Video Game Remaster, Remake, Reboot and Port

Do you deal with dilemmas when it comes to differentiating remasters, remakes, reboots, and ports? If yes, this blog will help you understand everything, like the types, specific engines for execution, and examples, along with the pros and cons of video game remastering, remaking, rebooting, and porting. It’ll help you bring your old game in alignment with the current requirements to boost ROI and profitability.

In today’s fast-paced tech environment, generational changes in PC components and consoles are occurring more than ever before. Now, even a 3-year-old game is considered an old game. This is because older games aren’t compatible with newer consoles, and that’s where remasters, remakes, reboots, and ports come into play.

These are the different ways to update video games to improve the original game and make it better and more accessible for new users. While the remaster, remake, and reboot are done to improve functionality and performance, porting a game is different, which is done to run a game on a different platform. 
Although remastering, remaking, rebooting, and porting aim to improve the performance and accessibility of a game, they aren’t equal. Yes, there are differences among them, as they have different purposes. This blog describes how these approaches vary from each other so that you can just hire game developer and update your old game.

What Does Remaster Mean In Games?

A video game remaster is a cosmetic update to an already existing game to give it a modern look and feel. Of all sorts of game modifications, the remaster is the most delicate one that requires minimal updates, such as applying new textures for models. 

The model modification may involve a slight alteration with the color correction, the complete replacement of the textures, or even a partial rework of the models to expand the level of detail. The code, model, engine, and the plot of a game remain unchanged.  

A remaster is applied typically to recent games that are not yet obsolete and can work with modern consoles. Remastering a game focuses on bringing the graphics in alignment with the modern level along with improving the sound and performance, if needed. 

The duration of remastering a game depends on the number of graphic contents and the features of the game engine. 

See the table below, which showcases the changes in remastering a game!

Examples of Remastered Games 

Following are examples of remastered games:

Engines to Remaster a Video Game 

When it comes to remastering, choosing the right game engine is of utmost significance to ensure the remaster achieves modern visuals, enhanced performance, and an excellent user experience while maintaining the original essence of the game. Mentioned below are the top-notch engines to remaster a game: 

• Unreal Engine: Because of its versatile tools, graphical competencies, and support for modern platforms, the Unreal Engine is considered to be one of the best engines for remastering a game.
• Unity: It’s an excellent choice for cross-platform support, smaller teams, indie projects, and games that don’t need photorealistic graphics.
• CryEngine: It’s the right engine for remastering open-world games, games with high-fidelity graphics, and games needing robust emphasis on environmental details.

Pros and Cons of Remastering a Game

What Does Remake Mean In Games?

A game remake is a reimagining of an existing video game in which the main story and the key gameplay elements remain the same. It’s a more radical intervention to an existing game. It’s a new game that takes the key elements of existing games and is recreated using modern mechanics for modern hardware. 

The remake is an excellent way to leverage the gamer’s interest in an older game and offer them their favorite title in a new wrapper. Through this approach, businesses can attract old as well as new gamers not familiar with the previous and original versions of the game.

The key intent of the remake is to develop a modern version of a game that’s too outdated to be remastered. Unlikely to remaster, the remake isn’t a frame-by-frame copy of the original game but a modernized interpretation of that. A new engine, new graphics, and new game design elements are combined with the existing title, lore, and key story elements.  

Note: In the remake, the gameplay and story may be changed and adapted as per real-time standards, however, the main plot still remains the same. 

Glance at the table below, showcasing a clear picture of the changes in Remaking a Game!

Examples of Game Remakes

Look at the table below showcasing the list of video game remakes!

Engines to Remake a Video Game 

• Unity: A versatile game engine that provides support for 2D and 3D development, VR/AR, having an active asset store.  
• Godot: A well-known engine for 2D game development with limited 3D capabilities. Godot is also a good choice for beginners. 
• SpriteKit: This game engine is for 2D iOS and macOS games. 
• Unreal Engine: Unreal Engine is the right choice for high-fidelity 3D games, AAA games, and visually stunning remakes.

Pros and Cons of Remaking a Game

What Does Reboot Mean In Games? 

A game reboot is the development of a new game that’s aligned with the original game universe. Reboot allows developers to change old ideas and concepts, implement new characters, remove old ones, add new locations and stories, etc. The key purpose of a reboot is to revive the game series, intending to attract new customers and boost revenue. 

When a popular game becomes obsolete and lags behind modern reality, rebooting becomes the way to revive that. It is safe from an investment point of view as the original game with its famous characters owns a huge customer base. 

Have a look at the table below, showcasing a clear picture of the changes in video game reboots!

Examples of Game Reboot

Following are the top examples of game reboot!

Best Engine to Reboot a Video Game 

• Unreal Engine 5: It’s best for AAA and large-scale 3D games that need cutting-edge graphics and visuals
• Unity: It’s right for 2D and 3D games and the game with cross-platform competencies. 
• CryEngine: The very engine is right for high-performance 3D games and realism-focused reboots. 
• Godot Engine: It’s best for Indie games, 2D-focused projects, and open-source development. 
• GameMaker Studio 2: A right choice for 2D games, especially for retro-style reboots. 

Pros and Cons of Rebooting a Game

What Does Port Mean In Games? 

A video game port involves transferring a game from its original platform to a new one. It may need redoing the textures and models, reworking the code and mechanics, and many more. Porting a game is not all about improving the visuals and updating the gaming experience but about getting a game to perform on a new platform. 

It needs a partial or complete change in code. What is required to port a game completely depends on the characteristics of the target platform. For example, you need to redo almost everything to port a game from PC to mobile. When it comes to porting from a PC to a console, you need to pay careful attention to the console features and other needs of the console. 

Have a look at the table below, showcasing a clear picture of the changes in video game ports!

Examples of Ported Games

Following are excellent examples of ported games!

Engine to Port a Video Game 

• Unity: It’s a cross-platform game development environment to create and port games. Unity is suitable for 2D and 3D development.  
• Unreal Engine: A well-known engine with many game development features. The engine is used to port games for different platforms and operating systems. 

JavaScript and HTML5: These are to publish a web version of a game.

Pros and Cons of Porting a Game

What Differentiates Remaster, Remake, Reboot, and Port?

Be it changes in graphics, game design, or storyline, there are many differences when it comes to differentiating Remaster, Ramke, Reboot, and Port. See the table below for a quick glance at the facts, setting these four apart from each other!

Refer to the table below for an end-to-end comparison of the changes done to Remaster, Remake, Reboot, and Port a game!

Revolutionize Your Existing Game with 3ooMind

When a game grows old, you can choose one from remastering, remaking, rebooting, and porting to bring that game in line with the current trends. At 300Mind, we’re a team of skilled game developers, engineering games like Bal Hanuman, ROFL, and many more, delivering an enhanced gaming experience. 

Bal Hanuman, as its name suggests, has been designed on the concept of “chase the evils & destroy them with the Gada” having the potential to entertain gamers.  

ROFL (Roll Fall Land) is a game that involves rolling out the dice from one platform to another. You can land on a platform that doesn’t kill you, keep the dice rolling, and survive as long as you can. 

Both of these games, along with many others built by our team, are meeting the expectations of Players taking their gaming experience to the next level. 
Whether you have a game to remaster, remake, reboot, or port, or you wish to design a new one, hire game designers and developers from us to unleash the true potential of your game development idea!

FAQs on Remaster, Remake, Reboot, and Port

WRITTEN BY Ankit Dave

Ankit Dave is a team leader (Game) with more than 5 years of experience in 2D & 3D gaming/console gaming/AR/VR/Machine Learning. Requirement understands, create a GDD, create an architecture of the game to make them as scalable as possible, deploy the games on various platforms.