So the Sony State of Play happened last night, and for those of you who don’t obsessively follow every game studio’s announcements to the point of insanity, picture it as a Nintendo Direct, but instead of everyone complaining about how there’s no announcement of a new MarioKart or 3d Mario game, everyone complains about the lack of a “Bloodborne” remake instead.
Looking past the modern obsession with remakes in general that I’ll no doubt write a different 5,000-word story about, the general consensus that Sony needs to remake their PS3 games when they’re just sitting on a treasure trove of old franchises they could revive is just stupid, plain and simple.
Sony has gotten really comfortable with their output in the past few years. All they really make anymore is “God of War,” “Ratchet and Clank,” some “Uncharted” spin-offs and remasters, remaking “The Last of Us” games for the 20th time, and recently some newer projects that they’ve had variable involvement in, from fully developing “Astro Bot” in house to kinda just having exclusive rights to “Black Myth: Wukong.”
As much as I love Sony for creating new franchises, I just look at a game like “Astro Bot” and think “Wow, there’s so much love poured into this game and so many original ideas, they really didn’t have to do all this. Literally. They didn’t have to make something new and awesome because they already have something old and awesome rotting away in the infamous ‘Sony vault’ (infamous to me, at least. I literally just made it up).”
I don’t want Sony to milk these franchises to the ground, but they aren’t doing any good just sitting there. These franchises can be loved and cherished by an entire new generation with just a new game, but no.
Just remake another “Resident Evil” game, I’m sure that’ll do the trick.
Originally I was going to list and rank all the different series I thought deserved sequels the most, but not only has everyone has already done that (because they KNOW I’m right), but I literally can’t name every single game I think deserves another shot with this story actually being 5,000 words.
With Nintendo it’s pretty easy. Sure, I’d go nuts over a new “Rhythm Heaven” game, but that’s kind of obscure so I get why that isn’t a priority. Mario, MarioKart (plus all the Mario sports games, except “Sluggers” 🙁 ), Zelda, Metroid, Animal Crossing, Pokémon and most other first party Nintendo games have had pretty consistent outputs on the Switch. Sure, there are obvious exceptions like “F-Zero” that haven’t seen the light of day since the GameCube, but that’s exactly what they are: exceptions.
Many of the franchises people immediately associate Sony with have been dormant since the PS3 or even the PS2. When I hear “Sony” I think “Sly Cooper,” “Jack and Daxter,” “Uncharted” and “Ratchet and Clank,” and I’m sure something similar is the case for most people.
But half of those haven’t had games since the PS2 (or the PS3 if you count Sly 4, but who does?).
Look, I don’t blame companies for doing things purely for money. Big corporations have been rushing artists, cutting wages and all different forms of scummy stuff since the dawn of time, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon.
But that isn’t really Sony, at least not as much as other companies. If they only cared about money then Astro Bot would have just been a nostalgia trap and not a great, polished platformer after the fact. If Sony only cared about money they’d be charging full price for rushed, crappy remakes instead of only making a few that are actually good.
If Sony only cared about money, they’d be acting like Nintendo.
But here’s an opportunity to make a ton of money by doing what fans have been wanting for a decade? A rare chance to satisfy both company funds and consumers by just making sequels that don’t need new engines, art styles or producers that will sell like hotcakes because people actually want them to be made?
Sony must think it’s too good to be true, but it’s not! We swear!
