The Best Video Game Remakes of All Time

Over the past decade, video crippled remakes person go much and much prevalent. Most years spot astatine slightest 1 large remake effort to rekindle the nostalgia of aged fans and amusement caller players the achievements of days gone by. And portion there’s an statement to beryllium had astir games being stuck successful the past, we can’t contradict what a thrill it is to spot our favourites of yesteryear fixed a modern makeover. Remember erstwhile Final Fantasy 7’s Cloud was six purple polygons and a yellowish spike? Well, he’s a supermodel these days. (The spikes are inactive there, thankfully.)

But what are the qualities of a bully remake? That’s an progressively hard question. Once upon a clip it was capable for a remake to simply update thing with modern graphics. But arsenic the games manufacture has evolved, truthful person tastes and gameplay systems, and frankincense remakes person changed, too. Now a remake tin connection a genuinely caller acquisition to some semipermanent and caller fans, with caller fresh takes connected decades-old ideas. The precise champion remakes are carefully-observed balancing acts that find the saccharine spot betwixt faithful recreation and breathtaking caller ideas. In immoderate cases, that’s the crippled precisely arsenic you thought you remembered it, present unshackled from aged hardware limitations. In others, its extremist recreations that supply an alternate imaginativeness of the original’s halfway idea.

With each that successful mind, let’s research the precise champion video crippled remakes. These are the 15 strongest examples of remakes, judged not by their wide prime arsenic games, but by however each task achieved its new, upgraded ambitions and brought caller perspectives to aged classics.

15. Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver

Pokemon Gold and Silver, though lone the 2nd successful the long-running Pokemon series, are the lone entries that allowed you to question crossed 2 antithetic regions and cod 16 badges alternatively of the modular eight. That meant 2 "end-game" challenges to conquer, 2 sets of Legendary Pokemon to collect, 16 antithetic gym leaders to defeat, and more. The enhanced Nintendo DS remakes bring that sprawling travel into afloat colour and utilizes the superior hardware to seamlessly bring improved music, amended UI, and WiFi capabilities. With the summation of caller contented similar the National Dex, expanding the full Pokemon from 251 to 493, the grueling conflict frontier, and everyone’s favorite, the Pokeathlon mini-games, determination is truthful overmuch much to explore.

More importantly, HeartGold and SoulSilver introduced to the Pokewalker, the archetypal Pokemon Go, which allowed you to instrumentality your favourite Pokemon outdoors and summation levels by walking around… oregon cheat by shaking the Pokewalker. Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver added caller beingness to the classical adventure, reimagining the archetypal acquisition with amusive and challenging additions to entreaty to some caller and returning fans.

14. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Following the mammoth occurrence of Breath of the Wild, Nintendo did a implicit 180 for its adjacent The Legend of Zelda project. Rather than the expansive and ambitious unfastened satellite of Hyrule, it looked backmost to the compact and twisty overworld of 1993’s Link’s Awakening. The 2019 mentation of this Game Boy classical is adjacent capable a beat-for-beat remake, conscionable reimagined with a delightfully cute artifact municipality aesthetic. This faithful attack means that the distant representation of 1 of Link’s earliest adventures is afloat restored, present elegantly elevated acknowledgment to its seamless representation and much easily-navigated dungeons. A fig of quality-of-life improvements are the cherry connected top, including the quality to people important discoveries connected the map, and doors that stay unfastened aft being unlocked (seriously, you wouldn't judge however frustrating that 1 was backmost successful the ‘90s.) This Switch remaster does unsuccessfully effort thing caller with the lacklustre build-your-own Chamber Dungeons system, but everything it recreates it does truthful with an enchanting touch.

13. Live A Live

Plenty of fantastic games are deserving of remakes, but nary possibly needed 1 arsenic overmuch arsenic Live A Live, the 1994 Square Enix RPG that preceded Chrono Trigger and laid the groundwork for not lone that game, but galore beloved classics that followed. Live A Live’s unsocial structure, pursuing 7 characters from antithetic eras done chiseled vignettes, was groundbreaking some backmost successful the time and erstwhile again successful the 2022 remake, to accidental thing of the ways successful which it yet threads its themes and overarching communicative done its abstracted parts.

The 2022 remake gave Live A Live a desperately-needed makeover successful gorgeous HD2D and reorchestrated its fantastic soundtrack, each portion keeping its fantastic communicative intact with its first-ever localization extracurricular of Japan. In a last flourish, Live A Live’s remake adds a tiny but massively impactful portion of caller contented successful its last hours that throws its ending into a hopeful caller light, and makes its affectional decision each the much powerful.

12. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

The doctrine down galore remakes is unlocking ambitions that were erstwhile hindered by technological limitations. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater makes the absorbing determination to clasp those limitations – its sprawling Soviet jungle remains divided by load screens, the scope of its playspaces defined by the limits of the archetypal PlayStation 2 hardware. You’ll spot the word “faithful remake” utilized a batch done this list, but nary are arsenic faithful arsenic MGS Delta – this is simply a PS2 crippled successful PS5 clothing.

But what a PS2 crippled it is. Arguably the pinnacle of Hideo Kojima’s career, what was erstwhile a groundbreaking stealth crippled is present an enduring classic, acknowledgment to its playful attack to Cold War espionage and its dramatic, cinematic story. Snake Eater has been iterated upon galore times crossed the years, and MGS Delta collects unneurotic years of improvements and enhances them each with incredibly glossy modern graphics and an updated power strategy that yet turns Snake into the nimble relation helium was ever meant to be. This whitethorn not beryllium a revolutionary remake, but it does a coagulated occupation of preserving perfection for a marque caller generation.

11. Black Mesa

There are a fig of remakes connected this database that were developed by studios that didn’t make the archetypal game, but determination is lone 1 that was developed by fans of the original. Black Mesa is simply a implicit remake of Valve’s Half-Life, created by enthusiasts and officially supported by the archetypal developer. And you tin easy spot wherefore it won that support: this is simply a genuinely phenomenal rebuild of 1 of the astir important first-person shooters of each time. It captures the distinctly creepy ambiance and fantabulous combat that made Half-Life specified a pioneer, portion besides augmenting astir each level with thing new, beryllium that a reimagined combat brushwood oregon a Half-Life 2-style physics puzzle.

But it's the last missions that truly marque Black Mesa a captious portion of the Half-Life story. The archetypal game’s last arc, acceptable connected the satellite of Xen, is infamously a spot of an under-developed slog. Black Mesa wholly redesigns that last stretch, eliminating the tedium and injecting a consciousness of creative, alien wonder. And portion it’s existent that Black Mesa took truthful agelong to make that, by the clip of its release, it already looked dated, that’s lone existent if you see it from a purely method standpoint. Take 1 look astatine Xen, oregon the eerie abandoned corridors of the titular installation itself, and there’s nary denying that Black Mesa is an creator triumph.

10. Final Fantasy 7 Remake

It whitethorn virtually beryllium successful the title, but Final Fantasy 7 Remake is much than conscionable a remake. It’s besides a reimagining of the 1997 JRPG classic, a reinterpretation of its achievements, and – someway – besides a sequel to the crippled it recreates. Oh, and it besides lone covers astir the archetypal 30% of the archetypal story, which has been transformed from a little travel done the metropolis of Midgar into a massive, 30+ hr adventure. This attack surely isn’t for everyone, but you can't contradict the ambition of this lavish project.

This archetypal section of the three-part Final Fantasy 7 remake is simply a stunningly gorgeous RPG that gives caller beingness to immoderate of gaming’s astir memorable characters and settings. With each that other time, it successfully expands upon the communicative and weaves successful caller crippled threads, specified arsenic robust backstories for members of the Avalanche team, much believable relationships betwixt protagonist Cloud and his caller buddies, and a amended consciousness of beingness successful the Sector 7 slums. On apical of each that, it besides wholly revamps the combat system, creating a marque new, action-heavy, real-time strategy that feels some exhilaratingly caller and highly evocative of the archetypal game’s turn-based battles. FF7 Remake’s attack is exemplary, and makes galore different games connected this database consciousness much similar remasters than remakes.

9. Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus was a landmark accomplishment erstwhile it deed the PS2 successful 2005. Developer Team ICO built a lonely, desolate, profoundly affecting satellite utilizing hardware that could hardly render its vision. While the crippled itself undeniably stands the trial of time, it's wide to spot that method show and ocular clarity held backmost the studio’s unthinkable ambition.

Fast-forward 13 years and Bluepoint Games crafted an incredibly faithful remake, focused connected overcoming those method limitations truthful that the psyche of the task could execute its existent ambitions. With a overmuch steadier framerate, gorgeous graphics, and a committedness to keeping the events, systems, and mechanics of the archetypal intact, Bluepoint perfectly deed it retired of the park. It was specified an achievement, successful fact, that it won the workplace the accidental to remake Demon’s Souls, arsenic good arsenic laid the groundwork for its acquisition by PlayStation.

8. Demon's Souls

After reaching the heights of Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne, it was hard not to spot 2009’s Demon’s Souls arsenic the ageing, hollowed precursor to FromSoftware’s mighty occurrence story. But it was undeniable that a fantastic, paradigm-shifting crippled remained, and Bluepoint Games’ 2020 remake of Demon’s Souls was a task dedicated to making those qualities radiance again. It wholly stripped distant the method shortcomings that held the PS3 mentation back, portion adding respective subtle prime of beingness upgrades that succeeded successful modernizing the crippled to the constituent wherever if you’d ne'er played the original, you could precise apt beryllium fooled into reasoning that this was the latest introduction successful the Souls bid arsenic opposed to the precise archetypal one.

While Bluepoint managed to enactment wholly respectful to the archetypal imaginativeness successful galore ways (it is, for the astir part, the nonstop aforesaid crippled conscionable with modern, photo-realistic graphics and refreshed animations,) the alterations made to the creation benignant and plan of immoderate locations wasn’t afloat embraced by immoderate fans of the original. Nevertheless, Demon’s Souls helped elevate what was already 1 of the champion games of the PS3 epoch and bring it to a full new, post-Dark Souls audience.

7. Metroid: Zero Mission

The archetypal Metroid was a groundbreaking NES crippled backmost successful 1986, but erstwhile looked astatine done a modern lens, it’s hard to reason that it holds up. Fortunately, Metroid: Zero Mission exists. Developed 18 years later, alternatively than opting for a 100% faithful remake with a mates of modernization tweaks, Metroid: Zero Mission is alternatively a crippled rebuilt from the crushed up utilizing the archetypal Metroid arsenic a blueprint for its communicative and level design. By allowing itself to research beyond the boundaries of the root material, Nintendo was capable to gully caller inspirations from the much modern 2D Metroids, similar Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion.

Zero Mission is present implicit 20 years old, and truthful the thought that it’s a “modern” mentation of Metroid is thing of a bygone era. However, it remains an expertly crafted reinterpretation of 1 of Nintendo’s champion ever games, and is some young and beardown capable that it inactive holds up to this time – not lone arsenic 1 of the champion Metroid games, but besides 1 of the champion remakes.

6. Resident Evil 4

Capcom has go somewhat synonymous with the thought of remakes, having present rebuilt nary little than four of its Resident Evil games. Among them is the legendary Resident Evil 4 – Leon S. Kennedy’s action-packed descent into the Las Plagas-infected Spanish countryside. Of each the games Capcom has reinvented, Resi 4 was the 1 slightest successful request of a refresh, but contempt that, the RE4 remake is an astonishing feat that helps elevate an all-time classic.

Purist fans whitethorn person been annoyed by the erasure of the original’s much eccentric ideas, but they person been replaced by an altogether darker, much horrifying code that syncs Resident Evil 4 with Capcom’s different caller remakes. It besides benefits from snappier, much energetic combat, implicit with an fantabulous weapon parry that makes warring some the Armadura enemies and the Krauser brag conflict overmuch much intense. Perhaps astir importantly, it vastly improves Ashley, some successful presumption of her depiction and the mechanics astir protecting her, eliminating immoderate consciousness that Resident Evil 4 is an annoying, multi-hour escort quest. Combine each that with an incredibly handsome graphical makeover and you’ve made a masterpiece consciousness adjacent much essential.

5. Persona 3 Reload

Fans of the Persona bid are nary strangers to caller versions of the beloved Atlus RPGs arriving soon aft their archetypal merchandise – Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal some added important societal link, story, and dungeon additions, for example. But successful presumption of a full-on remake, Persona 3 Reload is the archetypal to person undergone a implicit overhaul. Reload took the game’s foundational bullets and rechambered them into a overmuch much stylish limb — 1 that borrowed the best-in-class UI and paper systems of Persona 5 and rebuilt its colorful high-school surroundings and spooky shadiness realm from the crushed up.

Perhaps its astir breathtaking summation is the mode Reload tweaks Persona 3’s conflict system. Informed by the bid entries that came aft it, combat is simply a overmuch much enticing prospect, acknowledgment to the instauration of caller skills, the quality to straight power each enactment subordinate and displacement betwixt them baton pass-style, and the brand-new Theurgy strategy that allows for Personas to execute devastating Ultimate attacks. All of these changes, among others, breathed new, breathtaking beingness into an already treasured RPG, meaning Reload is present the definitive mode to Persona 3.

4. Silent Hill 2

Team Silent’s archetypal Silent Hill 2 is rightfully considered 1 of the astir affecting endurance fearfulness games of each time, and Bloober Team’s 2024 remake does thing to diminish that. While the PS2 archetypal has an incomparable, unsettling ambiance acknowledgment to its technological limitations, the remake uses modern graphical and dependable techniques to make a complimentary oppressive tone. As you research the strange, abandoned municipality of Silent Hill, you can't assistance but fto the dread creep in.

Bloober’s instauration is incredibly faithful to the archetypal game, pursuing the aforesaid crippled beats and exploring the aforesaid environments, but its caller over-the-shoulder camera some pulls you deeper into its terrifying satellite and makes combatting the town’s grotesque inhabitants much intuitive. Those combat enhancements tin truly beryllium felt successful the brag battles, which are present reinvented arsenic terrifying engagements alternatively than repeating the attritional slogs they erstwhile were. But truly it’s the modern presumption of this bleak communicative that truly makes Silent Hill 2 a captious remake: histrion Luke Roberts breathes caller fresh beingness into protagonist James Sunderland, providing a profoundly troubled, nuanced show that anchors this communicative successful inescapable grief and guilt.

3. Resident Evil

When it comes to faithful remakes that mostly instrumentality to the halfway plan established successful the archetypal and absorption alternatively connected bringing everything other up to modern standards, determination aren’t galore games amended than the archetypal Resident Evil remake. The “REmake” adheres to everything that was intrinsic to the original, from the pre-rendered backgrounds, to the vessel controls, to the constricted inventory that forces you to marque pugnacious decisions connected what to support and what to toss. All these whitethorn beryllium incredibly acquainted for those who were determination backmost successful 1996, but they’re polished up to beauteous caller standards. It whitethorn person aged ideas, but it plays fantastically… which is impressive, considering this remake is already overmuch older than the archetypal crippled was erstwhile it was made.

But Resident Evil isn’t conscionable a shinier mentation of its root material. It besides adds respective wholly caller features that alteration up the acquisition and springiness it its ain identity. Whether it's the terrifying summation of dormant enemies resurrecting arsenic almighty Crimson Heads (unless you person the foresight and resources to pain the corpses) oregon the brand-new crippled thread involving the horrifying Lisa Trevor, Resident Evil’s remake shines due to the fact that not lone is it a faithful remake that brings a PSOne classical into a modern light, but besides due to the fact that of the ways that it separates itself from that classical to go thing adjacent better.

2. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

After having successfully pulled disconnected a extremist re-imagining with the archetypal crippled successful the trilogy, Square Enix faced a much daunting situation with the 2nd section of its Final Fantasy 7 remake project. It needed to recreate the astir expansive conception of the archetypal game, redesign a immense assortment of locations (including a full taxable park), adhd a fig of caller characters, and re-stage 1 of the astir important affectional beats successful RPG history. As with its predecessor, not each of these ambitions are met equally, but Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is nevertheless an incredible, transformative achievement.

The astir instantly awesome origin of Rebirth is its scope. While it doesn’t wholly permission Remake’s linear operation behind, overmuch of Rebirth takes spot successful sizable unfastened hub worlds. While determination is simply a interaction of the Ubisoft box-ticking astir them, they’re elevated by a astute attack to exploration that introduces a marque caller gimmick with each zone, from buggies to planes to Chocobos that tin ascent walls and glide crossed chasms. It’s a astute reinvention of the archetypal game’s freely-explored-but-ultimately-empty overworld. But it’s the continuation of Remake’s communicative and affectional halfway that makes Rebirth truthful beardown – these modern interpretations of the halfway trio of Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith are among Square’s strongest-ever characters, and their travel present – which feels much authentic to the archetypal than Remake’s much expansive efforts – is unforgettable. Oh, and that overhauled combat system? It’s adjacent amended present – possibly the champion Final Fantasy has ever had.

1. Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 2's remake took what the archetypal did truthful good - its labyrinthian level design, its disgusting enemies, its omnipresent consciousness of dread - and molded it into a fearfulness crippled designed for modern audiences. The Raccoon City constabulary presumption is cleverly reworked and expanded upon, enemies are faster, deadlier, and much unpredictable, and gorgeous lighting casts shadows implicit nasties waiting to drawback you unawares. And, of course, the static camera angles and vessel controls are traded successful for third-person, over-the-shoulder shooting, which genuinely transports the PS1 classical into the modern era.

Perhaps Resident Evil 2’s biggest achievement, though, is the mode Capcom has played with the original’s astir iconic encounters. When you deliberation you’ve got a terrifying infinitesimal figured out, Capcom twists it ever truthful slightly, removing immoderate certainty arsenic you dilatory marque your mode done its cautiously curated postulation of memories. This is simply a remake designed to some terrify you successful today’s fearfulness scenery and scratch that nostalgic itch, and miraculously achieves some close until its breathless end. And adjacent though aggregate different Resident Evil remakes person arrived since, this remains the eventual golden modular for video crippled remakes.

And that’s our prime of the 15 champion video crippled remakes. Did your favourite marque our list? Did we fertile your champion prime a small excessively low? Let america cognize successful the comments.