While the gaming landscape continues to be dominated by remakes and remasters, legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto thinks they’re a good idea.
Nearly every video game industry player has gotten into remakes. XBOX has touted the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved (it releases this week), PlayStation has already announced that the God of War Greek saga will be restored in a remade form, and Nintendo continues to push remakes of its beloved catalogue.
The most recent release in this category is Star Fox, and the most recent announcement is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time; the former was exalted for crisp gameplay on launch. CGMagazine’s review of Star Fox calls it “a seriously remarkable refresh of this classic game,” so while some fans may be hesitant to return to some beloved worlds (or think remakes dominate too much of the market), the original designer of Star Fox 64, Shigeru Miyamoto, says that remakes are a good thing.
In an interview with Famitsu (reported by Nintendo Everything and NintendoLife), the legendary designer reflected on how difficult it is to get a game off the ground now. Miyamoto said he isn’t in any rush to return to directing another game due to this.
He states, “Nowadays, if you want to make one game, you have to get 200 people involved, so it’s tough. Movies are also big productions, but in those cases, the procedural people are the ones who keep the production running,” he adds, “Right now, I’m not really thinking about it. But with Pikmin Bloom, I got involved because I wanted to make it myself, so depending on the theme, if I can do something interesting with it, there might come a time when I want to do it. I have the know-how (laughs).”
Miyamoto then pushed back on the idea that there are ‘too many’ remakes, and believes they’re good for the industry. He said, “Some people might say there are a lot of remakes, but after five years, a lot of people have outgrown games and stop playing them. Young people today don’t have the opportunity to play games from 10 years ago, so remaking them to be more playable and releasing them again is a good way to meet the demand. Letting people know the original games also leads to future developments, so we’ve been actively pursuing that recently.”
Miyamoto believes there’s both a big burden with getting a new development off the ground, and there’s merit in restoring old games to new glory. But he’s not in any rush to get started on a new title. Two of Miyamoto’s biggest game design accomplishments, Star Fox 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, have received the remake treatment. One is out and has received rave reviews from fans and critics alike; the other is still in the works.
