Best video game reboots of all time

Gaming franchises, regardless of how beloved they are, sometimes evolve so slowly or go so far off the rails that the only way to keep them alive is by hitting the reset button. Unnecessary reboots, especially in the movie scene, are an overbearing plague. Gamers, however, have mostly been blessed with some absolutely fantastic comebacks. Let’s look at the best of the best, shall we?

DOOM (2016)

I truly believe Doom 3 deserves to be on this list — is what I’d vehemently defend — if Doom (2016) didn’t exist. Whereas Doom’s 2003 foray into a slower and more atmospheric playstyle gave us an actual horror masterpiece, the Doom reboot from 2016 stays truer to the formula and does Doom better than ever.

Doom is still a horror game — if you’re part of the demon horde, that is, as this game makes use of so many fantastic design choices to make the Doom Slayer the most powerful and fun-to-play Hell scourge imaginable. On top of being great in its own right, it paved the way to Doom Eternal, the best Doom sequel ever made.

Resident Evil 7

Konami shocked the world with good news for the last time when it shadow-dropped P.T. back in 2015. I’m naturally talking about the first-person teaser for the tentative Silent Hill reboot that turned out to be one of the coolest and most horrifying experiences in the history of gaming. Sadly, that project ended up on Konami’s chopping block.

Luckily, the Resident Evil series, which was also in dire straights after the release of the messy Resident Evil 6, learned quite a lot from P.T. The result was Resident Evil 7, a breath of fresh air that gave us a fresh perspective to enjoy some of the most gruesome sights in the history of the series.

Resident Evil 4

The only reason why I didn’t simply claim Resident Evil 7 pointed the series in the most exciting direction yet is because Resident Evil 4 exists.

While it’s officially just a sequel, it’s clear to any fan of the series that RE4 was a whole new beast. Not only is the gameplay following a completely new formula, but we even saw a soft story reboot of sorts by having Umbrella Corp. dying offscreen to give way for a new type of villain.

Some have criticized Resident Evil 4 for focusing more on action than the previous games in the series, but few have ever dared to call it anything other than one of the greatest games of all time.

Prince Of Persia: The Sands of Time

Though the Prince Of Persia series feels almost as old as gaming itself, it only ever reached its pinnacle in 2003 with The Sands Of Time. Though it was made by a different team, Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time was the series’ follow-up to Prince Of Persia 3d. As the name implies, that was the first game in the series in 3d, but it should’ve stayed in 2d in the sense that all copies should’ve been crushed and buried in the desert. I was so unimpressed with Prince Of Persia’s original 3d outing that I remembered refusing to get hyped for The Sands Of Time until I got to play it. Fortunately, I couldn’t have been more impressed with the end result. The Sands Of Time remains one of the greatest platformers of all time, and that’s in part due to how the industry has moved away from challenging AAA platformers—sure—but also because it’s a timeless masterpiece.

Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown is another phenomenal reboot, but The Sands of Time proved that 3d really is the prime environment for the Prince to thrive on, so I’d really like it if Ubisoft could pull off another reboot of this nature.

Ninja Gaiden

One of the biggest complaints people had with the original Xbox was the lack of Japanese exclusives, but Ninja Gaiden almost single-handedly solved that problem.

This is a reboot so masterfully executed — and an exercise in tough-but-fair gameplay — that most have since associated the name to this reboot, and not to the 2d original. Team Ninja has since moved away from the Ninja Gaiden series to pursue the soulslike craze, but there’s always hope for its return.

Tomb Raider (2013)

Few reboots reboot it as hard as 2013’s Tomb Raider did. Remember Lara’s famous dual pistols? Those are gone, replaced by a wooden bow. If I were to say that in a preview nowadays, fans would get mad. Blessed by hindsight, however, the gambit proved incredibly fruitful. It worked because the game nails modern platforming and people at Crystal Dynamics succeeded in coming up with easily the most fun bow in the history of video games for this very bow-centric reboot.

Other than that, Tomb Raider 2013 also does a good job of creating a different Lara, one definitely more human and less video game-y than classic Lara.

Tomb Raider Legend

Plot twist: there was an even better Tomb Raider reboot, and that’s Tomb Raider Legend. Legend isn’t necessarily better than the 2013 reboot, but there’s a much larger gap in quality between it and the game that made the reboot necessary: the infamous Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness.

Legend completely revamps the classic’s gameplay to create an extremely fun platforming experience. It looks great, updates Lara without changing what people loved about her in the first place, and features less complicated levels that never feel like they’re holding your hand.

Legend was also the first Tomb Raider sequel to enlist series creator Toby Gard, so it is also kind of the true Tomb Raider II.

God Of War

The original God Of War trilogy is one of the finest in the history of gaming. Making a new game in the same vein but with better graphics allowed by the more modern hardware sure would’ve worked, but the people at Sony’s Santa Monica Studio wanted more than “just great”.

The team decided to bring the story to a new setting and completely revamp not just the gameplay, but also the main character. Now, Kratos was no longer just the least bad guy in the story. He’d become both a father and a man struggling with the heavy burden of misdeeds past.

You could argue that the God Of War reboot is far from original. It was clearly influenced by the success of The Last Of Us and a few other games, but I’d argue right back that its gameplay far surpasses the games that served as its inspiration, so it’s hard to deny this one’s place among the greats.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Enemy Unknown is such a deep cut that many aren’t even aware it’s a reboot. When old-school gamers claim games used to be much harder way back in the day, the original X-COM is partially to blame. I remember getting countless teams wiped out long before I even got to see what the enemies looked like.

The new XCOM not only offered beautiful new visuals, but it also perfectly modernized every element of the old games. It was just so great to know you could finally properly learn how to play the game before you were put in charge of the entirety of Planet Earth’s defense force.

DMC – Devil May Cry

Ok, please hear me out. I know nobody likes black-haired Dante and that the game’s plot and writing is just too edgy to be enjoyable by anyone over the age of 15. Then again, is the plot of any Devil May Cry game really that deep and serious?

DMC’s fault lies not in its absolute desperation to look cool, but in its unlucky attempt to look cool in a different way, one fans just ended up not vibing with. Had it been the first game in the series, there’s no telling how it would’ve gone.

If you ignore the plot, DMC is much better-looking than DMC4, features superior level design — and not just because it doesn’t force players to backtrack half the game to make it last long enough to justify the full price tag.

Avoid judging this loud comic book by its cover, and you’ll find a game filled with cool new gameplay mechanics that will definitely surprise you in a positive manner. Ninja Theory tried, and their original vision is worthy of both your time and a general re-evaluation from gamers in general.

Grand Theft Auto 3

Here we are, the one that changed it all. Though it was marketed as a sequel, GTA 3 was a whole new thing. I’m willing to bet most fans of the series never even gave GTA 2 a chance, and that’s totally fine.

Even by ’90s standards, GTA 2 just wasn’t very good. It was a decent title, but it was mostly the game kids would want to try out because they’d heard the cool teens talking about this game where you run people over and flee the cops. Still, you can’t run on controversy forever, and man, GTA 2 lost its appeal quickly.

GTA 3 didn’t merely bring GTA to the world of 3d games, it also imbued this possibly sterile world with truly fun gameplay mechanics, characters, and a surprisingly decent plot. GTA would never be the same after GTA 3, but neither would the entire industry.

Red Dead Redemption

Let’s cap it all off with a little-known fact. Yes, the original Red Dead Redemption is actually a reboot. The original game in the series was Red Dead Revolver, which failed to hit Rockstar’s post-GTA 3 lofty ambitions.

So, if you’re wondering where the title came from, that’s exactly where. Rockstar wanted to get redeemed from Red Dead Revolver. Harsh, as I truly did enjoy Revolver, but, well, there’s just no denying that Red Dead Redemption is one of the greatest games ever made. The sequel isn’t called Redemption from Red Dead Redemption, so let’s guess the people at Rockstar understood they had a true gem on their hands.

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