Through my work I aim to explore what video game remasters / remakes are and how they affect the industry.
Almost everyone will understand what these are, yet not much study has been done in regards to their overall impact. Since the early days of gaming, remasters have always been around in one form or another. Going by many different labels such as collections, ports, re-release etc. However, it wasn’t until one company decided to re-release their older games for a newer generation in a collective bundle with added features, such as: higher resolution, better textures, more bug fixes and so on, did remakes and remasters really start to gain traction.
Ever since then, these types of releases have steadily become mainstream, with many titles being remastered for a newer generation. Yet, this is not always a good thing. Whilst the majority of said re-releases are great, there are many that are not.
These are the ones that a studio has quickly re-released with no extra effort to justify being a remaster yet will market it as such. In some rare cases these releases can often end up being worse than the original.
So, through my work I aim to show that, remakes & remasters are both beneficial to the industry and how some can be a hindrance. Through my projects, I show that with a little bit of effort, that if a lone developer can re-create a game similar to how it would be re-made officially, and to a good standard. Then what excuse do studios have for such poor re-releases.
This is one of the most iconic scenes from Silent Hill 1, I remade everything using the original assets, so scale, size, style etc are all exactly how they should be.
This scene shows off the eerie atmosphere that Silent Hill is well known for. Everything again was re-modelled / textured and really shows off the VFX that the game pioneered.
These are all the unique individual assets from the various scenes of the project. Here you can see objects ranging from generic street lights, to a corpse on a gurney and even some of the Café furniture too.
The buildings here show the effort put into the texture re-working of the buildings and in some cases an entirely new 3d model was made to highlight the higher definition.
The starting line for the racing game remaster I created. More effort was placed into creating better gameplay over visuals, which is why the level’s buildings are still mostly white.
This vehicle is the main attraction of the game, it is included as the centre piece for any cover art. For this reason, I set out to re-create it with as much detail as possible, to really make it stand out.
This image shows more of the track for the project, in this one you can see better texturing and a more advanced environment. Other than the whitebox buildings, this scene is almost complete.
In contrast to the other in-game images of the project, this one showcases a more unique environment: the subway. Here texturing is still required, but the lighting gives it a nice feel.
This image shows off a near complete project. Here you can see, the majority of the game looks as it should, even with added VFX such as clouds, wind lines, waves etc.
Here you can see how big a different the graphical gap is between the GameCube and the Nintendo 64. Whilst the newer model still retains it’s quality and features you can see just how much more detail was made possible.
