Remakes vs Rehash

Is gaming so desperate for the new?

The most recent games showcases offered up a look at what the next season, and the near future, holds for gamers. With a slew of high-production trailers and gameplay, there certainly seems to be a lot coming, but when we look closely, what are we really getting?

The last few years have seen some big-budget remakes filling collections, from the decades-overdue Final Fantasy VII remake to the more recent Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space remakes, to name a few. Some have been little more than graphical and control updates - allowing the original story the current gen face-lift to really sell the creators' vision – others have been, more appropriately, categorised as re-imaginings.

Taking Final Fantasy VII as arguably the first good example, the newest version is a massive undertaking, both as a graphical jump, but also in terms of major changes to the established, and much-loved, original. The first of three planned releases, Final Fantasy VII Remake expanded on the locations and characters' interactions of the original by weaving in more sub-plots, mixing the story around, and even changing parts of the fundamental story. What this left was a highly-polished, lovingly re-created game, with lots of extras that felt extra. Paradoxically, the game would have stood alone proudly if it were a new IP, but it needs the player to have a history with the original to be fully appreciated. Unfortunately, it's that same player history that makes it so easy to fall out with what is an otherwise wonderful game.

Resident Evil 4 Remake is another example of how changing too much of what the player base loves can quickly alienate them, even if in a vacuum the game shines. The original RE4 was a revolution in the series, offering an over-the-shoulder third-person camera with a less zombie/Umbrella-centric story. It was an over-the-top action film that wore its camp influences on its sleeve. Fans love it because it takes itself so seriously despite its garish action and dialogue. The remake brought it more in line with the newer games in the series, bringing the tone down to a more serious one. The action was more realistic, and dialogue and character designs were changed to do away with the camp. It was no longer the RE4 experience as much as it was an RE7 skin stretched over the RE4 skeleton.

All of this is to say that, whilst some remakes/re-masters/re-imaginings can hold their own, the fundamental element, the soul of the beloved original, is lost. The nostalgia is wearing a little thin, so the cry for new IPs grows louder, and this brings us back to the recent showcases. New series' were thrown out with wild abandon, offering something exciting to a baying audience. But when you look closer, they're really not all that new.

Dark Souls began a trend of Souls-likes, with so many developers trying their hand at the try-death-repeat formula, quickly over-saturating the genre. Now that that pond has become overcrowded, they're going back to other loved games and stretching a new skin over them. Titles like Immortals of Aveum don't show the influence of Bioshock, but hastily try to cover it up by switching genre. Clockwork Revolution and Lies of P do similar, perhaps hoping that the success of their gaming ancestors will lure people in with a similar-to-but-legally-distinct-from game. And while Starfield is Bethesda, it's hard not to spot 'Elder Scrolls in Space'.

Now, it's not that developers shouldn't take influence from those that came before – creators have been standing on the shoulders of those that came before them for as long as stories have been told – but there's a significant difference between taking influence, and applying a shiny new veneer and hoping no one notices the refurbished title beneath.

Is this the future gamers have to look forward to now? Soulless remakes paving over the nostalgia, or poor substitutes of the games that built them, with a shiny new skybox? Have we become so hungry for new IP that we're willing to accept the Wish-versions?