Horror is a diverse genre, just as happy to unsettle you deeply with subtle cues and uncanny atmosphere, as it is eager to unleash a creepy monster into an evocative location you have no means of escaping. Unfortunately, the latter type happens to be prone to the passage of time – certain special effects are going to look worse on a 4k display that they did on a CRT TV.
This is an unfortunate truth that also applies to video games. They get hit hard by the changes of technology, and graphics that were cutting-edge back in their day, nowadays might seem almost cute, completely betraying all the hard work done by the music, the writing, and the design.
Thankfully, remakes are here to help, bringing the legendary scares to modern engines, with all the bells and whistles that make games look truly like a window into another, way creepier, world.
A world you can explore without wrecking your budget if you visit G2A.COM, where you can find not only horror games, but all sorts of digital entertainment in attractive prices. But let’s focus on season-appropriate scares and nightmares for now!
Revisit the old haunts
One such remake, and the reason this article exists in the first place, is this year’s comprehensive remake of the all-time horror classic, Silent Hill 2. Originally released by Konami’s Team Silent in 2001, Silent Hill 2 quickly earned the acclaim it deserves. Now, after over two decades later, it received a fantastic, robust remake by Bloober Team, the studio best known for psychological horror games of the Layers of Fear series.
With fresh graphics, a number of various quality of life improvements, and even an expansion of the game’s explorable world, Silent Hill 2 Remake brings the terrifying genre classic onto modern machines, so that a new generation can delve into SH2’s psychologically layered story.
Restart
Another classic which got a long-coming remake was System Shock, an immersive, science fiction action-adventure which cleaves closer to horror than the genre tag would have you believe. It takes place on a space station, where something obviously very creepy is going on, involving cyborgs, mutants, and an ambitious AI called SHODAN.
Both the original game from 1995 and its 2023 remake by Nightdive Studios are excellent, claustrophobic, tense experiences which can hold their own against games created decades later.
Raccoon City troubles
Another remake lifting an old classic from the dusty shelves of time is Capcom’s own remake of their 1998 hit, Resident Evil 2. Much like the original, the remake follows Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield as they try to survive in a city overrun by highly infectious zombies.
The RE2 remake ditched the original’s “tank controls” and brought the camera closer to the characters. Not only did it make the experience more dynamic, but also allowed returning fans and newcomers to appreciate excellent graphics provided by the RE Engine.
Technological lifting
Not all remakes reach decades into the past, some simply get some refreshing touches to make them suitable for release on a new generation of hardware. This is more or less the situation with 2023’s remake of Dead Space, a phenomenal horror game from 2008.
The original DS remains a great game years later, but getting the general technological upgrade in the remake made the planet-mining ship USG Ishimura even more immersive, and the body horror-incarnate that are the Necromorphs even more… wrong. If you don’t have the original to play, don’t settle for less, play the Remake.
Generational leap
Finally, there are also cases like The Last of Us Part I, a 2022 remake of Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic, zombie infested hit from 2013. It might seem odd that a game, at the time not even a decade old, got a Remake, but there are a few decent reasons for it. Not only did it lift the game from PlayStation 3 all the way up to PlayStation 5 (although technically there was a PS4 remaster), it also brought the previous PS-exclusive The Last of Us to PC a few months later.
The remake focused on the technical side of things, providing enhanced animations, improving NPC AI and expanding accessibility options. To be fair, the original game didn’t need anything else. Its cinematic story of two damaged people trying to survive a journey across the United Staters consumed by fungal plague turning people into zombie-like mutants is as good now as it was in 2013, all it needed was a little tech boost making it on-par with other triple-A PS5 and PC releases.
Are there remakes yet to come?
These games don’t exhaust the topic, of course. 2024 alone brought a remake of Alone in the Dark, for example, as well a remake of Supermassive’s interactive movie, Until Dawn. Perhaps a refreshed version of the original Silent Hill will follow in the footsteps of its sequel, who knows?
Whatever the future holds is yet to come. For now you can find exciting offers on the already existing horror remakes over on the G2A.COM marketplace, which even has a space dedicated to the topic!
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