Opinion: The Most Pointless Remasters and Remakes

Sony announced Days Gone Remastered — an updated version of the 2019 game. Judging by the trailer, the differences from the original are minimal: PS5 owners can expect graphics on par with the current Days Gone running on PC at max settings. Many users online immediately mocked this kind of "rejuvenation" of a game that didn’t even need it. In light of this odd announcement, let's take a look back and recall other cases where game studios wasted effort and time on completely unnecessary remasters or remakes.

Disclaimer: The author's opinion may not align with that of the VGTimes editorial team.

The situation with Days Gone Remastered isn’t a first for Sony. In October of last year, a remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn was released. Players had already doubted its necessity years before its release, back when the first rumors of the project surfaced. This skepticism wasn’t baseless. The original Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most visually stunning PlayStation games, consistently ranking among the most graphically impressive titles even years later — especially its PC version. What exactly needed improvement?

To be fair, when the remaster finally launched, the differences were indeed noticeable. Draw distance was improved, character models became more detailed, lighting looked more realistic, and textures were higher quality. However, the feeling that this was a pointless waste of Guerrilla Games' resources never went away. Yes, HZD looked better, but did it truly need this upgrade? Aren’t there other PlayStation games far more deserving of an update? A rhetorical question.

Another controversial Sony project, though this time a remake. In 2022, a revamped version of the first The Last of Us was released. Naughty Dog rebuilt the game using the engine from the sequel, making the visuals more modern and technically advanced. The team improved textures, animations, and character models. All of this is great, of course, but the gameplay remained almost entirely untouched, which led to backlash from players. If you’re going to call this a remake, why not put in more effort? Additionally, not everyone appreciated the new graphics. Many TLOU fans felt that the old remaster of the first game, released back in 2014 for PS4, already looked good enough.

Perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of The Last of Us Part 1 were PC players, who finally got to play this legendary game. However, even that moment was spoiled: the PC version was plagued by optimization issues at launch.

Yet another misstep from Sony. The decision to re-release the 2015 interactive horror-drama for PS5 and PC isn’t a bad idea in itself. However, this is exactly the kind of case where a simple remaster would have sufficed instead of a full remake. Especially considering that the remake is, in some ways, actually worse than the original version.

Some of the changes in Until Dawn 2024 are questionable. For instance, in certain scenes, the developers replaced fixed camera angles with an over-the-shoulder perspective, which negatively impacts the cinematic feel. The game feels less like an interactive movie and more like, well, just a game. Additionally, the remake features less responsive controls, a less memorable soundtrack, and some shots now look noticeably worse due to new lighting effects.

If we’re talking about pointless remakes, we can't ignore one of Nintendo’s strangest business decisions. The company tasked AlphaDream with creating an updated version of their popular RPG Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story for the Nintendo 3DS. That is, a game that was already available on the Nintendo 3DS.

But the most baffling part? The remake, titled Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey, was released in 2019. Who in 2019 was still interested in new Nintendo 3DS games? Unsurprisingly, the game flopped, and AlphaDream shut down.

It’s not that a Dark Souls remaster wasn’t needed. Quite the opposite — FromSoftware’s masterpiece had plenty of room for improvement, both in terms of graphics and gameplay mechanics. And that's precisely why the official remaster we got was so disappointing.

Dark Souls Remastered was a rather lazy update of the classic. QLOC slightly improved the lighting and textures but didn’t touch other aspects of the game’s visuals and only made minor gameplay changes. For example, they added the ability to remap controls. In the end, the only truly significant upgrade was 60 FPS support.

The remaster isn’t bad, per se, but when a studio revisits one of the most important games of our time, expectations are naturally higher. Especially when compared to the Demon’s Souls remake.

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The frustration that players feel toward unnecessary remakes and remasters is easy to understand. Every such project diverts resources that could have been used to develop new games. Maybe Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet would have been released sooner if Naughty Dog hadn’t been busy with The Last of Us Part 1? Additionally, gamers dislike the fact that publishers are trying to sell them the same not-so-old games multiple times. The industry's pursuit of easy profit has become all too obvious.

What do you think about remakes and remasters? Which ones seemed completely unnecessary to you? Share your thoughts in the comments.