Not another one...
Yeah that's about it, I've crossed my threshold on the amount of remakes I can take without considering the entire concept utterly moronic. Maybe it's the absolute deluge of remakes being made without purpose, maybe it's the insult of two remakes that are currently targeting higher market prices than their original released with, and maybe it's the fact that the internet is actually celebrating this remake as "One that makes sense" but I just cannot find the time of day for these anymore. Reliving the past is becoming a plague on an industry that has started to hit a total brick wall of blanket innovation; for so many years the pursuit of visual fidelity improvement was the base driving force behind so many technological improvements, and gameplay tweaks were a decent undercurrent. Now we've reached about as far as gaming can feasibly get in turns of visual fidelity and all that innovation has almost instantly dropped off. Now we're scrambling at anything for the next step forward and have too often landed on remakes.
Because afterall, these were the brilliant games of yesteryear that stunned and wowed even despite their visual woes, or dated gameplay, or middling narratives; why shouldn't we bring them into the modern year? And to some extent I agree with that in specific circumstances, but those circumstances have really slipped from being specific of late. Horizon Zero Dawn, Dead Space, Last of Us; bar that last one I can't think of a single one of these games that would be considered 'unforgettable classics'. Maybe to their genre fans perhaps, but the average gamer probably doesn't even think about those first two. Yet here we are dedicating efforts and talents to treading the steps that past developers have instead of coming up with new ideas and new adventures. Resident Evil 2 earned it's place in history and deserved that remake, Final Fantasy VII remake is not only deserved, but it's blazing in some many interesting directions that I have no doubt it'll hardly resemble the original when it's all said and done. Why The Witcher?
The very first Witcher game was a title considered not worth the effort of a remaster back in the days when the sequel was being considered. It's narrative was said to be decent, but the graphics couldn't really support the typical HD reworking to be spruced up, and the gameplay was pretty horribly dated to the point of being sleepy and boring. I have no doubt that a remake would need to totally exorcise all of that combat, probably rewrite the story, definitely rerecord all the lines, restructure the shape of the game, remake a lot of the side content, (as the modern world isn't going to accept minigames that reward you with topless playing cards of the women you wooed.) and basically put all of the technical effort that could have gone into making a brand new game instead into remaking an old one that treads no new ground, doesn't push the story forward, and only really has a chance of making a few stragglers interested in The Witcher series. And it will just be stragglers at this point, because The Witcher 3 literally set the RPG genre on fire with 10/10 reviews and constant positive coverage, anyone who didn't pick it up then probably isn't going to today either.
Instead of all of this sunken effort into a Witcher game that already exists, we could have had a spin-off that fans were begging for since the end of 3. We could have had a Ciri-centric game! It's pretty clear that the coming trilogy is going for an all-new protagonist, probably to give the creatives as much freedom as they want, and thus even if Ciri shows up, she'll just be a brief encounter quickly brushed past. We could have had an entire narrative following Ciri's journey to become her own brand of Witcher, and whilst doing so explore the setting of The Witcher through the eyes of a girl just coming into her prime. There's an infinite number of directions they could have gone with a one-off, concepts they could have explored and foes they could have pit the increadibly powerful blood-descendant against; and the creator's wouldn't have to step-toe within the confines of an already constructed three-part narrative in order to keep things feeling 'fresh'.
I think my biggest problem with some of the remakes being fronted today, is that some of them are latching onto a strong name rather than a strong idea of what they could do with that name. Tetsuya Nomura remade Final Fantasy 7 because he knew how to remix the original and cared about that process; The Last of Us was remade because the 1st game was popular and Sony needed a cash injection. When you lack the passion behind the project, it's easy to just miss some of the key ingredients that make up the original, like the art direction. The Last of Us Part 1 loses it's colour because the art of the game is shifted to match 2's direction without any acknowledgement of why 2 sought a darker palette than 1 did. Dead Space Remake tones down the carnage to make it more maudlin and grim, whereas the utterly ridiculous gore of Dead Space 1 better fit the slasher-movie inspirations inherent in that artistic approach. These remakes are pretty, but the beauty only goes skin deep.
And then there's just the logistics of spending these resources. Some of the time the studio working on the project isn't even the one's who own the property, and in those cases I'm decently okay with the spent time and effort on the project because I know nothing I care about it being held up by this. The Witcher Remake is being made by another CDPR internal studio, a studio that could be working on anything else related to the double franchises that the company are going to be pushing going forth. The next undercooked game that CDPR puts out, you're going to be looking back to this remake and wondering if this team could have helped out in the way that they ultimately didn't because they were remaking a largely inconsequential product. I'm not the guy cutting the cheques or running the numbers, I just care that these games come out as good as they can; and dividing teams and multitasking projects after the most embarrassingly poor release your company has ever fronted is a dumb, if bold, move.
Finally I want to touch on a more ethereal concept; the creative stunting of artists. As an artist you always looking to create something, to bring to life the ideas you dream about, even in a small way, to the projects you work on. Moulding and fitting your ideas to fit in a team project is a talent in of itself, and trying to remake someone's else's work in the middle of other projects just doesn't leave the room for expression. It doesn't ask the artists and designers to think of the new and the unexplored, and it doesn't push forward the overall mentality of the studio. It's stepping in someone else's tracks, spinning wheels, going absolutely nowhere. Now sure, there might be a lot of potential in this Witcher Remake to try stuff the original developers would never have thought of; maybe after the team is done this game won't resemble the original in the slightest. But at that point, why not just make something wholly new and be done with this remake idea altogether?
Remakes don't really excite me anymore. Not even a New Vegas Remake would get me tingly anymore, largely because I think the idea has been pulled way from it's comfort zone and stretched beyond recognition. If the Last of Us Part 1 can call itself a remake without a hint of irony, then the industry has lost all touch with the concept of taste and reality. I don't care about the Witcher Remake; and unless it's a masterpiece I probably won't play it. But as the bug starts to catch and every team starts going back on the game's they put to rest, I can only start to wonder when some of these remakes will start crossing the line by doing some really messed up stuff, like throwing in microtransactions or... oh wait, Crash Team Racing literally did that! I guess we have no self respect anymore as an industry, do we?
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