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There comes a time where companies and players alike want their favourite retro games to be made into a reboot and bring it into the own modern age, this is to gain popularity and money from the companies’ point of view and to get a playable game with better graphics, whilst also maintaining that nostalgia feel for a retro game from the players perspective.
Here are a few games that have been rebooted due to the success and popularity of their original releases.
Probably one of the most talked-about and known reboots, Doom was very popular when it was released onto consoles and PC in 2016. The games’ premise stayed like the original retro game, Doom which further impressed as it brought that nostalgia back to when it was originally released in 1993 and then in 1994, onto the Sega 32X and Atari Jaguar.
The reboot was hugely successful, especially with the disappointment of Doom 3 in 2004. The reboot managed to win the Best Music/Sound Design as well as the Best Action Game at The Game Awards in 2016, with also a notable nomination for game of the year. It also was the second best-selling retail game in its first week only behind Uncharted 4. By July 2017 the game managed to sell over 2 million copies on PC and was the fourth best-selling Nintendo Switch game in its first week.
There have been multiple renditions and remakes within the Resident Evil franchise, however, when it comes to an official reboot of a game, none of them come close to Resident Evil 2. Based of course off the original retro game which was released in 1998 by Capcom onto the Sony PlayStation. This 2019 re-imagining gives players more freedom than the original as it features “over-the-shoulder” third-person shooter gameplay instead of the tank controls and fixed camera angles that were on the 1998 retro classic.
In terms of reception, the game was a hit. It won the ‘Best of Show’ award at the 2018 Game Critics Awards, won the Golden Joystick Awards’ ‘Ultimate Game of the Year’ in 2019 and ‘Best Remake’ award in the 2020 New York Game Awards. As of March 2020, the game had sold over 7.2 million copies worldwide!
Though not the most ‘retro’ reboot of them all as the original only came out 11 years prior, Star Wars: Battlefront was hugely popular when Lucas Arts released it onto PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows in 2004. Yet with the recent production of a new Star Wars Trilogy kicking off with The Force Awakens (2014), the now developers EA (Electronic Arts) had to make the most of the popularity by re-making some people’s favourite childhood game, Star Wars: Battlefront.
The 2015 version was very different to the original, you could now play as some of your favourite characters on both the light and dark side with additional DLC characters being released due to the 2016 film Rogue One, introducing newer characters from that film to coerce even more players to the game.
The reception of the game was quite mixed due to the game catering towards a more first-person shooter approach which went against the hardcore fanbase of the original game. Despite this, the game still shipped 14 million copies by May 2016.
Like the previous game, this remake is only 14 years older than the original yet some still have a nostalgia kick as the retro 2002 game would still bring back some fond memories from gamers when they were younger. The original game was released onto the PlayStation 2 and gained a lot of critic applause and popularity, achieving 90% from Game Rankings and by July 2006, Ratchet & Clank had sold 1.1 million copies and earned $31 million in the United States.
The 2016 remake gained generally favourable reviews, receiving an 85/100 from Metacritic. In terms of sales, it was the best game of the entire franchise! It became the best-selling game in the UK in its first week of release, it also became the first game in the series to debut at No. 1 in the retail software sales chart, whilst being the bestselling title on the PlayStation Store in Europe. The game was such a big hit that it inspired another game to be made which is due to come out later in 2021, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
Now last but certainly not least, is Donkey Kong Country, classed as a retro game as it was released in 1994. Yet this game did reboot the franchise and help make the character as well-known as he is today. Released onto SNES, this game was the revitalisation and reboot of Donkey Kong as it was a platformer that was set long after the original retro games that were released to arcades in the early ‘80s.
The game focused on the original Donkey Kong, who has moved to an island and grew into Cranky Kong with his former name being given to his grandson, who is the new Donkey Kong of whom the player controls. The game received great reviews getting an 89% from game rankings for the SNES version. The game also won many awards from Electronic Gaming Monthly, these being, best SNES Game, Best Animation, Best Game Duo, and Game of the Year, in 1994. The retro game sold 9.3 million units, becoming the third best-selling SNES game.
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