Remakes and remasters… love them or hate them, they have become staples of the gaming industry and likely aren’t going away anytime soon. So, for our second Listmas list of the month, we decided to make an attempt to embrace the ever-growing trend and pick our own sets of games that we’d like to see all spruced up, y’know, as if time and money were no issue! My own list probably isn’t the most surprising, but, well…if I had all the time and money to give to game developers, here’s what I’d like to see make its way to current consoles.

Dragon Age trilogy
Mass Effect fans (myself included) were treated to that trilogy’s Legendary Edition in 2021, so surely BioWare has at least thought about giving the same treatment to the Dragon Age trilogy, right? Right?? Okay, so maybe they’ve had their hands full with a little something called Dreadwolf, but still. Considering that this sequel won’t see the light of day for a while, giving fans a remaster of the original trilogy would be the best kind of treat. Mass Effect Legendary Edition brought together all the games and nearly all their DLC into the current era of consoles, and ye olde Dragon Age games were absolutely benefit from the same. Put all those adventures in one place and make the original Alistair look like he has slightly less of a stick up his rear, and I’m definitely in.

Banjo-Kazooie & Banjo-Tooie
Is there any real reason to face-lift the already fantastic Rare classics, Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie? Eh, probably not. However, after playing both the original Conker’s Bad Fur Day and its remaster, Conker’s Live and Reloaded, I could see the benefit of doing so. Admittedly, some minor controversial changes were made to CLR, but the gameplay remained the same, and the game itself looked great. Gone were the blocky terrains and jagged graphics, and in came smoother and better textures and, in particular, better controls. I, for one, would welcome fur on Banjo, feathers on Kazooie, and an overall tighter control scheme applied to new versions of these classics.

GTA: Chinatown Wars
In a world where we have access to multiple versions of several GTA games, where the heck is one possible one of the best GTA games ever, GTA: Chinatown Wars?? Okay, I suppose the same could easily be said of pre-GTA III games, too, but really, GTA: Chinatown Wars is the most underrated game of the whole series and deserves better. Maybe it is forever trapped on the Nintendo DS, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream…dream of playing this top-down game that’s full of classic mayhem and trouble, along with one of the best stories offer in the GTA universe. Ah well, since we’ll probably see more GTA V, not to mention GTA VI, before too long, I guess I’ll just have to keep dreaming.

Dragon’s Dogma
I know what you’re thinking – wasn’t Dragon’s Dogma already kind of remasters with its expanded version, Dark Arisen? Well, yes, I suppose it was. And it was this expanded version that took over my life for a while about a year ago. So why wasn’t it enough? Believe me, it was…however. However. Maybe it’s just my old eyes talking, but the game’s graphics were not the best. Oh, they weren’t “bad” by any means, but I did think the world looked a little muddy. I especially noticed this while trying the game’s photo mode. Granted, I’m no photo mode whiz, but the resulting pictures just didn’t cut it. The game could use nothing but a fresh coat of graphical paint. Surely that’s not too much to ask?

Sleeping Dogs
I close out my list with another underrated gem. One that’s all too easily overshadowed by the likes of GTA and the Yakuza series, but one that firmly stands on its own two legs as a delightfully crazy experience. Sleeping Dogs is a beautifully compact game with loads of verticality that relays perfectly the “rock and a hard place” story of Hong Kong undercover cop Wei Shen. Its own definitive edition is not to be missed if you’re a fan of crime stories, car chases, and martial artistry. The game doesn’t suffer graphically, but it does have some issues with the controls, particularly within hand-to-hand combat, that could be addressed in a remaster. Do that Capcom, along with giving the game a new sheen (because why not?), and you’ll have the monster hit on your hands that Sleeping Dogs was always meant to be.

Lede image taken from Sleeping Dogs press kit (© United Front Games, Square Enix London Studios).