These 7 games need a remaster, and they need it now

We live in the age of the remaster. From classics of yesteryear, to games that are only five years old, to games you barely remember releasing the first time, it seems that these days almost anything is ripe to return in shinier, cleaned-up, modernised form.

And yet… there are still some conspicuous absences in the crowd of remasters.

In many cases, the games that seem like they would most benefit from a remaster are the ones that lay fallow, while their devotees continue trying to convince people to download a fan patch and 12 mods just to get the original running in a respectable state.

While it's not within my ability to grant justice to these overlooked examples, I at least hold the power to put the most deserving in a list on PC Gamer. So without further ado, these are the seven games I think are most in need of a fresh spit-and-polish for the modern era.

And if you think I've left out an obvious classic, let me know in the comments.

Fallout: New Vegas

Released: 2010
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

A one-of-a-kind RPG whose depth of player agency, quality of writing, and creative world-building are still a cut above to this day. It's the best and most interesting Fallout game, which is reason enough to give it a second life.

But it would also benefit hugely from exactly the kinds of improvements a remaster is able to make. Clean up its two major flaws—its bugginess and its muddy visuals—and it'd go from a 10/10 to an 11/10.

Could it happen? Maybe! The recent Oblivion remaster has been a huge success—it's hard to imagine Bethesda will stop there when it comes to plundering the back catalogue. I would guess it won't be high up the list, however. Bethesda has always seemed to give preference to the Fallouts developed in-house over New Vegas (developed by Obsidian).

Dragon Age: Origins

Released: 2009
Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Electronic Arts

The best Dragon Age game, and the way it combines old school RPG sensibilities with more modern cinematic storytelling only feels more relevant to me than ever in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 world. With The Veilguard taking the series in such a different direction, I'd love to see the first game return for those of us who prefer its darker tone, more nuanced moral choices, and tactical combat.

Graphical tweaks would be the main benefit of a remaster. The visuals do show their age a bit these days—more detailed faces and environments would go a long way to enhancing the game's story. I'd also love to see a visual overhaul of the game's various armours and robes. Such iconic characters deserve to look a bit less silly while they're saving the world. Maybe it could even fix the weird dog collars on the rogues.

Unfortunately, despite the entire Mass Effect trilogy receiving a loving remaster only a few years ago, a remaster of Origins is apparently unlikely because there's not enough people left at BioWare who understand the engine it was built on. Hmm.

Black & White

Released: 2001
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Electronic Arts

Peter Molyneux's wild promises aside, Black & White is a fascinating god game. Revolving around your relationship not just with your worshippers, but with a giant, independently intelligent animal that serves as your avatar in the world, it's compelling and brilliantly ambitious—if sometimes confusing and frustrating.

It's very difficult to actually go back to in 2025. It's not on Steam or GOG, and there's no official way to run it on modern hardware—piracy and fan mods are your only real option. A remaster could make it easily available again.

And while we're wishlisting, maybe it could tweak the creature AI to make your avatar's behaviour a bit more predictable—or at least tutorialise it better so it's clearer how to go about influencing it.

The sequel, Black & White 2, is just as unavailable and perhaps even more deserving of another chance, given its shift towards the more-popular-than-ever city-builder genre. It'd definitely benefit from some visual tweaks, too—at least turn that bloom effect down a bit, yeah?

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Released: 2004
Developer: Troika Games
Publisher: Activision

I'm not sure there's a better example to be found of a game that's simultaneously a landmark classic everyone should try, and a complete mess that's an absolute nightmare to actually play in 2025.

Despite being buggy, half-finished, and featuring one of the worst sewer levels in gaming, Bloodlines is an incredible RPG sandbox, full of fascinating characters and nuanced encounters, both of which you can interact with in a remarkable amount of different ways depending on your choices. Even the type of vampire you pick for your character at the start of the game can radically change how the adventure plays out.

Bloodlines would be the ideal candidate for a very extensive remaster. Clean up the technical issues, restore some of the cut content, improve the combat and overall playability, and maybe trim down that sewer level. It wouldn't be easy, but a polished, modern version of the game would be a remarkable thing.

No One Lives Forever

Released: 2000
Developer: Monolith ProductionsPublisher: Fox Interactive

This cheeky spy parody has long been tangled in one of the most complicated rights disputes in the industry, preventing it even being available in any form these days, let alone remastered. And man, what a lame reason that is for the world to be deprived of such a fun, creative FPS.

Released not long after Half-Life, NOLF was once considered very much in the same league, and its focus on stealth and gadgets nudges it into the early immersive sim genre. Combine that with a really fun, funny story (clearly inspired as much by Austin Powers as '60s spy movies) and the result is a deeply charming game that deserves better than being lost to time.

Outside of just making the game available and easy to run on modern hardware, a remaster could be a pretty light touch. The colourful visuals hold up well—just some sharpening up of the textures would go a long way. Beyond that, an alternate control scheme mapped to the assumptions of a modern FPS player is probably all it would need.

There is a sliver of hope, at least. In March 2025, Stephen Kick—head of Nightdive, the studio behind remasters of Star Wars: Dark Forces, System Shock 2, The Thing, and more—told VGC he was optimistic about resolving the rights issues and making a NOLF remaster. Keep everything crossed.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2

Released: 2004
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: LucasArts

While a remake of the first game exists in permanent development hell, it's really the sequel that would benefit most from a second chance.

Like Bloodlines, KOTOR 2 is brilliant but unfinished. Its story—a clever exploration of the nature of morality in a universe defined by the battle between the Light Side and the Dark Side—is one of the best ever told in the Star Wars setting, and as relevant as ever with the franchise back in the spotlight. But it's also simply missing large chunks of content needed to connect parts of those stories together, and particularly the third act is full of frustrating gaps and dropped plot threads.

A careful remaster restoring some of that cut content (as some notable fan mods have done) and perhaps finding better ways to smooth over the gaps that still remain could feel like a whole new game—and perhaps even help kickstart the reintroduction of the Old Republic era into Disney's modern canon?

Freedom Force

Released: 2002

Developer: Irrational Games

Publisher: Electronic Arts

One of the first games developed by Irrational (they of System Shock 2 and BioShock), this wonderfully quirky superhero strategy game seems to have been largely forgotten. Though it is available on Steam, good luck getting it running properly on a modern operating system.

Between its wonderfully earnest Silver Age comic-style story and its surprisingly challenging real-time tactical missions, it's a game that's long held a special place in my heart—so it saddens me to see it left behind.

I particularly love its wide and wacky roster of enemies. Far too many modern superhero games just throw waves of generic robots or aliens at you, but in Freedom Force you have to fight snowmen, dinosaurs, mafiosos, giant ants, fairies, minotaurs, Soviet agents, and more. That's the kind of creativity and fun I want from the genre.

What would be really exciting is if a remaster embraced user-made content. The game includes both a level editor and a system for creating your own superheroes—with an easy way to share and download that content, it could become an endless stream of new whizz-bang adventures. Throw Steam Workshop support in there too for some unlicensed Spider-Men and Batmen and we'd really be in business.