Remakes have been in vogue for the past several years. As game development shows no signs of slowing down, companies are leveraging their older titles, re-releasing them on modern platforms to raise funds with minimal costs. Sometimes, they work.
For example, Silent Hill 2‘s remake, which is a collaboration between Konami and Bloober Team, is doing extremely well among critics and is one of the best-selling games on Steam, as per SteamDB. But the opposite sometimes happens, which is what’s going on with Until Dawn.
Supermassive Games’ 2015 interactive horror game was one of the earliest hits for the PlayStation 4 and it has since maintained a cult-like following over the years. Nobody really asked for a sequel and Supermassive has done well releasing other horror games. So you can only imagine the surprise when Sony confirmed that it’s re-releasing Until Dawn on PS5 and PC earlier this year.
On one hand, it wouldn’t hurt to play Until Dawn with better graphics and if we’re being honest, the game indeed does look slightly better. On the other hand, it isn’t just unnecessary, it’s not a substantial improvement either. It’s as if Sony phoned it in and tried to see if they can pass off a bare minimum “remake” for the PS5 and see if it can sell well.
As of the latest numbers, Sony might want to make some adjustments with its ongoing remake spree.
According to estimates by TrueTrophies, which pulled a data sample from over 3 million active PlayStation Network accounts, Until Dawn debuted on PS5 with 28.6% fewer players compared to Concord.
To put that into context, Sony shut down Concord’s servers two weeks after it was released because there weren’t enough people playing the game. So you can only imagine how bad it is that Until Dawn is putting up fewer numbers than one of the biggest flops in video game history—a $400 million financial black hole that might have forced Sony to give up its live service plans.
Then again, Sony probably isn’t hurting too much even though public perception suggests otherwise. It’s established at this point that Sony doesn’t need its first-party titles to sell extremely well on launch. Instead, they’re supplementary, which is probably they’re still doing it even after PC ports of best-selling PlayStation exclusives like God of War: Ragnarok aren’t seeing the same level of success on PC.
Keep in mind that Sony didn’t really spent much on porting over games to PC, so they just need to recoup the port costs, which isn’t huge to begin with.
As a bonus, these remakes and remasters lets Sony test out smaller studios before potentially acquiring them. In this case, Sony gifted Ballistic Moon a chance to go ahead and remake a game that they shouldn’t have had any problems doing as the studio was founded by Supermassive Games alumnus, Neil McEwan and Chris Lamb. If the Until Dawn remake was any good even if it wasn’t a commercial success, Sony probably would’ve acquired Ballistic Moon. But it’s a bad port with so-so performance. Coincidentally, the studio confirmed last month that it was laying off several of its staff members.
If you put two and two together and it’s clear Sony didn’t really have high hopes for Ballistic Moon’s debut title other than using it to push the upcoming live action adaptation.
It’s unclear if Until Dawn on PS5 will see a re-release on the PSVR2—the original had a spin-off on the PlayStation VR—but it’s a shame this had to be the fate of a remake of one of the more memorable horror titles of the past decade.
Sony’s next remake attempt, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, will arrive on PS5 and PC on October 31. Ahead of its launch, it has drawn flack for its steep pricing, but thanks to a loophole pointed out by GameStop, you can get it at a discount.
