The Best Game Remakes and Remasters

Fixed camera angles and tank controls went in the bin: Capcom rebuilt the 1998 game over the shoulder for 25 January 2019, and it had sold 18.32 million copies by May 2026. Nothing here travels further, because the original is a fundamentally different machine. The Tyrant cannot be killed, only knocked down, and he follows you everywhere except into a safe room. Remake.

Capcom shipped this rebuild on 24 March 2023, and by May 2026 it had sold 13.60 million copies. Leon's knife now carries a durability meter you can burn through parrying a chainsaw, then pay the Merchant to repair. Ashley lost her health bar and stopped being homework. Second only because the 2005 original, which the horror list keeps, still plays beautifully. Remake.

Nightdive Studios raised over $1.35 million in a Kickstarter that closed on 28 July 2016, then restarted development from scratch twice and moved to Unreal Engine before shipping on 30 May 2023. Hauling a 1994 interface into something a person can actually operate is a colossal distance travelled. SHODAN can only be beaten in cyberspace, and those wireframe flight sections remain deeply strange. Remake, not the Enhanced Edition.

Bloober Team's rebuild, published by Konami Digital Entertainment on 8 October 2024, arrived carrying more doubt than anything else here and then quietly won the argument. Dragging the camera over the shoulder and overhauling combat should have wrecked the pacing; instead the fog sits heavier and the apartments run longer. Remake, and the one I expected to hate. Horror takes the 2001 original.

Virtuos and Bethesda Game Studios shipped this on 22 April 2025, and the trick is a hybrid: Unreal Engine 5 draws it while the original Gamebryo engine still runs the game underneath. Bethesda calls it a remaster, and it outranks most of the remakes below it anyway, because sprinting is new, the levelling system is rebuilt, and the gap from 2006 is enormous. Ranking by upgrade does that.

Motive Studio and Electronic Arts put this out on 27 January 2023, and the pitch was one uninterrupted shot: the Ishimura as a continuous ship with no loading screens between decks. Peeling lets you strip a Necromorph layer by layer, and Gunner Wright finally gives Isaac a voice. Held back only because the 2008 version, which the horror list keeps, aged remarkably well. Remake.

Hangar 13 and 2K rebuilt Illusion Softworks' 2002 game in the Fusion Engine, released it on 25 September 2020, and recast the English voice cast entirely, with Andrew Bongiorno taking Tommy Angelo. Despite the label it is a full ground-up remake, which is exactly why the naming on this list needs arguing about. The Fair Play autodrome race later returned as its own mode.

Square Enix released the PlayStation 4 version on 10 April 2020, this enhanced PS5 revision on 10 June 2021, and the Steam edition on 17 June 2022, after a Windows launch that December through the Epic Games Store. Counted here as a remake of the 1997 game, but of Midgar alone, and a partial replacement scores lower. The Active Time Battle gauge keeps every fight honest. Story list keeps the classic.

Bluepoint Games remade every asset from the ground up for Sony Interactive Entertainment and launched on PlayStation 4 on 6 February 2018. It is a PlayStation exclusive that never reached PC, so the link goes to Wikipedia. Climbing a colossus to reach its glowing weak point still feels like scaling weather, and it feels identical to 2005 on purpose. Faithful, which caps the upgrade. Remake.

Japan Studio and Bluepoint rebuilt FromSoftware's 2009 game for Sony, and it arrived on PlayStation 5 on 12 November 2020. Still a PS5 exclusive with no PC version, so Wikipedia takes the link. Fractured Mode mirrors every level's layout, a cruel joke on anyone who memorised Boletaria. Ranks under Colossus because a 2009 game had less distance to travel. Remake; soulslikes keeps the original.

Skybound republished all four seasons as one compilation in September 2019, after Telltale's majority studio closure the year before, and it reached Steam in October 2020. Qualifying is not automatic: it shipped as a new purchase beside seasons people already owned rather than quietly replacing them, and a bundle sold as one product counts once. Clementine's dialogue wheel still ticks down while you hesitate. Remaster.

Bethesda released this on 28 October 2016, five years after the 11 November 2011 original, with an upgraded engine and mod support on consoles. That engine work is the point, since it is why enormous mod lists load without collapsing, but the game underneath is untouched, word walls and Dragon Shouts and all. A remaster that shipped as a separate purchase; the 2010s RPG list keeps the original.

Naughty Dog rebuilt its 2013 PlayStation 3 game for PS5 on 2 September 2022 and brought it to Windows on 28 March 2023. Enemy AI got the hardest overhaul, running up to 128 active NPCs tracking the player against eight in the original. Trouble is, the version most people owned was the 2014 PlayStation 4 remaster, so this is the shortest step here. A remake, ranked below three remasters.

Deck Nine handled the rework for Square Enix and it landed on 1 February 2022, seven years after Dontnod's original crept out episodically across 2015. Facial motion capture is the whole change, which sounds cosmetic until Chloe's eyes stop being uncanny during the long conversations. Rewinding time to redo a line you regret was always the mechanic; now the faces carry it. Smallest upgrade here.