Shadow of the Colossus Remake Developers Discuss the New Version
A recently posted video on the PlayStation channel features the people of Bluepoint Games discussing the Shadow of the Colossus remake. In the video, the developers discuss the pressure of remaking such a classic game, and how they pulled it off. For example, they used the base geometry of the original as a framework for the visual update that they made.
When it was announced that Shadow of the Colossus was getting a ground-up remake, I and many others were a little bit skeptical. Sure, the game already got a visual update for the PlayStation 3, but that wasn’t anything nearly as radical as what Bluepoint Games was going to do. Shadow of the Colossus is perfect to me; I don’t like it when people mess with it. Now that I have played the remake, I know better, and Bluepoint Games have done an incredible job. But, have I seen this dev diary video, I would’ve known that SOTC was in good hands.
The first thing that becomes apparent in the video is that Bluepoint’s team was very much aware of the importance of their task. They were working on a cult classic. Shadow of the Colossus is an important part of gaming history, often seen as one of the main arguments that video games can be art. Remaking it for the new console generation while keeping everything that made it so special intact is a lot of pressure. Bluepoint understood exactly what made Shadow of the Colossus the legend that it is, and they did their best to keep it that way.
First off, they made sure they kept the environment and atmosphere of the original game. They did so by building the remake using the base geometry of the original as framework. From there, they built a “larger, more filled-out world.” Additionally, they payed special attention to the colossi, both visually and in terms of gameplay. The colossi have so much detail on them, and yet, the collision detection works perfectly. There’s more to it, of course. But, the video really demonstrates that the people from Bluepoint truly understand what makes Shadow of the Colossus the unique experience that it is.
