Reboots: On Shaky Ground

With brand new original intellectual properties becoming more and more of a risk for big AAA studios, the idea of taking an existing intellectual property and 'rebooting' it can seem like a promising venture. The product already has market awareness, fans of the original game will be onboard and they can engage a new audience too.

But the results can be mixed, there are other risks when rebooting a game that aren't present with a brand new IP. Here's a few reboots from the recent past and the near future... and the lessons we take away from them.

Syndicate
Original (1993), Reboot (2012)
Metacritic Score: 69

Perhaps serving as a warning to those who stray too far from the original formula, the Syndicate reboot certainly didn't set the charts alight. It took the setting of the original real-time isometric strategy game and translated it into a squad-oriented first-person-shooter instead. Whilst it wasn't a bad game, it wasn't a great game either, and fans of the original balked as their dreams of a modern-day Syndicate were churned out as a fairly generic FPS.

Lesson: Straying from the gameplay of the old games too drastically may alienate fans of the originals.

Tomb Raider
Original (1996), reboot (2013)
Metacritic Score: 86

The new Tomb Raider had a focus on story and action which got it favourably compared to Naughty Dog's Uncharted series. The brand evolved slightly here, shifting the focus away from raiding tombs and into survival. It was well recieved, although it didn't quite live up to Square Enix's perhaps unreasonable sales expectations (it sold over a million in the first 48 hours, and almost 3.5 million by the end of the month).

Lesson: Unreasonable sales targets. AAA development costs and brand awareness doesn't always equal insanely good sales figures.

Thief
Original (1998), Reboot (2014)
Metacritic Score: (not yet released)

The Thief reboot, due out next year, has me sitting on the fence... and falling off on either side any time there's new screenshots, footage or previews. On the plus side, The City itself looks really faithful, but now there's a feeling of scale to it that was never quite captured in-game with the originals. The first-person immersion looks promising too, with Garrett's hands darting to interact with the world as you move through it. They've captured an atmosphere in the design that looks immersive and intriguing, which is what the Thief games captured all those years ago.

But, for each positive there's at least two warning signs. The game's concept art looks much more Assassin's Creed than Thief, the original voice actor has been replaced and there's a new breadth of combat options such as drop attack takedowns and kung-fu-style martial arts moves that just seem out of place in a Thief game.

Put this alongside the previews that suggest the original lore and setting is being altered to be more palatable to a new audience, ignoring important factions and sidelining the fantasy aspects of the series, and it feels like fans of the series game aren't the ones being targeted here. Which then raises the question... why use this particular intellectual property anyway?

If it doesn't sell well, there's a good chance they'll blame the stealth genre of the game, when they alienated the fans of that particular niche genre in the first place with their approach at rebooting it.

Lesson: Ignoring the lineage and lore of the original games is a quick sure-fire way to gain the ire of series fans. Also, some IP's may be too niche for the AAA market.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Original (2000), reboot (2011)
Metacritic Score: 90

Okay, so this isn't technically a reboot (the game acts as a prequel to the original Deus Ex), Human Revolution introduced many new fans to the Deus Ex universe whilst respecting it's origins. What we got here was effectively a reboot that still considered the original game as canon.

Although not as deep in branching story and gameplay as the original offering, DE:HR did still improve on its namesake in other areas, especially art direction thanks to a beautifully slick and stylish look that really made the game stand out.

Most importantly, Human Revolution did right by the fans of the original, acting as a love letter to the old game whilst still being accessible to a new audience. The game acts as a prequel, with hundreds of references to characters, events and organisations that are relevant later. This attention to detail tells the fans that they're being respected.

It's not to say the game didn't have it's own problems, the biggest being the forced combat-only boss fights that were at odds with the breadth of options available elsewhere in the game. The game also stuck too closely to the original by making the ending a choice of several options, dependent upon which button you press (similar to Mass Effect 3's... Why do developers think we'll find this satisfying?)

But these points seem like nit-picking when the rest of what's on offer works so well.

This is a reboot done right.

Lesson: Respect the games, respect your fans.