to bring us back to the previous episode.
This allows developers to change how the game works, without messing with how the game feels.
For example - Leon can use his knife for some brand new moves
like a parry, and a stealth takedown.
This could change the feel of the game, making Leon overpowered.
But by making it so the knife can break and need to be patched up by the merchant, Leon
stays one step behind, and the remake stays true to the survival horror feeling of the original.
So - this approach can be used to address the three
main things that all remakes should consider.
Number one is modernisation.
Remakes are entering the industry today,
and so people expect modern conventions and conveniences like fast travel and quick save.
And they don't want to see mechanics that are...
I don't want to say dated, so let's say unfashionable.
That's why Capcom pulled the button-bashing quicktime events
from RE4 - "QTEs are not popular in today's games," the devs said.
But, any change to the mechanics is going to have a knock-on impact to
the rest of the game - and risk ruining the feel.
Take the new Goldeneye remaster - it makes sense to update for modern first-person shooter
controls, but that makes the game, which was designed for much clunkier inputs...
well it makes it a bit of a cakewalk.
Resident Evil 4 could have fallen into the same trap.
In the original game, Leon couldn't aim and move
at the same time - he became a turret every time he pulled out his pistol.
But not adding strafe was an intentional choice on Capcom's part - in 2004,
it said "we didn't want to go into the shooting / army type genre".
The remake, predictably, lets Leon strafe - and
he generally moves around like a typical shooter protagonist.
But to counterbalance this change, the enemies are now more aggressive and more numerous.
So despite Leon's newly nimble movement, the game still feels as pulse-pounding as ever.
Number two is addressing criticism of the original.
If there's one thing that puts me off from replaying Resident Evil 4, it's Ashley.
This lengthy escort quest can become an annoying bit
of babysitting that threatens to spoil the fun.
Of course, it would be tempting to dramatically change how she works in this remake - perhaps make
her invincible and helpful, like the partner characters in games released since 2005.
But that would change the dynamic of the original game - so, instead, Capcom made
more considered changes, with careful tweaks to her AI, her health bar, and her characterisation.
No game is perfect, and there will always be elements that don't gel with fans...
or indeed the developers.
Talking about The Wind Waker, Zelda boss Eiji Aonuma says "right after the game was completed,
there would be discussions about how we wish we could have done something [different]" -
and so the Wii U version makes some welcome changes,
like speeding up a contentious late-game fetch quest.
And number three is making the game more approachable and accessible.
A remake is trying to win over people who never played the original - and that
includes those who bounced off the first game, or were never able to start it.
The first Resident Evil Remake was intentionally designed to ease in
new players, with Capcom accepting that the first game really threw you into the deep end.
And Resident Evil 2 through 4 all come with an assisted
difficulty setting with features like health regeneration and aim snapping.
Old games can be notoriously difficult to get into, and rarely accommodated
players with disabilities - so it's good to see remakes that
make things more approachable, and add accessibility options.
The Last of Us Part 1 is a notable standout,
with perhaps the most extensive suite of options seen in a game thus far.
But it's usually important to make these changes optional.
In the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes, the devs added a team-wide EXP Share,
which means that when you win a battle, all of your Pokemon get experience points.
This wrecked the balance and made the game super easy, barely an inconvenience.
It could have been a good option for those who want an easier time, but it's actually just part
of the game and can't be disabled, which annoys those who want more of a challenge.
I kinda feel the same way about this button in Resident Evil 4's remake
which automatically tidies up your attache case.
And I know I could just "not press the button",
but it's right there! Of course I'm going to press the button! I am weak.
So, Capcom doesn't try to perfectly recreate the original game, when it does a remake.
It freely changes characters, plot points, mechanics, puzzles, and content.
This makes each remake feel as fresh as a brand new release,
and enjoyable even to those who have finished the original a million times.
But it uses the sensation of playing the first game as a lodestar,
to carefully guide new changes - keeping Resident Evil 2 scary,
and making sure Resident Evil 4 still feels like an action-packed rollercoaster.
And I think this also helps explain Capcom's least-loved remake: Resident Evil 3.
By nerfing Nemesis - by turning Jill's invincible stalker into a simplistic set piece,
RE3 doesn't accurately capture the sensation of the PS1 original - and so kinda fails as a remake.
But when done right, says Capcom, "a remake of a game can deliver a new
experience to players while also touching upon the memories we have of the original,
which is an appeal that is different from the appeal of a completely new game."
But there's one problem when it comes to making such massive changes in a remake.
You see, the reason why Psycho was dubbed pointless is because the 1960
original is readily available, and eminently watchable today.
In general, it's reasonably easy to remaster a movie - which means to go back to the master
recording, and make a new print with an improved picture, for a modern format like Blu-Ray.
This means that, in Hollywood, remakes are free to liberally adapt the source material - completely
changing the film to work in a different time, or a different culture, or with a different audience.
Change what you want: the original is always available.
But games are different.
Old games get stuck on disintegrating hardware, digital games get delisted,
online games see their servers go down, and entire storefronts go offline.
And it's really tough to do a straight "remaster" of a game - and there are
no shortage of crummy ones to point to.
Truly great remasters, like Metroid Prime on Switch, are a rare treat.
So, for some players - well, they're counting on a remake
as the only way to revisit their old favourites.
And they want it to be exactly the way they remember it.
They're looking for that ultra faithful recreation with a few modern updates.
They want Gus Van Sant's Psycho.
But I don't think this means we need more shot-for-shot remakes:
it just means we need better game preservation - and to
praise publishers who provide access to the original titles.
Because no matter what you think of the new Resident Evil 4 Remake,
it ultimately lives alongside an excellent, and very moddable, HD remaster of the original game.
The RE4 Remake doesn't try to overwrite or replace the 2005 original,
and I'm sure I'll be replaying both in the future.
Sadly, the older Resident Evil games are not so easy to play today.
And I hope Capcom rights that wrong in the same way it does its many, many Mega Man compilations.
But other developers are showing how to do it.
Nightdive Studios is currently working on a wild new remake of
System Shock - but after acquiring the IP it also released the original game,
an enhanced edition, and even dropped the source code online.
And remember when Zero Mission let you just boot up Metroid 1,
right there, in the game? That was neat.
Just don't be like Rockstar, who removed the Grand
Theft Auto games from Steam to make way for its disastrous remasters.
Or Blizzard, who removed Warcraft 3 to make way for its, again, disastrous remake.
So, what do you reckon? Is Capcom king of the remakes? Or do you
prefer more faithful recreations? Let me know in the comments down below.