Current Events > What's the difference between a video game remaster and a video game remake?

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Activision calls the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy a collection of remasters.

Sony calls The Last of Us Part 1 a remake.

Where is the line between a remaster and a remake?

Punished_Blinx posted...

Activision calls the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy a collection of remasters.

Sony calls The Last of Us Part 1 a remake.

Where is the line between a remaster and a remake?

Activision is wrong. They literally remade the game from scratch at they didn't have access to the source code. It doesn't get any more "remake" than that.

So, when a music album is recorded, the original first copy of it is called the "master" and the process of making it is called "mastering"

When you "remaster" you take the original master and apply digital corrections to improve the quality. This was done a lot to get music which was previously only mastered on vinyl into CD or other digital audio.

The same applies to movies that were filmed with low resolution on deteriorating media like DVD releases of old vhs only movies.

But a remake doesn't use the original at all. A remake is like True Grit, the movie from 1969 and the remake in 2010.

That's the difference.

remaster is upgrading what already was
remake is rebuilding from scratch

To me, a remake is just that. You're literally remaking it. Adding or improving mechanics, plot points, things like that. A remaster is basically just a touch up with very few additions.

The N-Sane Trilogy is in a unique space. It's a literal remake since they had to make everything from scratch, but it's a remaster in that nothing was truly added.

TLOU Part 1 is a cash grab remaster with cut content.

A true Remake would be like Resident Evil 2 (2019)

Remaster is HD upgrade.
Remake is rebuilding the game from the start.
And theres a REmake where it's build from the scratch and different from the original like the Resident Evil Remakes

Tyranthraxus posted...

Activision is wrong. They literally remade the game from scratch at they didn't have access to the source code. It doesn't get any more "remake" than that.

So, when a music album is recorded, the original first copy of it is called the "master" and the process of making it is called "mastering"

When you "remaster" you take the original master and apply digital corrections to improve the quality. This was done a lot to get music which was previously only mastered on vinyl into CD or other digital audio.

The same applies to movies that were filmed with low resolution on deteriorating media like DVD releases of old vhs only movies.

But a remake doesn't use the original at all. A remake is like True Grit, the movie from 1969 and the remake in 2010.

That's the difference.

Even those definitions are a bit tricky. A movie remake isn't using the same exact script, cinematography, music and performances when a video game 'remake' can.

TLOU Part 1 seemed to be Naughty Dog going back to their older work and rebuilding the visuals along with tweaking the AI, animations and cutscene camera angles. They even used the same mocap performances.

I think a remaster upgrades visuals and maybe sounds a remake has new or different content

I think what happened was;

Video game companies often use terms from other mediums for marketing purposes. When it was the PS3/360 generation they usually just slapped HD on the end due to the higher resolution. They eventually needed something new for ports for games that were already HD and thought Remastered sounded a lot more sexy. So that was the standard term for PS4 and Xbox One.

When Activision announced the trilogy in 2017 they were fine with using Remastered to set up the expectation that these games are supposed to be the same.

Sony then decided to market Shadow of the Colossus, MediEvil and now The Last of Us: Part 1 as Remakes and the terminology for Remake has gradually shifted to include these types of games as well. Completely rebuilding the visuals for the games weren't super common so they have settled on this as a new standard.