DF Weekly: Do we actually need The Last of Us Part 2 and Horizon Zero Dawn remasters?
DF Weekly: Do we actually need The Last of Us Part 2 and Horizon Zero Dawn remasters?
DF Direct Weekly typically focuses on the week's gaming and technology news, but the latest episode actually kicks off …
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What was wrong with “that Daniel Craig abomination”? That game was awesome and an incredibly good recreation of the original.
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No, it was a James Bond movie and a James Bond game. Craig was the current Bond. You’re confusing business decisions with whether or not the game was good. It was. It wasn’t an abomination.
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Brosnan was an actor. He was paid to play a character. James Bond is a character. He has been played by many different actors. It’s not like they just took the old GoldenEye and slapped Craig’s face on it. You’re being ridiculous. It was a great game.
1 generation that was a dogshit excuse for a CPU when it was released a decade ago.
The PS5 SoC is genuinely a solid piece of tech. The performance is reasonable and the hardware features (primarily the hardware compression/decompression to accelerate data loading) actually matter.
The time between games doesn't matter when the hardware is night and day.
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Age is completely irrelevant. The purpose of a remaster is and always has been to take advantage of newer hardware. The difference in hardware, in and of itself, justifies a remaster. There is a huge difference mechanically in the gameplay between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West. I haven't played the PS5 version of the Last of Us, but I'm assuming it's the same.
The games were held back significantly by the hardware, and because they're done with modern tooling, they can be done a lot more easily than older games, allowing them to pass the savings on by giving you a cheap upgrade if you own it. They're nothing projects, and aren't holding back other projects.
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Like Alex said, it starts to make sense if they bring it to PC, but they should call it a director's cut, not a remaster.
It’s not a director’s cut, though. Words have meanings. A remaster reuses assets but may contain reexported versions of assets at higher quality than the original. A director’s cut is using the same assets, at the same settings, but with editorial changes or unused pieces reinserted. They’re not the same thing.
A director’s cut is using the same assets, at the same settings [...]
I don't think that's how Sony has been using the term lately.
That’s irrelevant. Words have meanings. Just because they’re using the wrong words doesn’t excuse that it’s wrong.
If they are porting a game and while they do so they:
- Add features
- Clean up some assets and/or target resolution, frame rate, etc. as appropriate for the new platform.
#1 Would qualify it as a DC, but according to OP, #2 would disqualify it.
It would not. The term “director’s cut” means editorial changes only.
Each of these terms has a specific usage in development:
Director’s Cut - No new assets are created. Existing assets that were created originally and cut may be added back but no code changes are made and changes are editorial only.
Remaster - No new assets are created. Existing assets may re-exported at higher qualities or fidelities to make use of newer systems and technologies but code changes are rare and only made when necessary to make the game work on newer systems or take advantage of features that can be used with existing assets.
Remake - Assets are recreated from the ground up and code is rewritten from scratch. Existing assets and code may be used as starting points or as references but are not included in the final product or are materially changed so as to be considered different versions.
I’m not sure who you mean by OP #2 so I’ll ignore the subjectivity of those posts and just leave it at that. In your example, #1 would not qualify as a DC and #2 would be considered a remaster, not a DC. Sony’s usage is consistent with the developer language used in other companies. E.g., Last of Us Part I is a remake - levels were changed and new assets were created, FFVII is a Remake - new levels and assets were created, LoU2 is a remaster - new assets aren’t created but were exported at higher fidelity while taking advantage of new capabilities of newer platforms.
Sorry "OP #2" was unclear, I've inserted a comma to separate the terms.
The comment I quoted from originally claims:
A director’s cut is using the same assets, at the same settings, but with editorial changes or unused pieces reinserted.
Sony's PS5 ports of Death Stranding and Ghosts of Tsushima had both additional content and improved framerate/resolution/etc to target the new platform.
To my mind Sony's branding of ports these as DC was cynical marketing move, and effort to sell the upgrade to people why had already played the original when it was released.
Despite my scepticism I think the Director's Cut label can be applied accurately as they had added some extra content too.
It seems like the part that you’re missing, though, is that the content that was “added” in the DC’s for those games was already created and was cut upon release. They didn’t release the game and then create new content for those games after release for the DC, they just released the content that wasn’t finished. In the case of GoT, for example, the extra island was DLC that was cut initially in favor of the multiplayer mode. When they got the opportunity to release the DC, they simply added back that content.
In those cases, Director’s Cut is correct for what it is because none of the existing game was modified and the new content that was added was already created content that was cut from the original game (or, in some cases, originally meant as DLC that was scrapped/cut).
Cool, I'm glad people feel the added content appropriately qualifies for the DC label, but my initial point was simply that Sony certainly didn't feel adding PS5 features to target the new platform didn't disqualify them from using the label.
As for the new games, I would be surprised if they were straight ports. I would expect them to want a new feature, storyline, or enemy type to use in marketing as they resell it to the same audience that bought it the first time. For any AAA project there are a lot of scrapped ideas along the.way so it would be easy to find something.
I guess I’m confused then. They didn’t add features. Higher frame rates and resolutions aren’t new features, they’re just free additions that developers get from updated build processes. There’s no reason why those would “disqualify” them.
As for the other stuff, I don’t think the people who have already played these games are the target, as you suggest. Remasters are typically for people that didn’t play the original or missed it on its original system. Remakes are usually for existing players who want an updated experience.
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