Too Many RE-fixes

Understanding remakes, re-releases, remasters, re-imaginings, and reboots using the Resident Evil series as examples

These are five very different phrases that share a same theme of producing something that’s familiar, again.

But each one is vastly different.

REMAKE

Redesigning everything from the ground up while staying mostly faithful to the original.

When you hear “remake”, you should think of Resident Evil 1 “REmake” on Nintendo GameCube.

RE-RELEASE

Selling the same exact thing as it was before, with little to no adjustments, on a new platform or media.

When you hear “re-release”, you should think of RE4’s endless library of ports.

REMASTER

Keeping the core intact but increasing the visual fidelity of something. A remaster can be an extension of a re-release, but a re-release might not be a remaster (e.g. RE4 on PS2).

When you hear “remaster”, you should think of Resident Evil 5 being re-released on Xbox One in 4K HDR.

RE-IMAGINING

Taking inspirations from a source material, but comprehensively improving/changing upon certain core elements to get with the times (usually). The time gap between the original and the re-imagining comes with a leap in culture, technology, and/or look — this influences the modified core elements.

*NOTE* — “Remake” and “re-imagining” are the only two words that can be used interchangeably if and only if both end products are of the same medium (e.g. the Resident Evil: Afterlife movie re-imagines many elements of RE5, but it is not a remake of RE5 game).

When you hear “re-imagining”, you should think of the 2019 release of Resident Evil 2.

REBOOT

Making something that pretends the original never happened, as if to replace the original. A reboot has the potential to be any of the above terms except re-release and remaster.

When you hear “reboot”, you should think of the first two Resident Evil movies that pretend the game series’ story never happened.