New data shows how much more popular remakes are compared to remasters, and why they’ll always be relatively rare.

One common critique of modern video game trends is the industry’s obsession with remakes and remasters. This isn’t necessarily a new idea though and dates back as far as the 90s, with examples like the Super Mario All-Stars collection on the SNES.

However, they’ve definitely become increasingly popular with publishers in recent years. This year alone has seen full remakes of Metal Gear Solid 3 and the first two Dragon Quest games, as well as remasters of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and even the bad Tomb Raider games.

Some decry this overreliance on nostalgia, rather than focusing on entirely original experiences, but the reality is that these remakes and remasters are a hit with customers. Especially the former, with consumer spending now more than double that of remasters.

This is according to research conducted by analytics firm Ampere Analysis, which looked over global spending on remakes and remasters throughout 2024 and 2025.

Altogether, remakes and remasters released from January 2024 to September 2025 have attracted 72.4 million players and made over $1.4 billion (£1.07 billion) in both premium sales and in-game monetisation.

For whatever reason, this only covers releases on PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam, so the figures stand to be even higher if data from Nintendo Switch and other PC storefronts like the Epic Games Store were included.

Ampere doesn’t provide a full list of which games it sampled but did note that it checked 42 games in total – 15 remakes and 27 remasters.

On average, remakes generate 2.2 times more spending than remasters, as evidenced by the chart below. There, you can see most remasters tend to peak around $20 million, while bigger name remakes like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth reach upwards of $120 million.

Ampere only names a handful of the games it sampled (Ampere)

The one exception to the rule is The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, which thoroughly stomped the competition. Microsoft never shared sales figures, but Ampere has determined it’s made upwards of $180 million.

If anything can be taken away from this, it’s that you’re only going to see even more remakes and remasters out of publishers in the future. In fact, last we checked, 2026 is set to have at least seven remakes already, including ones for Halo, Dragon Quest 7, and Yakuza 3.

Remasters, though, will always outweigh remakes in terms of sheer quantity, since they’re easier and cheaper to make.

Despite even some industry figures managing to mix up the two terms somtimes, a remake is an entirely new game, built from the ground-up, that’s made merely to resemble the original – either exactly or relatively loosely.

Remasters are basically just fancy re-releases, that touch up the visuals (primarily resolution and frame rate) and add in a few modern quality of life touches, and maybe a bit of extra content and some new textures.

‘As games and IP development costs escalate, publishers deciding between a full remake versus a remaster have to balance franchise planning, investment risk, age of content, platform support, and more when choosing which route to take,’ concludes Ampere.

Over the years, the line between remake and remaster has become somewhat blurred. 2022’s Crisis Core: Final Fantasy Reunion, for example, is billed as a remaster yet features a lot of new graphics and voice acting, as opposed to just upscaling the original game.

More recently, Yooka-Replaylee – an updated version of 2017’s Yooka-Laylee – was described by developer Playtonic Games as a ‘remakester’ in an interview with Gamer Social Club: ‘It’s… a more hybrid approach that goes beyond being a remaster but not quite legally or morally classed as being a complete remake either.’

Not a remake, not a remaster, but a secret third thing (Playtonic Games)

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