The Difference Between Remasters, Remakes, Reboots and Ports in Games

A video game, of all mediums, tends to be the one that ages very quickly. The gaming industry is evolving at an incredibly fast pace. New technology, gaming hardware, brand-new gaming engines, can be introduced nearly every year, making you feel as if it’s been nearly a decade since a recent game was released. 

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This is where remakes, remastered versions, reboots and ports come to help, giving players an option to play the game that used to be not easily accessible, not being ported to modern consoles of their choice, or even not officially distributed.

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The financial side is also very important: games are getting much harder to make with each year, and remakes, remasters, reboots and ports provide publishers and developers with an option to invest time, money and effort into something that already proved to be a big success.

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Let’s take a closer look at each option mentioned above and see what  differences are there between remakes, remasters and other options!

Remastering videogames: Keeping things up to date

The meaning of remaster in games is that the goal of the developers was to make the gaming experience fresh but to keep everything mostly as it was. The technical stuff, the performance, textures and models may be changed, but the carcass of the game — its code, gameplay mechanics, plot structure, level design — tend not to be changed. 

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Developers prefer to remaster videogames to enhance the quality and match it with a modern consoles’ standard: improve the graphical fidelity, sound quality, add a few more Quality-of-Life additions that will make the game friendlier to newer audiences. 

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Just like in other arts, sometimes a certain restoration of the original oil painting or a film print, which may be ruined by the passage of time, is required to keep things up to date for the sake of media preservation. Sometimes, developers go back and remaster a game that is loved by many players, getting a rare opportunity to improve the presentation of the game and make it feel as good as fans remember it being. 

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Here are some recent remasters you may be familiar with, along with the changes:

• Dead Rising Deluxe Remastered (2024, originally released in 2006) made it much more lenient in terms of the main game mechanics of saving hostages right on time, improved their infamous AI, which got a lot of backlash back in the day, and made a game easier to track and play altogether.

• Metroid Prime (2023, originally released in 2002) has basically kept it all the same, but drastically improved the visuals of the game: exactly the type of treatment the game that made it into the top-10 Metacritic list of best of all time needs. 

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What is a Remake: From the Scratch

While remaking the game, developers choose a way similar to remastering, though it requires much more hard work: you basically have to rebuild the game from the start. The goal in this case is to provide a fresh experience, introduce new direction, things, mechanics, aspects which were not quite there when it was released, that can make a great game truly shine. 

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Developers usually choose to remake a game that is loved by the gaming community but is way too outdated and could really be improved upon on modern consoles. 

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Usually, this is what’s required for a remake: 

• Using a new engine and implementing improve graphics
• Attributing new core mechanics 
• Finding the art direction that feels unique, yet familiar
• Keeping things recognizable 

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Sometimes the plot can be changed, new characters appear, even additional levels and maps are introduced, allowing the developers to add things that were previously left on the cutting room floor due to budget or technological limitations, or even tie things plot-wise with the newer titles in the series. 

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In some cases, the new rendition is so good it becomes the definitive way to play a certain game: removing outdated elements, bringing new and exciting stuff, perfecting what’s already been nearly perfect. Remakes feel like re-imagining, while the remasters feel more like a power-up.

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Remakes are immensely popular nowadays: a lot of games which were adored back in the day can finally be brought to new gaming consoles and new players. 

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Here are some recent remakes you must have heard of:

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 • Resident Evil 2 and 4 (2019 and 2024), made by Capcom, who at this point remade basically every game from the main series and did great work altogether, finding the perfect balance between keeping what was good and totally refreshing it. 

• ‍Final Fantasy VII, a cult game released more than 25 years ago, which was so cherished by fans that Sony actually used a remake as a console exclusive to promote the release of their new console. A lot of younger players, not familiar with the original, may be very surprised if they look up the original game’s screenshots!
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• System Shock, an interesting example of a game that has been released so long ago that newer hardware could not simply boot it up without the additional tinkering! An enhanced remaster released in 2015 showed that the unique and innovative cyberpunk shooter from the MS-DOS era is still in high demand, leading to a total remake of the game released in 2023.

Reboot: Redefining The Roots

Reboots let developers do things radically different, along with shaking up well-known franchises. In addition, they allow popularization of IP for modern audiences. Reboots tend to keep the naming, the familiar characters, the world-building, but the story, gameplay mechanics, art-style, even genre and a main protagonist at times tend to be brand-new. 

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The difference between a reboot and a remake is: 

• Remake serves as a different interpretation of what is already there

• Reboots don’t have to follow the familiar path at all, developers are free to come up with brand-new stuff

Usually, such creative freedom leads to the new addition to the game series that is loved even more than the previous installments. Both reboots and remakes allow developers to revisit an existing IP and look at it from a different perspective.

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Here are some recent reboots that were pretty successful:

• Yakuza: Like a Dragon (2019) introduced a completely new main character, absolutely different from the one that was an important ingredient, a heart and a soul of a story-driven series, the first game of which came in 2005, and got rid of beat-em-up elements, moving the game to the JRPG territory genre-wise, a polar opposite of what used to be. Talk about taking risks and shaking things up! 

• DOOM (2016) decided to push the franchise from dimly lit horrors of 2004’s DOOM 3 into the arena shooter direction, in a certain way going back to the roots. After all, this is what players loved about the original game: shooting demons, traversing Hell, caring about ammo and secrets.

• God of War (2018) transformed the franchise from a Greek mythology-based slasher into a grounded cinematic action-RPG set in Norse mythology. The fans of the original game, released in 2005, grew up and changed, and so did the main protagonist of the franchise, Kratos. 

Ports: Bringing Goodness to Others

Ports have a simple and specific purpose: to bring a game to another console or PC. Back in the day, gaming consoles used to have exclusive titles, to interest players in acquiring the console solely to play the game that caught their attention. Nowadays, developers care about providing the game for all consoles simultaneously on a release date, focusing on the wide distribution of a game that took a lot of time and effort to make. 

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Ports basically let players have the game that was previously released exclusively for a different platform. In some cases, developers just have to change the button layout, and in other cases a hard effort is required: for instance, to make sure the engine, which was tailor-made for a particularly complicated architecture of one console, works well while ported to another. 

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Another important aspect of ports is about preservation: often, a great game remains to be an exclusive title for a console that has stopped being manufactured and distributed, becoming a rare collector’s item, something common players cannot obtain. Porting the game to modern consoles resolves this.

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Here are some reasons for porting:

• New opportunities for established titles. Some ported versions that could not be even imagined ten years ago have been recently made available on modern consoles, such as Uncharted 4, Heavy Rain, Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3, Halo 3. 
• Cult titles are getting new life. Back in 2012, Rockstar Games even ported cult classics Grand Theft Auto III and Max Payne to mobile devices!
• Fan’s favorites get an additional release. Perhaps one of the most anticipated ports of all time, Bloodborne, is sadly available only for Playstation 4 at this moment.

Remasters, remakes and reboots: What Is The Difference? 

When it comes to the differences between a remake and a remastered game, it’s pretty simple: 

• Remastered version drastically enhances the original game
• Remake tends to re-imagine it and make substantial changes to it. They both aim to improve the original, but they differ in terms of execution and effort
• Reboot can be a fantastic opportunity for developers to modernize and bring new life to a beloved series that can attract new audiences, and a port is a nice option to release the game again, on a new hardware, to new players

Remastered vs. The OG: What To Choose?

Depending on what you’re looking for, you may be interested in…

• Remastered version, if you’re seeking an experience which is in many ways similar to the original one, yet modernized and polished for your convenience,  
• Original version, if you’re looking for the total “purist” experience of getting the game as it was originally shipped. 

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There are some cases in which a remastered videogame, made by different people, may provide you with a comfortable experience but can lack, say, the unique original art direction, or may be cut due to different circumstances which may cause some controversy among die-hard fans. 

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Choose Wisely, Have Fun

As you can see, understanding the difference between remakes, remasters, reboots and ports is pretty simple. They really are unique and provide different types of experience.

Here are some key takeaways:

• Remakes, remasters, ports and reboots have different ways to improve the original videogame to make it either better or more accessible for new players or those who feel nostalgic about the game they love. 
• Remasters and remakes of cult games come out every year and have a big financial success: players are willing to purchase what they know. 
• Reboots tend to be rarer, but ports are also very popular: passionate fans who missed out on a game like to vote with the wallet, showing the excitement for the franchise that can motivate developers to plan a multi-platform release in the future rather than releasing games exclusively.

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All these options have unique aspects that may be suitable exactly for the type of experience you are looking for. Players should choose depending on their preferences and enjoy the game – after all, this is what gaming is all about.

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