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Throughout 2014, the number of remasters often felt like it was going to topple the number of new games. It was likely always going to be the way as the new consoles found their feet - as publishers realised the huge investment required in building these ever more opulent worlds, and as it dawned upon them it's probably best they went and applied a bit of spit and polish to a select few of the older ones in order to have something to put on the shelves. It helped, too, that both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One lacked backwards compatibility - damming up one area to open a nice, easy revenue stream for Sony, Microsoft and various other publishers. It wasn't just a straight shot of cynicism, though - and some of 2014's best experiences were to be found in revisiting old favourites from new, technologically empowered places.
Grand Theft Auto 5, one of the greatest achievements in open-world design on the last generation of hardware, managed to be one of the finest looking games on the current generation thanks to its 1080p re-release, while The Last of Us Remastered offered a welcome chance to return to Naughty Dog's modern classic. Other remasters were just as welcome, even if they didn't have quite the same impact: Square's revival of Spira for Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2, for example, or its impressive re-spec of Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider.
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