What Is a Video Game Demake?

Summary

Demakes reimagine modern games on old hardware, bringing a retro twist to current titles.
Demakes aren’t always playable titles and may face legal pitfalls due to copyright issues, as was the case with accomplished demake Bloodborne PSX.
Demakes offer a fun nostalgic reimagining of beloved titles, but there are more new games than ever leaning into this retro appeal.

You’ve heard of video game remakes, where old titles are modernized for a new generation of gamers as franchise reboots, but what about demakes?

As the name implies, this exercise in creativity involves imagining what a modern game would look like if it came out in a previous generation, years or decades earlier.

Reimagining New Titles on Older Hardware

Video game demakes are some of the most interesting thought experiments that the medium has to offer. What would your favorite modern game look, play, and sound like if it existed within the confines of the hardware limitations of a bygone era?

The result is a remake in reverse. Rather than taking the bones of an old game and building a modern version around them, complete with modern quality of life improvements and visuals befitting the current-generation of hardware; a demake takes a modern release and reduces it to its most basic and period-appropriate ingredients.

The resulting “game” must then conform to the hardware of the supposed release platform. Whether that means primitive bleeps and boops of a ZX Spectrum, the warping textures of the PlayStation 1, or the monochrome color palette of the original Game Boy.

“Heritage” franchises like Final Fantasy and Super Mario evolved alongside the video game medium and still exist today, helping to establish the “rules” and tropes that helped define generations. Demakes often call on these inspirations to help carve out a visual style or aspects of gameplay like inventory management.

Not All Demakes are Playable

Making video games is hard and time-consuming. Making video game demakes adds another level of complexity in the form of legal complications. While you could technically remake any game you liked and then claim that your work is transformational and covered under Fair Use, there’s always an element of risk when dealing with copyrighted materials.

As an example, a demake of Bloodborne that focused on imagining what the game would have looked like on PlayStation hardware was subject to a copyright claim and is no longer available for download.

As a result, these projects exist mostly as curios, and many of them never see the light of day as a playable game. Many demakes exist only in visual form as still images or rendered videos of what could have been. It’s a chance for dedicated fans, illustrators, and animators to flex their digital chops without committing to a playable project.

That said, there are a handful of very impressive playable demakes created and released for free. Rarely do you get a full-length game out of them, but this is to be expected when you consider that these are passion projects. Since the creators do not own the rights to the intellectual property, charging a fee for them would almost certainly cause the lawyers to come knocking.

Demaking Your Favorite Games

Many beloved modern titles have been given the demake treatment, with projects like Halo 2600 asking what Halo: Combat Evolved would have looked like on the Atari 2600 or the aforementioned Bloodborne PSX reimagining FromSoftware’s beloved Soulsborne game on the original PlayStation.

Dead Space Demake does the opposite of the 2023 remake and instead imagines EA’s survival horror masterpiece on the PS1. Even indie titles get in on the action with Hollow Knight Demake playable in a browser, and The Wit.nes offering a glimpse into what puzzle game The Witness would have been like on original Nintendo hardware.

Perhaps the most reductive remake sees Quake demade as IF Quake, an interactive fiction text adventure. You can find many more playable demakes on the open digital marketplace itch.io, and see more examples, many of which exist purely as artwork, listed on the r/demake subreddit.

The Spirit of Retro Is Alive

These experiments exist as part of a wider movement to embrace the nostalgic and sometimes janky nature of old video games. This hasn’t just happened in the entertainment medium, but it feels like a broader trend. Physical media like CDs and vinyl have experienced a surge in popularity, while kids are flocking to old 2000s-era digital cameras. Even flip phones are cool again.

At the same time, many studios are leaning into the concept of a demake with new games. One recent example of this phenomenon is 2024’s Crow Country, a survival horror game that looks like could have released on the original PlayStation console. The game even controls like it’s sluggish points of inspiration (Resident Evil and Silent Hill).

A few years ago saw the release of A Short Hike, a joyously simple game about climbing a mountain in the style of an old PS1 title (complete with low-resolution graphics). Even platformers like The Messenger and the remarkable popularity of boomer shooters like Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun speak to the trend that what’s old is now cool again.

Believe it or not, there are some things that retro games manage to do better than modern titles like working offline and not requiring hefty patches. While there’s rarely enough to a demake to make for anything more than a simple distraction, there are plenty of reasons to revisit classic retro titles.

The easiest way to do this is via a free emulator like RetroArch, which is easy to get up and running (even on a Steam Deck or an Xbox).