Nightdive Studios, the company behind the System Shock remakes and several remasters of classic titles, said it’s open to remastering PS3 and Xbox 360 era games if the source code is still intact. Despite the PS3’s system architecture proving rather difficult to work with when it comes to remastering the older titles, Nightdive’s CEO says the studio can still make it happen.
Nightdive Studios is best known for its work on remastering several retro polygonal games to make them playable on modern hardware, especially with games like Doom 64, Quake and Quake 2, The Thing and the Turok trilogy, among others. However, the studio also worked on the applauded System Shock remake, with the second game’s 25th anniversary remaster arriving this June.
Speaking to Video Games Chronicle in a recent interview, Nightdive studio head Stephen Kick and director of business development Larry Kuperman talked about the possibility of remastering games from the PS3 and Xbox 360 era next, as difficult a task as that may be. “We stand ready,” said. Kuperman.
Kuperman added:
“I would begin asking a couple of questions. Was it Xbox 360 exclusive, or was there a PC version out too? Because that also changes things, the little preservation that’s available. Do we have source code? If so, what’s the quality of the source code? How about the assets? Those are the kinds of considerations that we have there. That being said, there were some really good games that came out in that era that shouldn’t be lost.”
Game preservation seems to be on the minds of Nightdive Studios. In an age where several games are still tied to older consoles rendering them unplayable on modern hardware unless you own the retro console, it’s important to have remasters do the heavy lifting so that modern players can experience those games without having to search for old hardware – especially since most of them are “vintage” and have expensive price tags attached to them.
Source: Video Games Chronicle
