Ghostbusters was one of the most iconic multimedia franchises of the 1980’s and its popularity has stood the test of time nearly 30 years after the first film released in 1984. The franchise has seen two new films in the past decade with 2016’s controversial reboot, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, and the recent film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The franchise has also received several video game adaptations over the past three decades with many coming in recent years, with one of the most well-regarded being Saber Interactive’s 2009 title, Ghostbusters: The Video Game
The Ghostbusters franchise has seen a major resurgence in modern media throughout the past couple years, especially in the world of gaming. Ghostbusters: The Video Game was a massive success among fans of the franchise, praising its gameplay and the faithfulness to the franchise that inspired it. However, when Saber released a remastered version of Ghostbusters for current-gen consoles in 2019, the popular multiplayer options featured in the 2009 version were notably absent from the updated version.
In a recent interview with gaming news site MP1st, Saber Interactive’s Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits spoke about the reason for the exclusion of multiplayer from the remake of the Ghostbusters game, citing the coding of the original’s multiplayer modes. Willits said that while the team did look into implementing multiplayer into the 2019 version, the state of the multiplayer code from the ten-year-old game ultimately forced Saber to focus on providing players with a better single-player experience instead of putting time into fashioning multiplayer modes.
Saber Interactive’s struggles related to the 2009 game’s source code are a well-documented obstacle many studios deal with when looking to remaster classic games. Before Blizzard released Diablo 2: Resurrected as a full-scale remake of the classic 2000 dungeon-crawler, the original Diablo 2’s project lead believed a remake would be incredibly difficult due to the loss of parts of the game’s source code. Source code for games often gets lost or deleted over the passage of time, leading many developers to major hiccups when bringing classic games to modern consoles.
The Ghostbusters franchise’s status as an iconic piece of classic 1980’s media has seen the franchise often collaborating with some of the most popular titles in the modern gaming world. Rocket League recently introduced the franchise’s iconic Ecto-1 van to the vehicle-based soccer game and Fortnite also featured the ghost-busting franchise during its 2021 Halloween event. With a new Ghostbusters game now in development as well, the iconic franchise looks like it will keep busting ghosts well into the future.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: MP1st
