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Above: the original Warcraft II. Below: Chronicles of the Second War, a custom campaign made using Warcraft III:Reforged

A special type of Video Game Remake.

Like a Fan Sequel, a Fan Remake is a (generally freeware) game created by fans of the original game. Unlike a Fan Sequel however, this is an attempt to reproduce a faithful copy of the original game itself.

There are many reasons why fans might opt to do so. The most common reason is to port a game from one system to another (for instance, creating a "Windows-friendly" version originally found on an older operating system or porting from console to PC). Another common scenario involves games that were once popular but are now out of print or difficult to find. Naturally, these two may overlap.

Also like a Fan Sequel, the bane of a Fan Remake is the dreaded cease-and-desist order. Fan Remakes can hinder what a corporation can do with its own remakes, as any new elements in a Fan Remake belong to the fans who wrote it, or severely mess with the story and setting in such a way the company finds unacceptable. However, it's not unheard of for them to get the Approval of God — with Black Mesa, a remake of Valve's Half-Life, likely being the most famous example.

Compare Spiritual Successor.

Note: This doesn't count games where the creator has been granted official access to the source code. Those probably fit better under Game Mod.


General Examples

  • Chronicles of the Second War is a mod for Warcraft III: Reforged retelling the story of the second war.
  • Cracked gives us a rather handy list with 5 Improved Versions of Classic Games That Fans Made For Free
  • The umpteen-million free remakes of games such as Tetris, Pac-Man and Space Invaders. The former in particular is probably the single most remade game in the history of video games, and probably also sees the greatest number of cease-and-desist orders. In 2014, one fan produced a version of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 that looks and plays much more like the original game than the infamous official port from 1982.
  • Some colleges have courses where students must create a Pong game early in the semester. Meaning there are probably more remakes of this game alone than any other (not that many of them get popular).
  • RetroSpec are a group who spent a lot of time recreating old ZX Spectrum and C64 games (their Head over Heels and Wizball are awesome). Although less active now than in the past, in 2010 they released remakes of Knight Lore and the isometric Batman from Ocean (the original was made by the same authors of Head Over Heels).
  • There are many, many remakes of older games based on SMW. Some notable ones include Castlevania Mario Edition and Castlevania Dracula X Remake, TWO remakes of Castlevania: Dracula X using the SMW Engine. Wario Land SNES a full remake of the first Wario Land game and tons and tons of remakes of Super Mario Bros. games in general.
  • The OpenMW team is currently working on an open source remake of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, with some (very long-term) plans to expand towards the other Bethesda/Obsidian Gamebryo/Creation games. It will still require the original's game resources to play Morrowind, but the engine itself could be used freely for total conversion projects.
  • Somewhat similarly, the XL Engine project aims (and has made significant progress towards, releases having occurred) to make an engine that can handle a number of older first-person games, including Dark Forces (the most finished part) and The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (the second most finished part). Just as openmw, it requires the originals' game resources (though Daggerfall is available for free legal download).
  • The Morroblivion project attempted to recreate Morrowind in the The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion engine, while the Skywind and Skyblivion projects by the TESRenewal team are joint efforts to recreate Morrowind and Oblivion in the updated Skyrim engine. A copy of the game being recreated and the game whose engine is being used is required, due to an agreement with Bethseda, who have given the projects the Approval of God.
  • And finally, Daggerfall Unity (TES fans love fan remakes) is an attempt to take The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall and reverse engineer its (now lost to time) source code into the Unity engine. This, among other things, makes the game much more stable, allows the addition of quality of life changes and bug fixes, and, most importantly, adds modding support.
  • Nerves of Steel, a mediocre mid-90s FPS and one of the many Doom clones released at the time, has a remake from the Doom modding community which - according to players of both versions - is actually better than the original.
  • Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 modders have ported a large number of pen-and-paper D&D adventures using the toolsets. They've also written remakes and sequels of CRPGs including Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Icewind Dale, Pool of Radiance, and even Zork (which was never a D&D game to begin with). Baldur's Gate Reloaded received gaming media attention for recreating the entire Baldur's Gate campaign (with the Tales of the Sword Coast North expansion) as a Neverwinter Nights 2 module.

Individual remakes, listed by original game in alphabetic order:

  • The NES game Action 52 has seen new life on the Internet due to its infamy. More recently, it's been given a much kinder treatment in the form of Action 52 Owns, a collaborative effort to remake all 52 games indie-style, which has produced some legitimately good titles: particularly recommended are Streemerz (which even received a 2.5D sequel), Illuminator, Sombreros and especially Non-Human.
  • Advanced Strategic Command is more of a Spiritual Successor to Battle Isle series, but with BI resource mode and a special unitset (Mk4) can more or less emulate these games. Obviously, an original data cannot be attached or converted due to copyright, but ASC source seems to include functions loading Battle Isle 3 maps and working with BI data formats if you already have the game.
  • The Amstrad CPC retrocomputing scene has produced remakes of the CPC versions of Bubble Bobble and R-Type.
  • Assault Suits Valken has gained a Japanese fan remake on PC in the form of Assaults Suits Gunvalken by a team of amateur programmers calling themselves "Robo Action Game VII@2ch". This remake features new mechs to play as, including Leynos from Assault Suits Leynos, Exzas from the PlayStation tactical RPG sequel to Valken, Blodia from Capcom's Armored Warriors and a few others. It also features new weapons and a training mode where players can practice levels with fully-powered weapons.
  • There have been multiple attempts to remake Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, perhaps the most notable is Castlevania II: Dracula's Shadow which added new characters, areas, alchemy, ect. ect. You can get more details by watching this review.
  • Chrono Resurrection was a project for a fan remake of the game Chrono Trigger with 3D graphics. However, near the end of 2004 they received a cease and desist from Square Enix, and were forced to drop the project. Square Enix also issued a cease and desist to the creators of Fan Sequel Crimson Echoes, although copies of a almost completed version can be found online. A modified version of Crimson Echoes called Flames of Eternity can be found here.
  • CP3D was a fan made attempt to envision a Video Game 3D Leap for the flash game, Club Penguin. It opened in 2018 and eventually shut down in 2023, with an offline build currently in development.
  • The original Corpse Party received a fan-made remake made with the RPG Tkool XP program and receiving the permission of the original developers, called Corpse Party -Rebuilt-.
  • Fallout 4: New Vegas is a fan remake of Fallout: New Vegas made within the engine of Fallout 4. The developers behind this project also seek to include content that had been cut from the release of New Vegas.
  • Freeciv and FreeCol, free somewhat extended clones of Civilization and Colonization respectively.
  • Renegade X, a remake of Command & Conquer: Renegade on the Unreal Engine 3. A singleplayer demo was released to show off the new engine and all of the changes made, with the multiplayer in Perpetual Beta but very much playable both on-line and off-line (with bots). Both the singleplayer demo and the multiplayer are free, though the singleplayer one isn't updated anymore.
  • La Cumbia Del Monster is a clone of Dancing Monster made using the Pico-8 fantasy console.
  • Dark Forces - The original Dark Forces remade as a mod for Jedi Academy. The team behind it released two demos, from which the second contains the first six levels of the full game. As of 2012 the mod is de facto dead.
  • Deus Ex has been a long-standing popular game for modders. One group decided to release Deus Ex Revision, which gives the original game updated high definition graphics, textures, characters models, and adds in new ambient sounds to the environments. Unlike Chrono Resurrection listed above, Square Enix endorsed this mod and gave their full support. Players can download Revision on Steam for free, provided they already have the original Deus Ex game.
  • DOOM remakes:
    • Classic DOOM is a mod for Doom³ which is a remake of the shareware Episode 1 of the original DOOM, using the DOOM 3 engine and resources. While gameplay is largely like DOOM 3, it's been heavily tweaked to give it a more classic feel (guns no longer need to be reloaded, the shotgun is no longer a Short-Range Shotgun, imps throw fireballs in a straight line instead of an arc, etc.)
    • DOOM 64 was first recreated as DOOM 64: The Absolution using the Doomsday source port. The creator of it was unsatisfied with the inaccuracies of the port and created an even more faithful recreation called Doom 64 EX. A later updated version of the former called DOOM 64: Retribution would be made to make a slightly more faithful source port while adding in a lot of new features and levels.
    • PlayStation DOOM TC is an attempt to recreate, as faithfully as possible (up to and including intro movies and the small "loading" graphic), the two PlayStation Doom ports as a GZDoom-based mod. Some fans have even recreated the levels that were scrapped from the PlayStation port of DOOM as an add-on, as well as the then Xbox 360-exclusive No Rest for the Living expansion for DOOM II, within the same limitations of the PlayStation version. Other fans have made their own remakes of the PlayStation ports of Doom and the aforementioned Doom 64 as standalone remakes.
    • Both PlayStation DOOM TC and DOOM 64: Retribution would later get massively-overhauled versions under the DOOM CE project. This mod would bring forth even more quality-of-life improvements (such as a weapon wheel, instant melee key and flashlight) and visual/audio tweaks that go above and beyond the previous mods. Customisability is also present for players to go for either a near-perfect accurate recreation of the original console versions, or massively improved versions with features like physically-based rendering, brightmaps, smoother animations, improved decals, widescreen assets (up to ultra-wide 21:9), and restored enemies between all games (such as Arch-Viles), or anything in between. A recent update even added the option to play the PSX games with DOOM 64 graphics. A whole bunch of new maps have also been added for each game, including compatibility with The Lost Levels from the official remaster of DOOM 64. An official DOOM II WAD is required to play PSX DOOM CE and PSX FINAL DOOM CE but DOOM 64 CE requires an install of the DOOM 64 remaster from either Steam, GOG or Epic Games Store, and unlike the other Lost Levels addons for the PSX games, DOOM 64's Lost Levels require them to be extracted from the official remaster's WAD (which you would need to play DOOM 64 CE anyway).
  • Legend of the Double Dragon is a remake of Super Double Dragon/Return of Double Dragon. The game features remixed music, improved gameplay which includes a combo system based on past Double Dragon games and a updated storyline. It would late receive an Updated Re-release called Ultimate Double Dragon.
  • Someone made a much improved version of the infamously bad Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (NES).
  • Manic Miners (not to be confused with Manic Miner, the prequel to Jet Set Willy) is a full remake of Lego's Cult Classic Real-Time Strategy game Rock Raiders. In addition to running on modern hardware and graphical improvements, the remake includes miner customisation, the popular Baz's Mod level pack and makes various quality of life improvments and balance changes.
  • Mother:
    • There was a rather notable attempt to remake EarthBound Beginnings using the graphical and gameplay styles of Mother 3, a la what Oddity (back when it was Mother 4) is doing, called simply "EarthBound Zero Remake". Unfortunately, though, all that ever really came of this was few sprites of the main characters in Mother 3 style, some updated remixes of the songs from the game which are still available on YouTube, and a few long-deleted gameplay videos.
    • One attempt as a Game Mod for EarthBound was originally started by Mother 3 fan translator Tomato, but he later abandoned it and the project was later picked up by another fan, and it is currently still in development.
    • There's also MOTHER: Encore, this one being done with a proper full team behind it, aiming to be more of a reimagining of the original Beginnings rather than being an outright replacement for it. Not only does it feature graphics and the HP odometer mechanic in line with EarthBound and Mother 3, but it's also adding elements from later games that weren't in the original, such as Saturn Valley and Mr. Saturns.
  • Oolite, a remake of the original Elite that's since expanded into more of a Fan Sequel as the community expands on setting details that were previously All There in the Manual.
  • osu! is a PC remake of the Nintendo DS games Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents. With over a quarter of a million players and almost 100 million ranked plays, what more proof does Inis need to see that we want a sequel. And for something incredibly meta, this is a Fan Remake of a Fan Fic on a Fan Remake.
  • Team Avalanche on the Qhimm forums is a group working to update Final Fantasy VII. A demo of the Bombing Mission will be released sometime soon.
  • Final Fantasy Mystic Quest Remastered is an RPG Maker remake/expansion of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest with a slightly expanded storyline, new additions, and a more traditional party setup.
  • FreeSpace Port is, surprisingly, a port of FreeSpace: The Great War on the improved FreeSpace 2 Open engine. The team also has the subproject (it requires the FreeSpace Port) Silent Threat: Reborn, which remakes the Silent Threat expansion (a simple port is part of the FreeSpace Port proper).
  • Ghosts' N Demons is a remake of the Japanese exclusive Makaimura for WonderSwan. The game boasts full-color graphics, new armor forms for Arthur, and an unlockable harder difficulty mode.
  • GoldenEye: Source is a remake of the classic GoldenEye (1997) multiplayer experience in the Source engine.
  • Black Mesa (formerly Black Mesa: Source) is a fanmade rebuild of Half-Life in the Source engine, spurred by disappointment in Half-Life: Source, using almost completely new assets. Valve approved of the rebuild but requested they remove "Source" from the title so it would not be confused for an official release (as well as calling dibs on playing the finished game first). Both the mod and its social media campaign suffered severe Schedule Slip, but the game's stay in Development Hell ended in September 2012 with the release of the portion of the game covering the events in Black Mesa itself. It was such a success and so well received that several of the developers were hired by Valve, and the mod was eventually sold on Steam in Early Access. The Xen part was eventually fully finished and released in December 2019, and the complete game left Early Access in early March 2020. There's also third-party mods for this game, remaking parts of the game that were edited for length, and some cut features.
  • Old (1998) sandbox commercial/scifi flightsim Hardwar was not widely known, but the small fan base it had was ferociously loyal. Once the developers went out of business, and it was clear the source code was lost forever, several projects sprang up to recreate and improve the game from scratch. Sadly, none of them came close to releasing anything but a few proof-of-concept screenshots.
  • Hoshi wo Miru Hito remakes:
    • STARGAZER was the first to be released, and expands on both the plot and characters while simultaneously fixing many issues. Much like its source, it has no official translation.
    • Romancing StellaVisor was the second to be released, and much like STARGAZER, was met with far more approval for completely overhauling the game to make it akin to, as the title suggests, the Romancing SaGa series. Again, it's Japanese-only.
  • After two and a half years of development, the point-and-click remake of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984) was finally released. The dialogue's a little cheesy in places, the graphics are even cheesier in places and the music is a bit weird... so it's pretty much equivalent to the TV miniseries, and thus better than the movie in most fans' eyes. Unlike most Infocom games, there's no chance of a cease-and-desist order from Activision because the game's rights reverted to Douglas Adams years ago, and the game's already been Released For Free twice.
  • King's Quest remakes:
  • Kirby's Dream Land Advance, a remake of Kirby's Dream Land made in the style of the Kirby games on the Game Boy Advance.
  • LISA has a fan mod of The Painful RPG known as LISA: Desolate Expanse. It ends up completely revamping the game, adding extra visual flair and rebalancing/changing many aspects of the game for extra challenge, alongside adding new areas and party members.
  • Figglewatts is working on an HD remake of the Cult Classic PlayStation game LSD: Dream Emulator.
  • The Legend of Zelda remakes:
    • Zelda Classic was a DOS clone of the original The Legend of Zelda. It eventually evolved into an entire program you can use to create entirely new games using the original engine, although the script system lets some people go beyond even that. In turn, countless users made use of an un-password protected version of the first quest included with some earlier versions of the program to create their own first-quest remakes, some merely with updated graphics and sound and others which add new content and puzzles. Most notable of these is DarkFlameWolf's Origin.
    • In the early 2000s, a man named Daniel Barras (who goes by TheRealMethuselah on the internet began work on a project to remake The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in 2D with A Link to the Past-style graphics. Ocarina of Time 2D was for years the poster-boy for Zelda Fan Game Central (ZFGC for short), starting in the forum's early days on E-Z Board and staying with it well into it's transition to Invision and from there to an actual .com address. The project has spawned many imitators, some of which have ascended to being serious undertakings of their own right. As of yet the infamous "Demo 4" of the original (which features playthrough from the beginning to the completion of the first dungeon) has yet to come out, but the project is still going albeit with less steam than before.
    • In November of 2020, amateur game developer Dopply released fan remakes of both Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon for free. These remakes were four years in the making and were made using the original assets to retain the spirit of the original games while also adding quality of life changes to make the games less frustrating, as well as new, unlockable content. Dopply pulled his downloads shortly after they gained traction, as he intended for them to just be learning exercises rather than major projects, and removing them was a good-faith gesture considering how Nintendo usually handles fan games. Both remastered games have been mirrored on sites like Archive.org, however.
    • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link received a remaster by HoverBat. It features several updates to the original game such as widescreen support, all new secrets to find, and improvements to both the map and levels themselves.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX HD was a remake of the Game Boy Color game. It features smoother gameplay and widescreen support among other improvements. Unfortunately Nintendo caught wind of the game and shut it down.
  • Love Is Strange, available here, is a remake of Life Is Strange which jettisons all of the angst and makes it a full-on Romance Game between Max and the girl of her choice.
  • Two of Maniac Mansion: Maniac Mansion Deluxe, a Windows-compatible version with updated graphics and fixed bugs, finished in 2004, and the unfinished Night of the Meteor with more puzzles, more dialogue, more animation, and updated Day of the Tentacle-style graphics.
  • Marathon remakes:
    • Marathon: Aleph One is a ZDoom-style remake/port of the original Marathon to a new engine, allowing the game to be run on modern systems. More accurately it is a fan made update of the Marathon 2 source code, with improved features and ports to platforms other than the "classic" Mac OS (including OS X, which is rather incompatible with it's predecessor). It also includes Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity. Worth noting that this remake is done with complete permission from Bungie, as they made the code open-source years ago, and put Marathon in the public domain sometime after.
    • Marathon: Resurrection is a 3D, complete remake of the original Marathon (both singleplayer and multiplayer) using the first Unreal Tournament engine. Like Aleph One, it's been officially approved by Bungie, and the remake's home page is hosted on Bungie's website.
  • MechWarrior Living Legends, a remake of the MechWarrior series on the Crysis engine.
  • Mega Man (Classic) remakes:
    • Rockman 7 FC and Rockman 8 FC are retraux remakes of two non-8-bit games, Mega Man 7 and Mega Man 8. These stick more closely to the NES formula than the originals (no intro stage, all eight bosses available instead of four at a time, no shop in RM7FC, etc.), and RM8FC is a composite of the Playstation and Sega Saturn versions of the game (Tengu Man's stage theme from both versions take turns playing). Most interestingly, RM8FC replaces the Saturn-only Cut Man and Wood Man with Time Man and Oil Man from Mega Man Powered Up (you even get their weapons from them, unlike the original bosses). Interestingly, Capcom made their own 8-bit renditions of the final boss area backgrounds of both games (and Mega Man & Bass) for the Overly Long Gag scene in Mega Man 9's ending.
    • Mega Man: A Day in the Limelight is Mega Man 2, except without Mega Man. Instead you play as the Robot Masters from the original Mega Man. Mega Man: A Day in the Limelight 2 is exactly what you might expect based on the first title, then there's Mega Man: A Day in the Limelight 3.
    • MegaMan The CRORQ Chronicles was meant to be a remake of the two DOS games but it's in Development Hell.
    • Mega Man: Revenge of the Fallen is basically a compilation of Robot Masters and levels from Mega Man through Mega Man 9 but remixed in such a way that the level designs are vastly different with many alternate routes and every Robot Master has a completely different AI pattern to learn and defeat. Outside of different level designs and boss patterns, the game is pretty faithful to the gameplay of the originals.
    • Mega Man: DOS Remake is a remake of Mega Man 1 and Mega Man 3 for DOS with some extra features and levels added in, such as a level-creator and endless mode.
    • Mega Man 2: Atari De-Make is an adaptation of Mega Man 2 that seeks to emulate Atari limitations and changes some elements from the original.
    • Mega Man: The Sequel Wars is a homebrew remake of the second Mega Man trilogy for the Sega Genesis that is fashioned after the official Mega Man: The Wily Wars remake of the first trilogy. It is meant to feature straightfoward remakes of games 4 to 6 with playable Proto Man and Roll, a Wily Tower scenario and remixed sets of levels with new bosses.
  • MDDClone is a freeware remake of the three episodes of the Mercenary series of computer games, developed with permission from the former Novagen team.
  • Another Metroid 2 Remake began its development in a time when many a Fan Remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus was around, hence the title. Ironically, while all the other projects eventually died out, it was the only one to see a full release. It eventually received a DMCA notice, due to an official remake (Metroid: Samus Returns) being in the works to release the following year. However, the takedown request came about after it was made available long enough to spread like a virus to countless sites, meaning it is still readily available and easy to find. Other fans have even stepped in to tweak the game (such as dialing back the difficulty of the Omega Metroids) and add extra content. The original project's official blog can be read here.
  • LGeneral, a remake of Panzer General. There's also PG Forever, which includes Allied General and two fan-made campaigns for World War One.
  • Freedroid RPG is a remake of Paradroid (1985, for Commodore 64), with improved graphics... and Linux mascot as the hero, plus Design-It-Yourself Equipment.
  • Pokémon has a few notable ones, such as Pokémon Shiny Gold, a hacked version of FireRed (which, funnily enough, is an official remake of the first game) that was tweaked into a remake of Pokémon Gold. What makes this interesting is that the original game allowed you to visit the Kanto region, making the hack a lot easier. And what makes this even MORE interesting is that Game Freak eventually released legitimate remakes of Gold and Silver, on the DS.
    • Another one is Pokémon Liquid Crystal. Though it starts out the same as the original, as soon as the player reaches Kanto that they discover new storyline elements, items, characters, and areas were added to the game.
  • Project Beat aims to recreate the original Jet Set Radio Future in HD. It's still in early alpha.
    • Sadly no longer the case as the project was discontinued.
  • Firestart is a remake of the Commodore 64 game Project Firestart, reimagined as a First-Person Shooter.
  • Quake Generations was a mod for Quake 2 that featured the player characters of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and Quake 2 as player characters. Although multi-player focused, it also included a recreation of the shareware Episode 1 of Quake 1 in the Quake 2 engine, which could be played either any of the 4 characters. Unfortunately, the mod was killed by ID Software (due to using content ripped from Quake 1) and is no longer available. There is a similar mod called SOG (Save Our Generation), which reportedly used elements from this mod (with some changes, like names), recreated a lot of enemies from each game, as well as most of the weapons, and had a whole single player campaign dedicated to this. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to reacquire this mod. The closest thing you'll get is a playthrough of it here.
  • Rayman Redemption, is the take of the first Rayman Game with brand new stuff, even the new worlds and other stuff. Can be downloaded from Game Jolt.
  • Resident Evil 4: Otome Edition is a parody that authentically recreates Resident Evil 4 as a romance visual novel, seen from Ashley's perspective.
  • Rocket Jockey was never widely known, but what community it managed to gather was very dedicated - probably because nobody else had the same gameplay, and surprisingly nobody else still does to this day. Soon after release it became obvious that the original devteam would offer basically no support after a single half-assed patch, and indeed Rocket Science Games soon went out of business. Faced with no official sequels and a non-3D-accelerated engine that wasn't getting any prettier or easier to run as technology marched on, the community started several attempts at a remake, some of them early enough that they were trying to use the Unreal Tournament 1999 engine. After all attempts - including two commercial games - petered out, a lone dev finally created a remake that actually runs, is playable and relatively stable, and remains under active development as of 2021. It only took twenty-five years.
  • RollerCoaster Tycoon received it's own OpenTTD-esque remake with OpenRCT.
  • For Rhythm Heaven, we have Karateka Mania, based on the Karate Man minigame. Polyrhythm Mania is based on Polyrhythm and Built to Scale Wii. Heaven Studio is also a fan project aiming to contain remakes of every main series game, including some bonuses.
  • Scorched Earth, Mother Of All Games, has Scorched3D and Xscorch.
  • Seedship: Relaunched: An remake of the original text-based Seedship featuring graphics and new features. Currently in progress at the time of writing, although it has a fairly active Discord here.
  • Micropolis — GPL remake of SimCity. Initially conceived for the One Laptop Per Child XO-1.
  • ZX Spectrum classic Skool Daze had a 1999 PC remake titled Klass of '99.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog remakes:
    • Sonic the Hedgehog 2 HD was an in-progress remake of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with entirely redrawn HD graphics, taking cues from both the game itself and official artwork. The project has a rather storied history of setbacks, most notably regarding the redrawing of the sprites; when the project first began in 2008, redrawn artwork was submitted and modified on a collaborative basis by the Sonic Retro community. However, after numerous disagreements about the art direction began to hinder progress, the main development team took matters into their own hands; artwork submissions were closed and all of the then-final art was redrawn to an internally-agreed standard. Whilst the decision was inevitably controversial, the game certainly looked far more coherent artistically as a result...until things fell apart. * The project was officially canceled and unofficially put on indefinite hiatus (it was revived in mid-2014), but in the meantime, it DID inspire others - and hopefully without the same issues that imploded in on itself.
    • The first Sonic the Hedgehog got a remake in Sonic Rebirth, the first Sonic fangame project finished in the Sonic Worlds engine. Although it is fully playable, the author seems to have canceled further additions. There is also Sonic the Hedgehog Classic, which is both a fan Sonic 3 & Knuckles sequel loosely based on the Game Gear titles and a planned remake of the first game (although the levels haven't been added yet). There are a number of other fan remakes in development, such as Project AXSX and the ill-fated creator-driven Project-S which are remakes for the cancelled video game Sonic X-treme.
    • Sonic P-06 is a still-in-progress remake of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) for the PC, while also making it a Polished Port (despite not technically being a port) over the original version of the game. Currently, all of the stages and playable characters are available, with the full story campaigns on the way.
    • The Game Gear title Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble has been remade for the PC in the style of a Sega Genesis game as Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble 16-Bit by the developers of the original fan game Sonic Time Twisted. Features a new story that casts the game as a sequel to Sonic 3 & Knuckles and includes the ability to play as Sonic and Tails together, a separate story mode for Knuckles' perspective on the events, and the ability to unlock Fang as a playable character. It also has a versus competition mode, a special "speedrunner" shortcut feature (allowing speedrunners access to special shortcuts in the levels that only stay open for a limited time), and a later update added Amy Rose as another extra playable character, complete with a customizable moveset derived from her recent appearances in Sonic Origins Plus and Sonic Superstars.
    • A demo containing the first stage of Sonic Chaos in the style of Sonic Mania was made for SAGE 2018.
    • Sonic Blasting Adventure is a remake of various Sonic bootleg games made for the Game Boy Color. There is also an alternate version of the game that stars Mega Man X.
    • Sonic 3D in 2D as the name suggests is a 2D remake of Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island featuring Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, and some Glitch Entities from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Knuckles Chaotix as playable characters and features mini bosses at the end of every first act and a True Final Boss accessed by collecting every Chaos Emerald.
    • Somari 3D Blast 5 is a remake of the bootleg game Somari and features improved controls, the ability to play as three separate characters Somari, Sonic and Hummer and being able to collect the Chaos Emeralds and become Super Sonic.
    • Sonic SMS Remake includes remakes of first two Master System games by Creative Araya. Though they are not exact remakes as they feature numerous differences such as several playable characters to choose from, new zones and bosses, special stages to obtain the Chaos Emeralds (and go Super as well) and an Encore Mode. Official ports also exist for Android and several derivative ports to platforms such as the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 3 exist. A third installment, titled Sonic SMS Remake 3: Timelines, is now under way which promises to mash up Sonic Chaos and Sonic Triple Trouble with the sort of enhancements that the previous two games received.
    • Sonic 3: Angel Island Revisited, or Sonic 3 A.I.R. for short, is a remaster built upon the code of the Steam version for Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classicsnote . It adds native Widescreen Support, unlockable features such as the Drop Dash from Sonic Mania and the ability to play as Knuckles with Tails, improves the Special Stages, and several gameplay tweaks such as the ability to push the rocks faster in Sandopolis Zone Act 2. It also incorporates several features from Sonic 3 Complete (mentioned under Game Mod) such as music selection, and the creator plans to add more.
    • Sonic 1 Definitive is a complete reimagining of the original Sonic the Hedgehog following the idea of "What if Sonic Team revisisted Sonic 1 in 1995?"
    • Sonic Advance Revamped is both this and a reimagining of Sonic Advance. The game features widescreen support, incorporates unused assets and adds three new playable characters.note  There are also plans to include new levels to play through.
    • Sonic 3 '14 Project is unusual in that it is a remake of an unreleased proof-of-concept of the Retro Engine port of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It is faithful in every aspect (except it doesn't retain the addition of Tails's animation when driving the Tornado, taken from Sonic the Hedgehog 2).
    • From the same developer as Sonic Triple Trouble: 16-bit, Noah Copeland, comes Sonic Drift: 16-bit — a remake of Sonic Drift and its sequel in the same vein as his earlier remake of Triple Trouble.
  • Splatoon 64, although not past the alpha stage at the moment, is a retraux Video Game Demake in a blocky Nintendo 64-esque style - just in case the original wasn't '90s enough for you.
  • StarCraft: Mass Recall, a remake of the StarCraft and Brood War campaigns using the toolset for StarCraft II.
  • Star Fire is a remake of Atari's 1983 Star Wars arcade game for the Vectrex.
  • WinSP:WW2 and WinSP:MBT, both of Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles
  • One of the earliest known examples is SFIBM, a MS-DOS fan port of Street Fighter II that was programmed from scratch and featured graphics that were blatantly ripped from the SNES port with a capture card. Despite its amateurish nature and feel, it's considered to actually play better than the official DOS port. It also had a substantial Game Mod community for the time - ranging from reckless-but-entertaining balance changes in the vein of the Rainbow Edition hacks to adding in entirely new characters from games like Fatal Fury and Mortal Kombat. It's often viewed as a Spiritual Predecessor to M.U.G.E.N as a result.
  • Street Fighter One is a remake of the original Street Fighter and includes better controls, a combo system, the ability to play as any character in the game and remixed music.
  • Streets of Rage Remake skirts the line between this and a Fan Sequel: it not only remakes all three games in the series, it also fuses them together via branching paths, adds a massive amount of completely new content (including a Level Editor), and was made entirely from scratch! Although SORR was taken down from the creator's website, others got their hands on the game, and it can be downloaded easily if you Google it.
  • Super Mario Bros. Crossover is a free flash remake of the original NES game that allows you to play as characters from other NES games.
  • New Super Mario Land is a SNES homebrew remake of Super Mario Land in the New Super Mario Bros. art style.
  • Super Mario 64 Plus is a remake of Super Mario 64 adding several quality of life updates such as an improved camera control and numerous options to make the game more difficult and challenging. The mod itself is heavily customizable allowing other to make their own mods on top of it.
  • Though Project M is the Fan Sequel to Super Smash Bros. Melee (and, to some extent, Smash 64), it qualifies a remake because it's designed to replicate Melee's gameplay, physics and charactersnote , in addition to a few elements of Smash 64.
  • Fortress Forever is a fan made remake of Team Fortress Classic (itself an official remake of QuakeWorld Team Fortress). It was originally created to get people interested in Fortress-style gameplay again after Counter-Strike plundered all the players. Then Team Fortress 2 came out, doing things to the TFC formula that the Fortress Forever staff do not like. Some of the things which they do like have however been included in the game.
  • TIE Fighter Total Conversion is a fan-made mod pack which completely remakes TIE Fighter using the X-Wing Alliance engine. Unusually for a fan remake, you require both X-Wing Alliance and TIE Fighter (or the X-Wing Collectors Series) original discs to install and play TFTC, both to try to keep on the right side of copyright and as sources for voice and data files.
  • Fantastic Danmaku Festival (official blog) is a remake of Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil with updated character portraits, graphics, and music, along with a few changes like Sanae and Patchouli being playable (Sanae wasn't introduced until four games later, and Patchouli has only been playable in some Gaiden Games) and Koakuma being a boss. Its sequel Fantastic Danmaku Festival II does the same with Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom, retroactively making Youmu playable before her player character debut in the following game, and promoting Lily White into a boss fight in place of the Prisimriver Sisters.
  • OpenTTD, an upgraded and expanded remake of Transport Tycoon.
  • Undertale: Bits and Pieces is a mod from the original Undertale, but it's essentially, for all intents and purposes, a ground-up reimagining of the game — keeping the same story and gameplay of the original, while also updating the graphics and (optionally) music, expanding upon the story with new areas and dialogue, restoring unused and console-exclusive content, and making various general quality-of-life improvements.
  • Ultima V: Lazarus is a remake of the classical Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny using the Dungeon Siege engine. Using the same engine is The Ultima 6 Project, the fan remake of the sequel Ultima VI, vastly improving on the original.
  • Several space simulators got remakes as game mods for Vega Strike engine, though some more actively developed than others.
  • Vigilante has a fan remake for Windows that takes the graphics from the arcade version and adds new weapons, gameplay modes, and a few bug fixes.
  • Wing Commander: Privateer Gemini Gold, a remake of the Cult Classic Wing Commander: Privateer using the engine from its freeware Spiritual Successor, Vega Strike.
  • Wolfram is a remake of the shareware Episode 1 of Wolfenstein 3-D, done in a completely new 3D engine. It's a proof-of-concept programming student project, and it shows, but it's still pretty cool. The gameplay is significantly different from the original, though (guns have to be reloaded, bullets no longer stunlock enemies (making straight firefights very difficult), and you can kill enemies with headshots.)
  • X-COM remake Project Xenocide (though it's gone from port-friendly C /Ogre3D to C#/XNA). There's also UFO: Alien Invasion, which is cross-platform, and Xenonauts.
  • Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap got a fan remake in 2007, based on the TurboGrafx-16 version. The official 2017 remake also started off as a fan remake, until Lizardcube joined with publisher DotEmu and negotiated the license with Sega and Westone.
  • OpenRA is an open-source remake of the engine used in Westwood Studios RTS games that currently has support for Dune 2000, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn, and Red Alert. Support for Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 are planned, and sure to be coming any day now. The engine has support for skirmish battles, online multiplayer, and campaign missions, though as of this writing all of the campaigns are still incomplete. It's not a straight, 1:1 remake — all of the games in question have been rebalanced, and various elements from future Command & Conquer games, such as veteran units, have been implemented. It has also been lucky enough to see Approval of God — Jim Vessella, producer of the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, has posted on the OpenRA forums and has stated he has no intent of getting in the way of the project.
  • Shin Megami Tensei I has been remade in RPG Maker VX, adding in a few more routes and demons. It has been fully translated to English.
  • Cave Story: NXEngine is an open-source reproduction of the game, which allows for easier Game Mod support and for the game to get unofficial ports to other platforms. There is also CSE2, which serves a similar purpose, but Nicalis gave it the legal axe.

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