You know who knows what fans really want? Fans. Obviously, gamers always want to see their favourite franchises being pushed in new and challenging directions, and so the big developers will always strive to deliver that for us. But sometimes, we just want to revisit a classic title, in a new or unexpected way.
That’s where fan remakes step in. These guys are pretty incredible, putting in a shit ton of time and effort to give us amazing remasters or re-imaginings of our favourite games. Of course, a lot of the time developers and publishers will step in to stop of people fucking with their IPs, but in this article you’ll find five awesome fan remakes – some finished, some unfinished, but most of them playable to some extent.
Resident Evil 2 Reborn
Status: Shut down
Resident Evil 2 was one of the best Resident Evil games, and an amazing survival horror experience. Of course, certain elements such as the voice acting and the cumbersome tank controls have ensured age hasn’t been entirely kind to this undead gem.
Enter Resident Evil 2 Reborn, a fan project that aimed to take the story of Resi 2 and bring it into the modern world. Using Unreal Engine 4, Reborn planned to do away with the old control scheme, and incorporate a much more accessible Resident Evil 4 style of gameplay.
Same Raccoon City, same great story, better gameplay and graphics. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately Capcom asked the guys behind it to pull the plug – but only because it turned out Capcom are working a ground up remake of Resident Evil 2 themselves, so in this case I can understand why they wouldn’t want the fans getting out ahead of them.
Still, a bit shit for the team who put so much effort into a great idea. And it’s clearly something the fans want, so let’s just hope Capcom’s official version turns out okay.
Another Metroid 2 Remake
Status: Work in progress
Another Metroid 2 Remake (or AM2R) is perhaps one of the most exciting fan projects out there. Metroid 2: The Return of Samus was originally released for the original Gameboy, and it was a bit shit to be honest.
It had its merits, sure, but the limitations of the first Gameboy meant that you spent ages running around a pretty nondescript series of black and white caverns, trying to remember where you had and hadn’t been. Certainly, it wasn’t until Super Metroid came along that the franchise became something truly special.
But the idea of taking out every single Metroid on their home planet had a lot of potential, as the chaps behind AM2R surely know. If any of the games on this list benefited from a bit of a face-lift, it was definitely Metroid 2.
Throw in much tighter gameplay, and (gasp) an actual map so you know where you’re meant to be going and you have a winner.
This project has been in the works for some time. Amazingly Nintendo have yet to step in, and you can download several demos on the website.
Black Mesa
Status: Work in progress “85% done”
Black Mesa is a remake of a little game called Half Life. Everyone loves Half Life. Most people seem to think that Black Mesa improved upon Half Life in ways they couldn’t even imagine, so you can assume that Black Mesa is pretty fucking good.
This project was clearly a massive undertaking: It saw a Steam early access release last May, and prior to that was in development for eight years.
Judging by the near universal praise it’s managed to hoover up, I’d say Black Mesa was definitely worth the wait. It managed to take a truly incredible FPS title and make it bigger, better, and much prettier. Maybe you should go check out their website. Or maybe you shouldn’t. I’m not gonna tell you how to live.
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 HD
Status: Work in progress
I would never call Sonic the Hedgehog 2 an ugly game. Far from it, the sprites and backgrounds still look quite lovely to this day. But fuck me, the fan made Sonic the Hedgehog HD is an absolute treat for the eyes and ears.
It’s like getting kicked in the balls by the nostalgia fairy (but in a good way). The graphics are crisp and clean, managing to resemble something between a classic Disney cartoon and how you always pictured the original Sonic games in your head.
What’s more, every bit of music has been remixed to sound wonderfully fresh, breathing new life into what was already a brilliant soundtrack – I can’t really do it justice, so just watch the video below.
For many of us Sonic 2 was the peak of the blue blur’s career, and the chance to revisit that adventure in such glorious style would be a absolute treat. Download a pre-release version here.
Shadow Moses
Status: Work in progress
Konami haven’t exactly been great over the past few months, so most of us have pretty much just been sitting on our hands waiting for this Unreal Engine 4 remake of Metal Gear Solid to get shut down – but this has yet to happen.
In fact, not too long ago, the developers behind the Shadow Moses project sent out a few Tweets that suggest Konami might actually be considering giving their full support to the remake. Of course, this might not happen – but dare to dream, right?
Many gamers still consider the PlayStation version of Metal Gear Solid to be the ultimate stealth action game. Naturally, most of us would be over the moon at the chance to play a shiny HD remake. There’s no gameplay demo to speak of just yet, but there’s an awesome trailer to whet your appetite.
The chaps working on the project have been open and honest about it from the start, fully acknowledging that they intend to take it all the way, and that they’d need Konami’s blessing at some point to do that – here’s hoping Konami surprise us all and help make it happen.
Fallout The Story
Status: Work in progress
A lot of people who started at Fallout 3 (myself included) were surprised to learn that the series hadn’t always been a first person open world RPG. The original Fallout was of course an isometric adventure game, full of difficult choices and memorable characters. It isn’t the Fallout I came to know and love, but it was still awesome.
So of course, a band of modders are attempting to remake that original game in New Vegas. The video below shows Fallout’s opening sequence remade inside Obsidian’s New Vegas, complete with first-person view and all those Bethesda touches you’ve come to know and love/hate.
The modders hope to keep the look and feel of Fallout 1 intact while making use of Fallout New Vegas’ modern features – the mark of any good remake, surely?
As far as remakes go, this is basically completely from the ground up, and an incredibly ambitious project clearly motivated by a passion of Fallout in all its wonderful incarnations.
Skywind
Status: Work in progress
Skywind is a very cool looking fan made mod that seeks to blend two elder scrolls games together to create something truly special. The bizarre world of Morrowind is being restored to life with the enhanced graphical brunt of Skyrim, and while it’s a slow going process, the results are looking very promising indeed.
It should be noted that the same modders are also looking to give Oblivion the same treatment, but personally I’m much more excited at the idea of Skywind. Morrowind was a very interesting (and weird) looking game in its day, and with the benefit of a better graphics engine, revisiting the most insane chapter of land of The Elder Scrolls series promises to be a great experience.
Skywind isn’t currently available for public download, and it’s not clear when you’ll be able to get your hands on it. What is clear is that it’s a real labour of love, and it should be great fun once it’s finally finished,
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.