My digital copy of Destiny finished pre-loading over the weekend. I have a thing tomorrow night, though, and I’m not sure if I’ll be awake enough when I get home to do much more than create a character and go through the first 1-2 levels before hitting the hay; therefore, being that anyone reading this will likely have already played through what I wouldn’t get to until Wednesday at the earliest, there probably won’t be a “First Few Hours” post. And, ultimately, I expect the opening hours to be more or less what we played in the beta, albeit with some additional graphical spit-shining (and (hopefully) some new Dinklage VO).
In the meantime, I think I’ve burned myself out on Diablo III. (Speaking of which: if you haven’t yet read Carolyn Petit’s take on Diablo 3 and Dark Souls 2, you should fix that ASAP.) I find that, these days, I can really only play it for about 30-45 minutes these days before feeling restless and bored; coincidentally, 30-45 minutes is actually just enough time to run some bounties and/or run a Nephalem Rift, get some new gear, and log out. The bounties don’t seem to change, though; every time I log in it’s the same stuff. Do I have to finish all 5 bounties in all 5 Acts before they refresh? That seems… kinda dumb.
So, in order to keep the ol’ wheels turning here at SFTC, and because I’m in a somewhat cynical mood, I’ve spent the last few days guessing what the next inevitable HD remakes are going to be.
We already know about these AAA re-releases, which have either already come out or have been announced as forthcoming.
- Tomb Raider
- The Last of Us
- Metro Redux
- GTA V
- Sleeping Dogs
- Saints Row 4
- Halo 1-4 box set
By the way, the AAA designation is specific and necessary to this discussion. I’m well aware of stuff like Fez, Minecraft, Abe’s Oddysee, Hotline Miami, Journey/Flow/Flower and other such indies getting ported to the new consoles; I’m also going to be the first person to buy the Grim Fandango restoration as soon as it’s released. But I’m specifically talking about AAA titles from the 360/PS3 generation, as those games seem to generate the most press from the big sites – and porting those games also serves as valuable experience for the developers in terms of learning how their existing tech works on the new systems. (I believe Naughty Dog talked about this specific idea when they ported The Last of Us to PS4 – it helped them learn how to best tweak their engine before getting Uncharted 4 off the ground.)
So, then, what other AAA franchises from the last console era might we expect to see in the future?
- Beyond: Two Souls is almost certainly getting a PS4 port, according to a number of sources (1, 2, 3).
- Mass Effect trilogy. I’ve heard this rumored more than a few times, and it’s not necessarily a bad idea (though it’s asking quite a lot for people who sunk hundreds of hours already to do it again in a higher resolution). That being said, the boring bits in ME1 would still be boring in 1080p, and the ending in ME3 would still be the ending. I don’t think Bioware would spend the energy tweaking that stuff when they’d rather work on the new ME game.
- Bioshock 1, 2, Infinite. The more I think about it, this seems like a no-brainer. Consider: the recent iOS port of Bioshock 1; Irrational Studios is all but shut down; TakeTwo surely considers Bioshock a formidable IP that they don’t want to lose. Just imagine what Bioshock 1 would look like on new hardware.
- Uncharted 1-3. Probably a long shot, given that Naughty Dog is already working on Uncharted 4 (and that, as said above, that they learned what they needed to learn about their engine through porting The Last of Us), but it wouldn’t surprise me if Sony outsourced this to another dev house. Sony’s stated reason for re-releasing last year’s TLOU was because a lot of people who bought a PS4 never owned a PS3; it stands to reason that those same people have never played what is arguably Sony’s biggest exclusive franchise.
- Gears of War 1-3. Probably less of a long shot, given that Microsoft needs anything they can get their hands on to get the Xbox One into more living rooms, and given that the Halo box set is a thing that’s already happening. But this might depend more on Epic and Unreal Engine 4.
- This most certainly won’t happen, but I personally wouldn’t mind seeing Rockstar come out with their own Orange Box, with Max Payne 3, L.A. Noire, and Red Dead Redemption in one HD package. For me, personally, that would be my birthday and Christmas every day for the rest of my life. Hell, I’d just be happy with Red Dead. It will be a sad day when my 360 dies; RDR is the only reason why I haven’t yet pulled the plug myself.
- Similarly, I would be very, very surprised to see Bethesda do ports of Oblivion, Skyrim or Fallout 3/New Vegas. I’d be inclined to check those out, certainly, but the amount of work necessary to properly port those games seems far too excessive, and it’s all but certain that work on Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 4 are well underway already. (And, of course, the PC modding community is also doing a bang-up job as far as those games are concerned.)
What would you like to see? Or are you done with HD remasters?
Shouts From The Couch 