Coming In 2015: Highlights For Retro Remakes, Sequels, Spin-Offs and TV/Films!

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2015! 2014 was a great year for retro and indie gaming fans, but I think that this year is going to be even better! Here I am covering some of the highlights of what we have to look forward to on our PCs, Macs, games consoles, and television and cinema screens this year.

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Legend Of Zelda

This year is a real treat for fans of this franchise with not one, but two releases scheduled for the coming months. We have an “enhanced remake” of the 2000 release Majora's Mask upgraded to the platform of Nintendo 3DS and a newcomer to the franchise in the form of the first ever High Definition Legend Of Zelda game, which has open-world gameplay and is exclusive to Wii-U. You can view a talk with its creator about the game, followed by an absolutely stunning teaser trailer, below.

Resident Evil

This nearly twenty years old survival horror franchise's newest addition is titled Resident Evil: Revelations 2 and features single player and cooperative gameplay options in a episodic format. View some game footage below, if you have the stomach for it... ;-)

Also on the way this year is yet another addition to the ever-popular-but-not-very-faithful-to-the-game film series, a trailer for which has yet to be released. They claim it will be the last, but we have heard that before... Rumour has it that they want to revamp the whole franchise soon to make it more faithful, so fingers crossed! In the meanwhile, grab your popcorn and just enjoy it for what it is.

Metal Gear

There are two additions to the “MG” franchise – one of my favourites, I might add – this year. We have the open-world Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain where we play as Venom Snake and also included in the game is “MGO3” (Metal Gear Online 3), a much more advanced multiplayer experience. Both are looking rather impressive. You can find out more on the official website and view the trailer below, which is Directed and Edited by the ever-brilliant Hideo Kojima himself.

Final Fantasy

Now that Lightning's plot has come to a close, it is time for Square Enix to move on. This newest addition to the franchise dubbed "Final Fantasy XV" has many proclaiming as a welcome return to its older roots. The launch trailer which includes cut scene and gameplay footage (seen below) has the same beautiful music and visuals that we remember from earlier games. Developers tell us that the game is "eighty percent complete" and are looking at a "late 2015" or "early 2016" (I hope it is the prior) release date. Visit the official website for more.

Minecraft

In a rather interesting and unexpected move, Mojang the people that brought us the most popular independent game ever created has now teamed with popular independent game developers Telltale Games, creators of the episodic, decision-making, story based games of The Walking Dead, Game Of Thrones, Tales From Borderlands and The Wolf Among Us.

A lot of fans are struggling to see how Minecraft can possibly translate from its current format to Telltale Game's trademark style. This spin-off game is titled Minecraft: Story Mode, cryptically... What do you think of this change for Minecraft?

You can read more about this decision on the Mojang website  and the Telltale Games website and there is also an official website where you can join the community to talk to other fans, sign up to the newsletter for updates and more.

Pixels

This comedy holds the premise that aliens have seen footage of our retro games and considered them to be an act of war and launch an attack on us, in the form of the baddies that we know and love from the likes of Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Frogger and Donkey Kong. Our only hope for survival is a retro games champion! This film has a great cast (led by Adam Sandler) and is actually a feature length remake of a French independent film of the same name. There is no trailer for the film yet but you can view the original film on Vimeo. 

Video Game High School: Series Three

The third and final series of this brilliantly geeky and downright-fun series has finally arrived! If you have not seen the first two series', now is the time to catch up on what you have been missing, because this is a show made by geeks, for geeks that embraces the premise that playing computer games is actually an internationally respected sport, and features an impressive array of references to please every gamer out there, and plenty of laughs and heart as well. Series three was crowd funded and is the finale. Viewable on YouTube, on their website, and purchasable digitally and physically. There is plenty of fun gaming-inspired “merch” on their website as well. Series one and two are also viewable by Netflix Subscribers in some regions, including a feature-length Cut of the first series.

Ratchet & Clank: The Animated Film!

Yes, you read that heading correctly. The much-loved retro classic is coming to our silver screens in the form of a computer generated feature length treatment which has been written by the man himself, T J Fixman, who wrote the games and stars the voice talent from the games themselves, so we can expect a very faithful adaptation. You can find out more by viewing the trailer below and by visiting the official website and the FaceBook Page for the film.

Independent Games: Always Out There!

Every single day there are talented people out there developing "indie,retro" games, and there are far, far too many to include any individual ones within this article. So, all I can do is encourage you to keep voting for games on Steam Greenlight, remember to make purchases on your Wii, Playstation or Xbox indie marketplaces, check crowdfunding websites Indiegogo and Kickstarter, and of course, be sure to keep checking Indie Retro News because we will often recommend some great little gems for you to enjoy from the indie gaming world.

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So, are you as excited about all of these forthcoming things as we are? Is there something that we missed? Comment and let us know!

Article credit: Illisia Adams