For those who grew up defending their lawns from waves of quirky undead, Plants vs. Zombies is a name that sparks instant nostalgia. Sixteen years after its original release, PopCap Games has brought the classic back to life with Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted, a full remaster that aims to unite everything fans loved about the 2009 hit with a modern polish. It’s a love letter to the past, but one that doesn’t always grow quite right.

A Trip Back to Simpler Times

There’s something special about returning to Plants vs. Zombies. The familiar music, the goofy animations, and the cheery chaos all feel like stepping into a Saturday morning cartoon. PopCap’s remaster captures much of that old magic. You still line up your pea shooters, sunflowers, and walnuts to hold off zombie quarterbacks and “zomboni” drivers, creating that familiar, satisfying rhythm of strategic gardening.

In Replanted, PopCap has gone all in on making this the definitive version of the game. It bundles content from every major release, PC, console, mobile, and even the now-discontinued Chinese version, into one big package. It also revives features that were previously console-exclusive, like local co-op and versus modes, finally letting players enjoy the complete experience on one platform.

Familiar Gameplay, Slightly Modernised

The core gameplay is exactly as addictive as ever. The balance of strategy and quick thinking still holds up, proving why PvZ became such a phenomenon in the first place. What’s new this time around are a few smart quality-of-life improvements, the most useful being the fast-forward feature. You can now speed up matches up to three times, making long stretches of waiting feel snappier and more dynamic.

Image Credit: PopCap

Image Credit: PopCap

There’s also the new Rest in Peace mode, a permadeath twist on the main adventure. One zombie breakthrough, and it’s game over. It’s a neat concept, though a bit undercooked, mainly because players can bring all their unlocked plants from the start, which removes much of the intended challenge.

Another fresh addition, Cloudy Day mode, blends the day and night levels into a single battle that alternates between phases. The sunny phase focuses on resource management, while the cloudy phase lets you build more aggressively at lower costs. It’s an inventive touch that adds some welcome variety to the formula.

Image Credit: PopCap

A Visual Upgrade That Doesn’t Always Shine

Visually, Replanted looks crisp and colourful at first glance, but zoom in and the seams start to show. Some textures and animations look noticeably uneven, character portraits and menus can appear blurry, and certain filters feel oddly dated. These inconsistencies make the remaster feel like it’s caught halfway between old and new.

One particular misstep lies in the remastered ending. The iconic credits sequence, once a standout moment in gaming alongside Portal’s “Still Alive”, is now awkwardly presented as a low-res video playing on a tube TV inside your in-game house. It’s a baffling downgrade that strips away much of the charm and energy that capped off the original.

The Magic Still Lives… Just Barely

Despite its flaws, Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted still delivers that cosy, cartoonish fun that made the original so beloved. It’s easy to lose hours once the music kicks in and your lawn fills with colourful chaos. But this remaster also serves as a bittersweet reminder of how much the series has changed over time, and not necessarily for the better.

After EA acquired PopCap in 2011, Plants vs. Zombies branched into everything from shooters (Garden Warfare) to mobile free-to-play spinoffs packed with microtransactions. The creative spark that made the original so memorable gradually faded in pursuit of bigger profits. Replanted, in that sense, feels like a time capsule from a simpler, more imaginative era of gaming.

It may not be the most polished remaster, but it’s still a heartwarming way to revisit a classic — a game that once reminded us that even the smallest sunflower could hold back the apocalypse.

Verdict

Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted is the most complete version of PopCap’s legendary tower defence game, offering a great mix of nostalgia and new features. However, its uneven visuals and questionable design choices keep it from being a truly definitive edition. It’s worth revisiting for fans and newcomers alike, but don’t expect a full bloom.

The post Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted Review – A Nostalgic Comeback That Misses Its Bloom appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

I remember the original Bravely Default launch being something special.

Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 had shown the direction that the iconic JRPG series was going and some of us craved that classic JRPG turn based action. Bravely Default demonstrated to us that Square Enix was able to evolve Final Fantasy and give us something old at the same time with its launch on the 3DS.

Now thirteen years later  Square Enix has released the 3DS port Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster to Switch 2.

If you haven’t played Bravely Default before, it’s a banger.

The story follows the warriors of light who need to restore the 4 elemental crystals who have fallen into darkness. Sounds pretty Final Fantasy like right?

Well, the four heroes are all really interesting. Tiz is the sole survivor of a village that got destroyed by one of the corrupted crystals, Ringabel is an amnesiac trying to figure out what’s going on, Edea left an army that was trying to capture Agnes, and Agnes use to live in service to one of the crystals before it became corrupt. In many ways we have four JRPG tropes mashed into one game, and in other ways the mashing together makes it unique.

Anyway, they all need to work together to uncorrupt the crystals. Their journey takes them across the country as the story has some great twists and turns. It is all very classic JRPG and if that is what you are craving, then it is exceptional at it. The gameplay is pretty standard turn based JRPG action, with attacks and magic on your character’s turn. What is fun is that you get BP that allows the characters to do multiple actions in a turn until they run out of BP, you can go into negatives but have to recover if you do that.

This remaster brings a whole lot of upgrades. The whole game has been tidied up to look way better on Switch and the TV. It still retains it’s janky edged look, but with the games upscaling it looks way more stylised. The cut scenes have been given a much bigger upgrade and looks properly good.

This version comes with some fun new features like the game corner. There is a couple of brand new mini games here that use joy cons that can reward you with some stuff. There is a rhythm game and an airship simulator. The games were perfectly fine, but at least add a nice break to the gameplay to do something different. Doing so can earn you some amazing rewards like being able to increase or decrease the random encounters.

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster is one of the best cases for a remaster.

The base game is there and still shines, it looks a whole lot nicer, and there are some new features there to make it worth playing for fans of the original. This is a cracker of a release for the Switch 2 and is well worth checking out for JRPG fans.

The post Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster (Switch 2) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

We are very much in the market of remasters.

Recently The Last of Us Part 2 released, the epic RPG Oblivion, and here we have a rework of Days Gone, a game that released six years back on PlayStation 4.

Playing out like a Hollywood blockbuster, or a TV series that you never want to miss an episode of, Days Gone places you in the role of Deacon, a biker, member of the ‘Mongrels’, who himself has had a very checkered and colourful path leading up to the outbreak that wiped out humans, turning them in to what is known as ‘Freakers’. An insanely feral zombie like humanoid that will do anything to get to living flesh.

Your play starts out after all of the drama and chaos ensued when the outbreak occurred. Before you is an open world in the back roads of Pacific North West America. Yourself, as Deacon and his best friend Boozer are embarking on many a deadly road trip as mercenaries for hire, taking bounty’s and slowly making their way North.

Of course, nothing really goes to plan. Asides from hordes of ‘Freakers’, Deacon must look out for other humans aswell. A ravaged nation gives birth to sects, groups, small and large camps, survivors ruthlessly doing what they must to continue their existence. Some friendly, some definitely not.

The back story opens up throughout play, and you eventually find out that maybe, just maybe there’s more to the outbreak that spread across the Globe. You also learn more about Deacon. The good, the bad and his lost love.

Resources are scarce, including medical supplies, ammunition and fuel.

Deacon traverses the ‘Freaker’ infected countryside and towns on his bike. The relationship between man and machine is paramount in this game.

You must also continually look for fuel (syphon from abandoned vehicles, steal from camps or find fuel cans by exploring environments), and keep up maintenance on your bike.

Almost like a character of its own, Deacon’s bike can be a needy beast. It will wear down with use and depending on your driving skills, or lack off, and may need more or less maintenance as you forge ahead.

The storyline will update to your play style – and while there is a main story, there is so much to be done on the side.

Days Gone is a game that adheres to how you play and will work the main story in with your in-game activities.

Whatsmore, unlike previous zombie titles, in Days Gone, it’s not only the human population that was afflicted.

Hiding in the wilderness does not mean that you are safe. Infected bears and dogs are also hungry for non-infected humans.

Then there’s the hordes. This is where the chaotic energy of this game comes in as literally hundreds upon hundreds of ‘Freakers’ surge towards you. Each individually animated – pushing eachother, tripping over eachother… in Days Gone, it is okay to run away if you can.

Asides from the rabid dogs and bears there are differing levels to ‘Freakers’ aswell. The most unique are Newts, which appear to be infected children. There’s also a sect known as Rippers. Somewhat transformed, most definitely insane from the apocalyptic-like events that took place.

Days Gone is not a run and gun title. A lot of stealth and strategy will come in to play. More often than not, you will either have no ammo, or be extremely limited – down to your last bullet. Making use of cover, stealth and your environment will get you through. Maybe.

The infected are tuned to listen out for noise. One sound at any given time, could attract a giant horde. Your one bullet that you have in your chamber is not going to go far.

You need to be super resourceful where you can. It’s almost as if the devs at Bend Studio give you just enough, but no more.

Scout around, explore. It’s a large landscape and a lot of goodies to be found. Scrap which can be used for trade or to craft items. Bike parts as and when you need them. Med kits are a necessary. ‘Freaker’ and Newt ears are taken as trophy’s, these too can be used for trade with other NPC’s and in friendly camps.

Days Gone has a very robust RPG element. Your skill points, earned throughout gameplay with varying objectives achieved or completed are used for Deacon upgrades; health, stamina and more. Your bike can and will also take on necessary upgrades aswell.

Crafting weapons and enhancements is super rewarding and will of course give you more of an advantage in-game.

Days Gone shouldn’t be coined as ‘just another zombie’ game. It is a fully engaging story mixed with compelling and challenging survivalist gameplay. It’s original release, and now this remaster I feel is easily overshadowed by the likes of The Last of Us, another zombie-esque game, but Days Gone is unique enough to be in its own class.

This new redo features new modes of play, Horde Assault, Permadeath and Speedrun.

If you never picked up the PlayStation 4 version, now’s the best time to join the biker gang and fight for survival.

The post Days Gone Remastered (PlayStation 5) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

What we’ve come to expect from an RPG, and the RPG gameplay sphere itself has evolved epically in the past twenty years, since Bethesda’s pioneering Oblivion.

Originally released in 2006 after Morrowind, an inpiration to any RPG video game that was to come after and now remastered, the adventure awaits once again in a richly detailed current gen remaster on Xbox and PC.

Playable in either first or third person, the story starts as Emperor Uriel Septim (voiced by Patrick Stewart) is killed by assassins, along with all his known heirs. Your goal is to find and protect his son, who has been brought up in secret and knows nothing of his heritage. The story will take you all around the game’s world, a province of Tamriel called Cyrodiil, through to Oblivion. 

The pace of play does an excelled job of guiding you from one point to another, with fast travel. You’ll come to rely on this often, if you didn’t play Oblivion back in the Xbox 360 days, the world is too large to go on foot if you need to revisit an area.

Absolutely nothing stops you, once the tutorial sequence is over, you can explore this vast world and take up the plot intermittently as you wish. 

Want to climb the ranks of the Fighters Guild or the Dark Brotherhood of Assassins? Go for it, Oblivion is your game. 

A huge amount of detail and time has gone into side-quests that most players may not even find nor finish. Wandering around a populated area is likely to turn up something to do at any given moment. Homes to rip off, people to annoy and job offers. Sniffing these out is all part of play. You can absolutely spend hundreds of hours just exploring and completing side quests, almost forgetting your main mission.

The combat system relies more on reactions and timing. Your stats affect your combat performance and you can assign spells or weapons to hot-keys so you do not have to pull up your menus constantly.

Stealth and archery are viable character choices just as much as the more traditional mage or warrior standbys and you can blend these aspects to suit yourself. Even the lock picking mini-game is still among the best of I’ve experienced.

Probably the most impressive part of this title is that ‘real world’ feel. Enter a bar in the evening, and you’ll be greeted by the hustle and bustle of the townsfolk relaxing. Oblivion’s towns are alive with genuine and individualistic activity. Sure we RPG players mostly expect this in any given game of this genre, but you have to realise that this game, although remastered, is two decades old.

Every location, no matter how irrelevant or mundane has books to read, chests to open, or loot to steal. Every little detail in the game feels hand-made. 

Visually we are greeted with a 4K masterpiece. A few months back I actually revisited the orginal Oblivion. It had aged, sure, graphically, but gameplay wise it still had the goods. The remastered version is a lot smoother and fluid, no jaggedness or in-game lag here and your distant horizons do not suddenly pop into view.

This is Oblivion how it was originally imagined. Now reimagined, remastered for those of us that loved the original, or for a new generation of Elder Scroll fans.

The post The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Xbox Series X|S) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

I’ll bet many of us Gen X’s remember the iconic kids movie The NeverEnding Story.

Well if you are one of them then you may be as delighted to know that not only is there a 4K remaster of the movie, and a Anniversary edition too.

If you haven’t seen this gem yet, The NeverEnding Story is something glorious.

It tells the story of a young man Bastion who has lost his mum. He is struggling in school and his Dad isn’t sure how to help him out. On his way to school he gets chased by some bullies and eventually ducks into a bookstore.  The grumpy owner tells him to leave until Bastion mentions the books he has actually read.  The bookstore owner warns Bastion about the book he is reading implying you will wind up connected to the world. So naturally, Bastion pinches the book.

Bastion takes this home and starts reading about a world where the Queen is dying.

A young hero called Atreyu goes off on an adventure to the edge of the world to get what is needed to save the Queen. As the story progresses Bastion goes through the emotions that Atreyu does, before discovering that the world can be impacted by him. He has to deal with the consequences of his impact on the world as the story carries on.

It’s a bananas story when you think about it, but it’s just so damn good. Atreyu’s journey takes him to meet the iconic doglike dragon Falcor, a bunch of other magical creatures, and discovers the true hero he is. And as such, Bastion goes through a similar journey.

Now of course, the movie is 40 years old, and it does show a little.

The movie is a little slower than you would expect these days, but nowhere near as bad as some movies from the 80’s. The other thing is that my children noticed it was a little, to quote them “blurry”. When I was watching it on 4K though I will say that it looked bloody brilliant for its age. So much better than I could have expected and much better than it looks on standard Bluray. And the other thing of course is with minimal computer effects and heaps of falwless puppetry, the aesthetic holds up so damn well 40 years later.

Speaking of Bluray, this collection gives you so many options.

Across the 5 discs you have the original US cut on 4k or Bluray, the German extended cut in 4K, and the 2024 documentary Life after the Neverending Story. Slotted along side these are some other special features meaning this collection is bustling with awesomeness to enjoy.

But that’s just the discs. This collection is housed inside a large replica of the book from the movie, with metal details on the front, and a well printed box that kept tricking my eyes into thinking it was actual pages. Inside it comes with a folded version of the original movie poster, glossy reprints of lobby cards and an A4 reproduction of the Press Kit from 1984. This includes printed versions of biographies, info about the movie, and other stuff they sent out to press. It’s insanely cool and fun to open up and poke through every time.

The NeverEnding Story doesn’t just hold up, it’s still a fantastic movie that has stood the test of time. With this collection, from the content on the discs, the beautiful 4K remastering, and the added extras in the beautiful box, it’s a cracking way to add these incredible movies to your collection!

The post The NeverEnding Story 40th Anniversary (Bluray) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

The post-apocalyptic Horizon Zero Dawn, first released back in 2017 gets its second PC edition, this time remastered to the same level as the sequel, Horizon Forbidden West.

It seems all I’ve been playing lately is remastered and revamped games: Silent Hill 2, Until Dawn, and most recently, Red Dead Redemption on PC. All the games look stunning on current-gen equipment, but so did their last “upgrade.”

Every one of these titles, including the nearly fifteen-year-old Red Dead Redemption, has had some sort of polish-up in the years since their initial release. But to be fair, it is a testament to modern games that they have reached a point whereby the quality has become almost timeless, like movies. They may need some tweaks to sort out technical limitations and the expectations of a modern audience, but the hearts of these games are so strong that to a newcomer these ARE new games.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered takes the original game, previously polished up as the “Complete” edition and gives it a further shine. But this is not just a simple texture and lighting upgrade.  Character models and animations have been updated, as well as new dialogue. The comparatively wooden performances during cut scenes have been replaced with more natural head movements and hand gestures. The lead character, Aloy, even has peach fuzz hair on her face. These additions, for the most part, bring the game in line with Horizon Forbidden West. This new edition also includes the original’s DLC, Frozen Wilds.

If you’ve never played Horizon Zero Dawn before, you are in for a treat as this is the definitive version of a truly remarkable game. PC players probably get the best deal with DLSS, uncompromising 4K visuals and ultra widescreen monitor support. PlayStation 5 Pro owners are not far behind with performance pro and resolution pro modes. The resolution pro mode delivers PS5 Pro visuals that look more like a Hollywood animated movie than a video game.

The developer, Guerilla Games, previously renowned for its Killzone games, has referred to Horizon as being post-post-apocalyptic. The game world is set long after the fall of technologically advanced civilisation. Cities have crumbled, ancient objects have been repurposed, and their original use has long been forgotten. The old ones’ technology and knowledge have been lost to the mists of time.

The game places players in control of Aloy, a Nora brave. Cast out by the tribe as a baby, she was brought up by another outcast, the warrior Rost. As a young girl, Aloy finds an ancient device, a focus, which projects an augmented reality display that only Aloy can see. Her focus device aids her after a sequence of events sets her on a path to find out the truth behind her origin and secure the fate of the world.

Horizon Zero Dawn does a great job of world-building, layering mysteries that draw you into the game. Aloy’s world is breathtakingly beautiful and extremely dangerous. It feels alive, with a scattering of tribes, who use only basic tools, contrasted with the variety of robotic animals, some hostile, others skittish roaming the landscape.

The game errs towards that of a third-person action role-playing game with crafting, climbing and combat being the important parts of the game. None of this is too complex, giving the game a lighter, more accessible feel that may put off the more hard-core but opens it up to those who would sooner not be overwhelmed.

It is a narrative game, the story driving the player via a series of missions across a huge map. Side missions offer distractions that further flesh out the Aloys world. There’s also fun to be had hunting, either the natural fauna or the mechanical beasts.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered plays every bit as well as it did when it first came out. The upgrades put it on par with a freshly minted title, with a slick presentation every bit as good as any new AAA game.

Whilst I think there are still good reasons to play the game if you’ve played the 2017 original and/or the 2020 PC Complete Edition, your mileage will vary. It depends on how much you liked the game the first time around. Everyone else, you owe it to yourself to play this great game.

The post Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered (PC / PS5 Pro) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Where did the time go? Almost 10 years back a Triple AAA PlayStation exclusive released that fused a cinematic-like horror with player decisions.

That game was Until Dawn.

If you survived the first round on PlayStation 4, you can jump back in this remaster, now on PlayStation 5.

The story begins with a cliche but still entertaining horror trope, a group of friends staying at a Blackwood Pine lodge on Mount Washington, British Columbia for their annual winter vacation. The lodge is owned by the parents of Josh and his sisters Hannah and Beth. A spiteful joke goes wrong and an upset and embarrassed Hannah runs into the dark wood, with her sister chasing after her. They are never seen again.

After one year the group meet up at the isolated lodge once more to remember their missing friends. It’s not long before they find themselves hunted by a twisted psycho and fighting for their lives. But there seems to be more at play, and a mystery going back over fifty years.

At time specific times you take control of all eight of the main characters, which is set over one night.

Gameplay is fluid but it’s a slow pace as each character has their own individual thing going on and their own select horror experience.

As Until Dawn plays like a horror film you can expect a lot of cut-scenes throughout, there are a lot of cut-scenes broken up with decisions that you need to make, which ultimately result in the fate of that character, and the entire narrative.

Every decision you make has consequences. This keeps Until Dawn near-to fresh on every play-through.

This remastered version has been graphically retooled from the ground up, making your on-screen visual experience all that more real, surreal and for some, horrific.

The facial animation is on point, the very stiff and clunky character movement we saw in the original version is now more natural.

From the dark and foreboding environments through to in-play to cut-scene transitions, this is the Until Dawn version you should play, providing you can survive the night.

The post Until Dawn Remaster (PlayStation 5) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

‘Into The Gap’, initially released in February 1984, was the fourth album by Thompson Twins.

It was a multi-platinum album on both sides of the Atlantic, staying at number one in the UK for three weeks and being top ten in the US. The album produced four massive hit singles: ‘Hold Me Now’, a top-five smash in the UK and the US, ‘Doctor Doctor’, ‘You Take Me Up’, and ‘Sister Of Mercy’.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of ‘Into The Gap’, the album has been remastered at Abbey Road by Frank Arkwright and will be reissued as a comprehensive 3-CD set featuring new sleevenotes with interviews with all three band members, a limited edition red vinyl LP, a digital deluxe version and Dolby Atmos digital and Bluray. David Kosten mixed the Dolby Atmos version.

In the 40 years since their commercial peak, Thompson Twins have finally been recognised as quiet visionaries. The band was multi-gender and multiracial, taking on Middle Eastern and Jamaican influences and melding them with cutting-edge technology alongside producer Alex Sadkin (Grace Jones, Robert Palmer, Bob Marley And The Wailers) at the famous Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas.

After an early seven-piece version of the band dissolved, the remaining threesome, Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway, recorded the groundbreaking ‘Quick Step & Side Kick’ album, which broke the top 40 in the US and reached number 2 in the UK. Remarking on the time Tom Bailey remembers “We were no longer a band, Instead, we were designers of pop music. We divided ourselves so that Alannah wrote our lyrics, I wrote our music and Joe, who had come from the theatre, was in charge of our live side, working with Alannah on how we presented ourselves visually.”

The shift to a trio also meant a change in sound, looking back Alannah says ‘The whole reason we were able to make those tracks was because we discovered the synthesiser and drum machine so suddenly we were able to make big sounding records with only three of us in the studio. Marrying traditional instruments and percussion with big synth sounds to get the human warmth with cool machines was what we aimed for. We were constantly accused of it not being ‘real music’, especially in America, because we rejected the who concept of rock and roll and guitars in favour of synthesisers and percussion.”

Tom notes that Alannah’s lyrics were key in making the music resonate “Alannah writing the lyrics was a gift for making our music universal. The words had to mean something to me, but they also had to mean something to the person you don’t know who’s dancing on a Saturday night. Alannah’s lyrics fitted how she was thinking and how I performed. I was able to fully inhabit her ideas.” Joe Leeway also recognises Alannah’s trailblazing spirit “Things are done differently now. All the way up to Doja Cat, women have their own audiences and their own authority. Generations now don’t remember how different it was. I learned a lot from Alannah, who brought a lot about respect for women in a male-dominated world. Alannah writing our lyrics was part of that.”

Once the album was completed, Thompson Twins took to the road In support of the album. The band toured the US extensively, playing their own shows and massive stadiums in support of The Police. All of the trio’s hard work paid off in the USA in 1984 when ‘Into The Gap’ entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #10, and the band, including two future members of The Cure, played a 50-date tour, including sold-out shows at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

There would be further highs in the band’s career, including having Madonna and Nile Rodgers perform with them at Live Aid and the underrated ‘Here’s To Future Days’ album, but ‘Into The Gap’ was the moment that Thompson Twins captured the Zeitgeist on two continents. It was a very long way from the squat in Clapham, London, where the band had formed just seven years earlier. To bring the album full circle, Tom Bailey has recently toured the world playing the album in full to rapturous audiences eager to hear these classic songs live once more.

The post THOMPSON TWINS ‘INTO THE GAP’ – 40th ANNIVERSARY appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

PlayStation has just shared details on Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered

Insights from the developers include details on improvements in visual quality for foliage and environment, enhancements to the living world, improvements to terrain with assets used from Horizon Forbidden West, over 10 hours of additional motion-capture data for characters, as well as updates to lighting.

If you’re already a PlayStation player or PC gamer you may be familiar with Nixxes as the developer behind PC ports of PlayStation games, but behind the scenes, they have also been hard at work on a project of a very different nature. Working closely with their friends at Guerrilla, they set out to create Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered for both PS5 and PC.

In last month’s announcement they shared details of improved features and technology, such as the completely revamped sound mix by Guerrilla’s audio team, support for DualSense controllers, and new motion capture for conversations. Now they are introducing us to some of the team members at Nixxes to give you more insight into some of the enhancements that have been made in the remaster.

Foliage plays a big role in portraying the lush, overgrown ruins of a long-lost civilization in the world of Horizon. Their team of Environment Artists considered the foliage in Horizon Zero Dawn to be an industry standard, and Horizon Forbidden West added to that with significant improvements in visual quality. For the remaster, the team wanted to give the foliage the same care and attention.

Patrick Blankenzee, Senior Environment Artist: “To bring the foliage in the remaster up to the same level of quality as in Horizon Forbidden West, we enhanced the shaders, textures, geometry and foliage interaction. We assessed all the foliage assets in Horizon Zero Dawn and upgraded them with all these new features. We did this for hundreds of plants, bushes, flowers and trees.”

“We looked at the biomes in the original game and compared them to the concept art. We found places that we could enhance and bring closer to the original intent, with the rainforest biome being a good example of this. With powerful procedural technology, we injected new foliage and raised the quality and density to new heights. The riverbanks have also been upgraded with more biodiversity to bring them closer to the original intention as seen in the concept art.”

Julian Hofman, Environment Artist: “Working with the original team over at Guerrilla, we were able to ask questions, and directly compare their latest work on Horizon Forbidden West to the work we were doing for the remaster. This gave us some very specific goals to work towards, like the fresh generation of moss that you can now see in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.”

“For me, the foliage changes make the game feel more alive and make it live up to the incredibly high standards of the Horizon games. The result is a coherent world to replay or experience for the first time.”

The Design team at Nixxes made several key improvements to Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. One of the most significant changes is the enhancement of the living world.

Brian van Nunen, Senior Technical Game Designer: “To achieve this, we reviewed all villages, outposts and cities, identifying areas that felt empty or where we could improve realism and immersion.”

“Building the game for PS5 allowed us to leverage the increased amount of memory available, enabling us to significantly boost the number of non-player characters. We added many more places for NPCs to stand, sit, work and fulfill their needs. We gave them more varied schedules to increase movement and liveliness in different areas. We also tried to make creative use of existing animations. For example, there is now a woman feeding geese at the well in Meridian, reusing an existing sowing animation. Additionally, on the bridge to Meridian, we’ve made significant strides in improving the atmosphere and sense of activity.”

The Tech Art team used the library of next-gen materials that were created for Horizon Forbidden West to enhance the quality of assets used for terrain, objects and buildings significantly in the remaster.

Sander Bronkhorst, Senior Technical Artist: “We began by replacing all the Horizon Zero Dawn terrain materials with their new Horizon Forbidden West counterparts. This was only the first step, as the sequel’s terrain materials didn’t always align with the original aesthetics. To address this, we carefully tweaked and polished each individual terrain material to closely match the look and feel of the original game, while maintaining the visual fidelity of the terrain materials in Horizon Forbidden West.”

“Another aspect of the upgrades to the game environment in the remaster is Building Blocks. To give a bit of context here: Building Blocks are the individual assets that are used for set dressing the world of Horizon Zero Dawn. Think of objects like rocks, plants, utensils and even buildings.”

“Building Blocks can be divided into two categories: natural and man-made. For both types, we increased the resolution of the textures and adjusted the level of detail (LOD) ranges to ensure higher mesh fidelity.”

“We performed a separate pass on all the man-made Building Blocks, creating new high-resolution geometry for assets that would benefit from this. We found that buildings greatly benefited from having more detailed geometry, as most were using brick-like textures on the walls without the shape of the bricks being reflected in the geometry.”

“To address this, we developed custom tools for generating more detailed geometry for these buildings. The artists used these tools to create new geometry, then manually tweaked and adjusted each individual building for the best visual result.”

A big change in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is the addition of over 10 hours of additional motion-capture data for characters, directed and captured by Guerrilla at their motion Capture Stage in Amsterdam, making the game’s conversations much livelier and in line with those in Horizon Forbidden West. Implementing this additional data was handled by our technical artists and animators.

Mark Bazelmans, Senior Technical Artist: “Horizon Zero Dawn has almost 300 conversations and well over 3100 dialogue options, so we needed to find a way to easily integrate this huge number of updated animations into the conversations. We created a tool with Python to process the almost 2500 mocap files that Guerrilla provided to replace the original animation in the conversations, removing deprecated events and replacing those with the mocap and setup.”

“We then focused on creating a pipeline in Maya for our animators to easily load, edit and re-export the individual mocap files for any other edits that were needed, such as finger animation, art direction feedback and fixes. Animators could select the conversation and subsequent dialogue option from a list which created the scene from scratch, or simply opened it if it already existed. Our tool referenced the characters and imported the dialogue audio, so the animators could time the movement better and create the camera cuts and layout. Later, we extended this pipeline to also include existing animations for both conversations and cinematics, as some of these also required edits. Our animators could then go into Guerrilla’s DECIMA engine and edit or change the updated conversation.”

Alexander Georgiev, Animator: “Since all mocap footage comes from actors with different height or gender, there was a lot of data that needed to be covered and checked. For example, characters looking up or down too much, shoulders not matching the rest of the pose, arms clipping through clothing and fingers that are too static.”

“To solve this efficiently, we created tools to help us. With these tools we visualised helpers that brought a closer connection between working in Maya and the DECIMA engine. One example was that we could not see the eyes moving the same way as in the DECIMA engine, as that was a complex, automated system. With the toolset we created a head and eye aim helper that made it clearer where the characters were looking, and with that we knew how much we should adjust the head of a certain character.”

“We made small, automated scripts to fix shoulders and arms clipping. All these tools gave the animators a way to focus more on enhancing the acting of the characters to support what they want to say. By developing these tools, we created a strong workflow and were able to significantly speed up our iteration time per conversation.”

Mark Bazelmans, Senior Technical Artist: “Alongside the updated body animation, new facial animations were captured for the conversations. Initially, this was deemed a straightforward ‘overwrite and replace’, but after seeing some of the results we decided to build a pipeline to be able to edit the updated facial animations.”

“We created tools in Maya that could process a facial animation file in proprietary format into a Maya scene with literally a talking head including audio. We also wrote our own exporter that could then export a Maya scene back to the same proprietary format.”

“Next to updating the animations in conversations, we did a pass on the camera and lighting setup for both conversations and cinematics. For the cameras, we batch updated the camera setup and values. In most conversations, the automated pass didn’t quite give the desired result because the contrast between the original movement and the new mocap was too big. The new body animations allow broader movements, often leading to characters stepping out of frame or being completely offscreen. Therefore, a manual pass was done by our Camera Layout Artists, aided by our custom DECIMA tools to easily edit cameras and settings.”

“We updated the lighting toolset to be closer to that in Horizon Forbidden West, which allows for editing settings of character and environment lighting across similar shots using a visual representation of shots. Lighting was controlled by a single setup for each character in a conversation that would apply to all dialogue options in a conversation. Then our lighting artists could do their magic on a particular shot type and all similar shots of that character would be lit the same, with of course room to edit individual shots if needed. This way lighting had maximum control with as little tweaks as possible.”

The work for world lighting and cinematic lighting was divided between Guerrilla and Nixxes Lighting artists, with Guerrilla providing direction and technical support. The Atmospherics team at Guerrilla recreated the sweeping cloudscapes from Horizon Zero Dawn in the new Nubis cloud system from Horizon Forbidden West. The cherry on the cake was the creation of the set piece volcano cloud in the Frozen Wilds expansion, using a combination of the latest innovations in voxel cloud rendering, first pioneered in the Burning Shores expansion for Horizon Forbidden West, and traditional particle VFX.

It was important to retain the strong mood lighting in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, ensuring a seamless transition when playing both games back-to-back. Nixxes’ Senior Lighting Artists Myvanwy Broers, Niels Iburg, and Lighting Artist Thomas Schrama talk about their approach and workflow: “A lot of the world lighting had to be rebalanced or re-lit from scratch to reach the same mood and to bring it in line with the slightly updated art direction. Horizon Forbidden West has some workflow improvements that we used for the remaster, making the process quite enjoyable!”

“To use the improved features to their fullest potential, we revised all the atmospherics settings that control the biomes within the game world. This included changing the light intensities to Physically Based Rendering values. This is true for the sun and the moon itself, but also detailed lighting in areas such as caves and ruins that players can explore. Think of fog, the colour of the sun, glow intensities and so forth.”

“This meant that after rebalancing the light intensities into PBR, it was necessary to relight entire areas to create the best visual fidelity possible. It was a joy to revisit these iconic environments to do so!”

“To speed up our workflow, we used Guerrilla’s prefab system – an object which contains geometry, particles, sound, and lights that we can place anywhere. All these assets exist as referenced content within a prefab, which means that if the value of a torch light needs adjustment, this will simultaneously happen for every torch in the world. This enables large scale changes and high iteration speed.”

“Light bakes are an important aspect of the lighting – a system that is versatile enough for each time of day, yet providing the detailed light bounce that Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered needs. The quality of such bakes is adjustable per volume that we set as lighters, which is great when we require the light bounce to be more detailed in an area without affecting the rest. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered uses the improved baking system from Horizon Forbidden West, resulting in at least twice as much detail in the light bounce compared to the original.”

“With lighting in cinematics and conversations, we wanted to match the art direction and visual quality of Horizon Forbidden West. This, combined with all updated animations, motion-capture and camera shots, meant we built all the cinematic lighting in the remaster from scratch. We used a lot of new technology and workflow that was created for the cinematic lighting in Horizon Forbidden West.”

“Horizon Zero Dawn used a lighting rig around each character with roughly two lights. For the remaster we used the upgraded lighting rig from the sequel, which uses five lights in total: one key-light, two profile-lights and two rim-lights. These lights are then tweaked on a per shot basis changing position, orientation, colour and intensity.”

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered features significant upgrades to character models and how they react to lighting. Many enhancements in areas such as detail, skin tones, hair quality, and outfits have been carried over from Horizon Forbidden West.

Patrick Blankenzee, Senior Environment Artist: “Working on the varied cast of characters in the remaster was a big undertaking. We enhanced various shaders to improve the visual quality and made changes to ensure the models react better to the new lighting in the remaster. We gave Aloy’s model – both adult and child – the full cinematic treatment, including peach fuzz, upgrades to hair, eyes and materials.”

“We looked at the original concept art of Aloy as a child and aimed to make changes to her outfit, hair and skin, to match the look envisioned in the concept art, as well as bring the model up to par with the quality of the improved model for adult Aloy.”

“In Horizon Zero Dawn, only the character model for Aloy reacts to environmental elements like weather. For the remaster we wanted to give all companion characters the same level of interaction to bring that cinematic feel to the whole world. For example, you will now see both Aloy and her companions react to warm and cold weather.”

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is available for pre-order now and launches on 31st October, 2024 on PS5 and 1st November 2024 on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store).

The post Deep Dive into Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Everyone’s favourite zombie paradise action game, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, hits store shelves with a physical release this coming November for console.

Additionally, the game’s developers showcased an array of content from the remaster like quality-of-life improvements, new features to spruce up in-game photos, and deeper introductions to some of the characters.

Brought back to life with Capcom’s RE ENGINE, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is the definitive remaster of the classic Dead Rising game from 2006, with improved 4K resolution graphics and a 60 FPS frame rate. Zombie slayers can experience a fresh take on the zombie genre with incredible action, over-the-top combat, hordes of weapon choices, eccentric costumes, and a comedic yet compelling storyline.

Some of the additional details include improvements such as the ability to complete certain actions while talking on the transceiver and uninterrupted calls, even when being attacked, various photo filters like Black and White, Sepia, Vintage, Pixel Art, and more have been added to the game’s photo feature so players can flex their creative muscle as the best zombie-hunting photojournalist in the business

And you’ll be able to take a deeper look into some of the returning fan-favourite characters like the militaristic Brad Garrison, the new Department of Homeland Security agent Jessie McCarney, and the tight-lipped Russell Barnaby, plus some of the lovely Psychopaths like the Convicts, Steven Chapman, and Larry Chiang!

Make this action-packed sandbox your own as you escape the madness of Willamette Parkview Mall, rescue survivors and use almost any object you come across as a weapon in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, releasing physically on 8th November, 2024 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

The post Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster this November appeared first on Shane the Gamer.