PlayStation Games Sony Should Remake For PS5 Before The Last Of Us
The PlayStation 5 generation looks to be a period of safe bets for Sony, with a recent report of a remake of 2013's The Last of Us on the way and a sequel to Days Gone canceled. Sony is seemingly doubling down on what works, steering development towards its renowned, PlayStation-exclusive blockbuster games and away from smaller projects by newer developers. But before it dredges up a game that already got a PS4 remaster, it should dig deeper into its catalog of forgotten franchises to enrich the PS5's library.
The original The Last of Us received a perfectly fine remaster in 2014, and its critically praised sequel released less than a year ago. A PS5 remake might make more sense once the Netflix show adaption comes around, but even in that case, an update to the existing remaster would play just as well as a from-scratch redo.
There are PlayStation games far older than The Last of Us that would benefit much more from a modern reimagining. The publisher's decades of history hold many hidden gems worth polishing up for the PlayStation 5 age.
In 2003, developer Incognito Entertainment took a break from Twisted Metal to produce War of the Monsters for the PlayStation 2. A 3D multiplayer fighting game in the vein of Capcom's Power Stone, War of the Monsters depicts giant mechs, giant apes, and other kaiju battling it out in major cities. It received moderate praise at the time, but it never got a follow-up of any kind.
Without any new monster movies in theaters, War of the Monsters banked on '50s nostalgia rather than specific giant monsters as its selling point. In 2021, fans of Legendary Entertainment's MonsterVerse movies would likely enjoy a War of the Monsters reboot or remake.
The Ape Escape franchise is one of the most underutilized in Sony's catalog. The first game sold fans on the DualShock controller back on the original PlayStation, but the franchise eventually disappeared, with the last entry being a 2011 on-rails shooter tied to PlayStation Move.
There is an ongoing 3D platformer revival at the moment, but Sony is losing its window to bank on the nostalgia many PlayStation fans have for the original game. Beyond business reasons, Ape Escape's gameplay is quite novel, and it's been long enough that even a rehash of the first game would likely feel fresh with a new coat of paint.
Sony acquired the rights to the '90s puzzle franchise Lemmings alongside European developer Psygnosis, which then became known as Sony Computer Entertainment's Studio Liverpool. The series saw a remake of the original game for PS2, PS3, and PSP; a touch-enabled game for PS Vita; and a mobile game released in 2018, but none of these were enough to keep it in the limelight.
It's bizarre Sony hasn't at least ported the newer Lemmings games to PC, where the franchise is still highly regarded among retro enthusiasts. It seems like the perfect series to work on with a smaller studio, as well, especially if Sony wanted it to be a game that could push PlayStation Plus. As of now, Lemmings has gone from a household name to a forgotten memory, and that should change.
Before its closure in 2012, Studio Liverpool was perhaps best known as the team behind Wipeout, a series of futuristic, PlayStation-exclusive racing games. The series' final new game was Wipeout 2048, a PS Vita launch title, and an HD collection of 2048 and Wipeout HD came to PS4 in 2017.
Arcade racers have been few and far between in recent years, but it's possible a new entry in the old franchise could thrive, if Sony really got behind it. A new Wipeout game would probably need to offer a lower difficulty option to extend the game's appeal, but it's easy to imagine a full-fledged sequel as a technical showcase for the PlayStation 5's hardware.
Even if Sony wants to stay very close to its current wheelhouse of action games with dramatic cinematic storylines, the PlayStation 2 era provides a great candidate for a modern refresh. The first game from MLB The Show creator San Diego Studio, The Mark of Kri and its follow-up, Rise of the Kasai, were action adventures starring Polynesian protagonist Rau. Just as God of War upgraded from a hack-and-slasher to a dramatic adventure into Norse mythology, the journey of Rau could be retold with cinematic flair and upgraded combat mechanics on PlayStation 5.
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