Beyond the Remake of 'Shadow of the Colossus': A Technical Perspective

In this 2019 GDC session, Bluepoint Games’ Peter Dalton will pull back the curtain on the process of remastering, refurbishing, and remaking classic games-from the ‘God of War Collection’ to ‘Shadow of the Colossus.’
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[@keiyangoshin3650]

Shadow of the Colossus was, and still is a gem, a masterpiece of video games. When I played it in PS2 all those years ago I was blown away by the beauty of it, the poetry of that empty land. My favourite moments were ridding the horse, not the killing. While playing it, I quickly understood the somber undertone of the game and the wrongness of what the main character was doing. It was the first time a game didn’t have a happy ending. It was ahead of it’s time. Needless to say it was worthy of a remake. This video was a very interesting insight into how studios ‘recreate’ old games. Bottom line, don’t change the what made the game good in the first place. The formula for success doesn’t seem to be applied by all studios sadly.

[@CITIZENACTUAL]

Love the Digital Foundry shoutout.

[@lucbloom]

Great talk! Never seizes to amaze me how low level you can go when the need arises. Working for many years in a casual game studio in a small team, I almost forget how fun it can be to get insanely technical. The old one had the advantage of being low res and low poly + TV scanline blur; there can be such a thing as “too much detail”, revealing things like intersection lines and making things more crisp and plastic overall, instead of perceiving things as “messy” and “organic”

[@UliTroyo]

What a cool problem space! All the best and most frustrating bits of working on other people's code and asset pipeline idiosyncrasies WHILE preserving the passion and intent of the original project. This talk was a lot of fun!

[@JoNarDLoLz]

This game on 60fps is a blessing. It was too ahead of it's time that PS2 would shit it's bricks occasionally.

[@alibektas8934]

Shadow of the Colossus is what I would call a Revelation in Gaming History. Truly groundbreaking.

[@mattcy6591]

Wish they still kept the mist that added to the scale of the creatures

[@macedhx]

what do you mean?

[@Arman-ol3iy]

These days I'm trying to get all coins for the first time, it's been a challenge. Colossus 15 has one that can't be collected in reminiscence mode, so I have to beat the game again. I'm enjoying it so much, just as when I played it on PS2.

[@timmadone8930]

The gold coin collecting is quite challenging. I spent around 200 hours trying to find them all. At the end of the day I found 74 of them on my own. Right now I'm in the process of trying to find all 60 gold totems in "Praey For The Gods". At the moment I've spent 78 hours exploring the map & have found 56 totems so far. While it can be very time consuming, it feels so much more rewarding when you find things on your own without looking them up.

[@timmadone8930]

Hopefully this let's anyone know that didn't already know, just how much goes into a making a game. Peter if you're reading this, thanks for all you & your team has done over the years. Now...can we please have a remake of "ICO"? Thanks :)

[@holyboy1]

@timmadone8930 THIS

[@drd7of14]

Fun being in the future knowing what game he was referring to but couldn't say. Makes a lot of sense being in the know for Demon's Souls

[@Kabodanki]

DS remake is one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen, these guys are not only good at code but also art.

[@mo-zh2mf]

I hop in as soon as I see SOTC a true masterpiece and remain my favorite game till date the and the remake is just perfect.

[@jesustyronechrist2330]

You'll notice pattern with these studios that create amazing games with ridiculous visuals: Technical knowledge and skills. So much effort is put into the actual programming and computer science aspect of these games so they can give their artists the leeway to do more ambitious stuff.

[@mycollegeshirt]

jeez didn't know how important this talk would be. Holy Shit.

[@dennisferron8847]

Wow! If only every software development shop approached their work with this kind of forethought and care!

[@Dante3085]

Very good talk.

[@macedhx]

are you guys building Ico from the ground up?

I hope your next project is the original Tomb Raider trilogy remaster/remake. Good show!

[@WandersFactory]

Data mining the PS4 version gave the a lot of information with test stages from the artbook

[@Freelancer837]

No way, the GDC video of it? Maybe this will give good insight on why the remake sucks. Maybe even why ALL of Bluepoint's games are terrible! So glad to have this perspective.

[@heyjakeay]

I miss the old in-person talks

[@42vr2dc23ggg]

shoutout to Digital Foundry!

[@Kabodanki]

GIVE THEM BLOODBORNE lol, they are the only people on this earth capable of doing this game justice

[@Rydn]

Whats that glorious music at 4:00? Anyone knows?

[@Jaikhay231]

Swift horse from Shadow of the Colossus

[@timmadone8930]

Once you beat the game for the first time ( or for the first time on a new save file ), you'll get a few messages after the end credits have finished. These messages basically let you know that you've now unlocked some new features. This music plays during those messages. Also I believe it plays ( again only during your first playthrough ) when Agro runs around if you wait too long on the main menu screen.

[@Rydn]

@@Jaikhay231 Thank you

[@Rydn]

@@timmadone8930 Thanks!

[@pmarreck]

Port it to PC please

[@timmadone8930]

This is my 2nd time watching/listening to this. I just like to be reminded how complex all of this is. It certainly makes one appreciate a game more when you have some knowledge of everything needed to bring a game to life. While "Beyond The Forbidden Lands" is still in the works, I'm really hoping a director's cut/definitive edition of "S.O.T.C." comes out for PS5 in 2025 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this masterpiece.

[@durgayadav3075]

old memory

[@RyanDesmond]

Isn't it cool that the point of the story and the game mechanic are the same in this game? It's about a dude that won't accept the fact that his love is dead. He won't let go of her. He's holding on. How do you beat a Colossus? You hold on and you don't let go.

[@macedhx]

how our framerate and frame pacing must be perfect or digiital foundry will call us out hahahahahaha

[@Mike-uk2oq]

36:22 Your program seems to be ill-formed, as you define the new/delete replacement functions as `inline`.

[@Bestmann3n]

I prefer the original. In fact I don't think any of these remakes improve on the original games. Just like Lucas didn't improve the original star wars movies by messing with them. I know it's just business for these companies, but at least provide proper ports on modern hardware so that people like me who want to play the original games today and in the future can do so without having to resort to piracy.

[@josepht5160]

That is literally what he says in the talk, their intentions were never to improve upon the original but to maintain the same feel and improve upon the graphics and remove the jank if any. Going so far as to first getting the original code base running on new hardware.

[@raveoreynolds6049]

@@josepht5160 They still took numerous creative liberties with it. Imo either port the game or remake it. Don't do their weird in-between shit.

[@Bestmann3n]

​@@josepht5160 I've played the remake as well as the original. I don't need to hear them talk about intentions to know that the games aren't the same. And I don't think the graphics are better, just like I don't think 8-bit games look better when they are "refurbished" either.

[@schwajj]

@@Bestmann3n nothing wrong with feeling that way, it’s great that you can appreciate the originals. At the same time you should realize that you’re in the minority. Especially, a young audience with ps5 as their first system would find the low resolutions and frame rates of the original to be very off putting.

[@Bestmann3n]

​@@schwajj Isn't it sad that people talk like that about games, but they probably wouldn't about movies, or music? I guess we have movie remakes, but at least I can go out and buy all the old classics and play them on a modern av system. The gaming industry as a whole, consumers included, have a very short sighted and consumption oriented view on and relationship with their heritage and history. Anyway I'm ok with remakes existing even if I dislike them. I'm just saying please give us a port of the original as well.

[@EyesOfByes]

Psst.... Jacksepticeye explicitly asked for a Bloodbourne 60fps remaster. He also guessed it's already in development though 😁 So Bluepoint, get on it!

[@Z-713]

this talk is from 3 years ago

[@Un4GivNX]

Hard to watch as half of the slides feel like a sales pitch meeting for their BP engine.

[@Allyouknow5820]

And even if it was the case? They're better than any shit you'd be doing, ever.

[@RookieAlert]

QUICK, somebody @Jacksepticeye