Seems a bit too soon... (The rapid state of remakes)

     In the year 2013, Naughty Dog put out a landmark title, immediately praised by nearly everyone who played it. The game was called The Last of Us, and it came out right at the very end of the Playstation 3's lifespan, with Playstation 4 launching only a few months afterwards. The issue with this was that PS4 didn't have the capability to run PS3 games due to the PS3's Processor that had been such a huge selling point for the console at the beginning, but made it nearly impossible to make discs compatible with the next generation. To combat this issue, another version of this game was released for the PS4 in 2014, called The Last of Us Remastered, which was bundled with the "Left Behind" DLC, focusing on Ellie several months before the main game took place. This was all well and good at the time, and the Uncharted series would also get remasters on the PS4 after the first three games in the series had reached massive success on the PS3. This would get more and more complicated over the years with a lot of games on PS3 receiving this treatment on the PS4, and we would also see the trend on other platforms. The Wii U only had a few year life span, but it did have a lot of games that were fantastic, and as such, Nintendo ported them over to the Switch (a much better selling console) as full priced rereleases of those original titles, just with a few new features. That has already stirred up a lot of controversy over the years, just because the games are technically several years old now and it doesn't seem right for Nintendo to still be selling remade Wii U games for $60, but it hasn't been that big of a deal. In the past few years, however, the controversy has gotten a lot worse. The most recent release from Naughty Dog is yet another remaster of The Last of Us called The Last of Us Part I, which just came out at the beginning of September. This was a game built from the ground up for PS5, and as such, it does look pretty stunning. The controversy, however, comes from the fact that PS5 can also run PS4 games, so you now have the choice between the Last of Us Remastered, the PS4 game that came out eight years ago and that costs about $20 most of the time, and The Last Of Us Part I, the PS5 game that is the same as the other game, but looks slightly better for $70.

    The internet has been pretty unanimously against this situation from what I've seen, though if there's one thing that you can be almost certain of, Twitter is filled with angry people all the time. It's a complicated issue for so many and it ultimately comes down to a personal decision of whether this is worth buying or not, as always. I personally didn't buy it because I didn't love the game as much as everyone else did, and since I got The Last of Us Remastered for free through Playstation Plus one month, I'm fine. I played through it once and I'm not sure if I'll ever go back through it. Some people, on the other hand, play through the game over and over again, and maybe they feel the need to buy the better looking version of the game, even though they already have the older versions. I'm not saying that they're in the wrong, again, it's up to each individual to make that decision for themselves, and I really hope they enjoy this experience being even better looking than it was before (which it was always very good looking). Before I move on, I will say that the accessibility features are pretty wild, so it may be giving some disabled gamers their best experience of playing this phenomenal game, so I completely understand it from that point as well, as the features here are way more advanced than Remastered, after The Last of Us Part 2 had so many features as well. The reason I'm writing about all of this now, however, is because of the latest rumor that has been circulating the internet over the past few days. 

    Horizon Zero Dawn is another fantastic game, and one that I've written about pretty extensively, as well as its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West. Both of the games are great, with the first one coming out in 2017, just a week before Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game was no doubt one of the best looking games on the entire PS4 console, and it actually was made to look even better on the PS5. There was a patch released about a year ago, last September, to make this game run in 60 frames-per-second (fps) as opposed to the original 30 which the game ran on PS4. There were several patches like this implemented for different games being brought forward to PS5, such as God of War (2018), but now there's a rumor that Horizon Zero Dawn is getting a full remaster for the PS5 in the tradition of The Last of Us Part 1, even though they implemented these changes just last year. I really hope this is just a rumor and that Guerrilla Games won't do this, but if it does happen, I'm certainly not going to buy it. I really liked that game, and I'm really looking forward to the third game in the series that will hopefully be coming out in a few years, but I don't really feel like Horizon Zero Dawn needs a remake, because it's already just beautiful. It depends on what accessibility features they add to it, of course, because I hope it would help some people enjoy the game a lot more, since Sony really seems to be cracking down on that aspect, which is fantastic going forward. Since the original game didn't have many of those types of inclusions, I could maybe see it from that angle, but at the same time, they added a 60 fps mode to the game that was made in 30, so I feel like they could probably just add some features like that as well, though I don't know what kind of work would have to be put in for that sort of addition. I would imagine that it wouldn't be as difficult as the higher frame rate, but I'm sure they have a reason for what they do. 

    Long story short, Horizon Zero Dawn is already a terrific game, and could only get better from a remake, but in my opinion, I just don't see the need for it. You can already play the game on the PS5 because PS4 games still work on the system, and in this case, they look much better on this system. The game is only 5 years old at this point, so it's still very much a modern game. The pricing is really what it all boils down to though. If they charge $70, then I don't know how many people will pick it up, but I'm also sure there will be a lot of people who are fine with paying that much. I will say, however, that if this move does go forward, it is a clear indication of how well The Last of Us Part 1 sold. It could be that that game which just came out at the beginning of September was Sony testing the waters to see if people would actually buy their game again, which a lot of people did. That's not me saying that Naughty Dog was being lazy and didn't want to do anything original, I'm sure the game took them a lot of time and resources, and it turned out really well, even though I personally don't think the product was completely necessary. 

    Thanks so much for reading, friends. This is a weird post, and I hope that you don't view me as a Sony-hater for not wanting to buy these games again, but I just don't think I would get as much enjoyment from them now as I did when I played through them the first time. I like the games a lot, I think they're both pretty great, but it's just not worth it for me. Again, I'm not telling anyone what to do here, I'm just giving my own personal opinion, so go and buy whatever games you want to your hearts content. I would love to see a remake of the  Sly Cooper some day, especially since it's been 20 years since the first game, but I doubt that will ever happen. Anyways, thanks again for reading and I hope you'll all have a great week. Until next time, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed reluctant buyer, and I'll talk to you all again soon.