If you’ve been paying attention to the remaster and remake scene over the past few years, you might’ve noticed a disturbing trend: multiplayer modes are disappearing faster than my motivation to go to the gym in January.
Red Dead Redemption’s upcoming Xbox Series X|S release? No multiplayer. Mass Effect Legendary Edition? Multiplayer gone. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered? Campaign only, mate. The entire Crysis Remastered Trilogy? Single-player exclusively.
It’s becoming an epidemic, and frankly, it’s starting to get on my nerves.
The Hits Keep Coming (But The Multiplayer Doesn’t)
Let’s take a walk through the graveyard of multiplayer modes that publishers decided weren’t worth the effort:
Mass Effect 3 had one of the most surprisingly excellent co-op modes in gaming history. It was wave-based survival that actually felt like it mattered to the story (initially, it even affected your ending). When BioWare released the Legendary Edition in 2021, they left it out completely.
Their excuse? Project Director Mac Walters compared bringing it back to “restoring a 1982 Porsche that was buried in concrete.” Apparently, it was just too hard, too complicated, too time-consuming. Never mind that there’s still a dedicated community playing the original Mass Effect 3 multiplayer to this day.
Modern Warfare 2 Remastered launched in 2020 with just the campaign. No multiplayer. Activision’s reasoning was that they wanted everyone playing in “one unified online multiplayer playground” – which is corporate speak for “we’d rather you play our current Call of Duty and buy battle passes instead of splitting the player base.”
Crysis Remastered Trilogy dropped all multiplayer modes from all three games when it launched in 2021. The original Crysis had PvP. Crysis 2 and 3 had both co-op and competitive modes. All of it? Gone. Crytek decided to “focus on the single-player campaigns,” which is fair enough when you’re trying to make the game run on a Nintendo Switch, but still disappointing for anyone who spent hours in those modes.
Even the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection came and went without Uncharted 4’s multiplayer component, despite it having a decent following.
The Corporate Logic Actually Makes Sense (Unfortunately)
Look, I hate playing devil’s advocate for multi-billion dollar corporations, but from a purely business perspective, I get it. I really do.
Maintaining multiplayer infrastructure is expensive. You need servers, ongoing patches, anti-cheat systems, matchmaking technology, and – most importantly – you need enough players to make it all worthwhile. If you’re remastering a 10-year-old game, you’re gambling that enough people will want to play the multiplayer to justify those ongoing costs.
Add to that the technical challenges: cross-play compatibility, modern anti-cheat integration, server architecture that might be completely outdated, and the risk of negative reviews if the multiplayer launches broken (hello, Payday 2: Crimewave Edition on Xbox One).
From a project management standpoint, it’s a nightmare. You’re essentially building and maintaining two separate products – the single-player remaster and the multiplayer component – each with their own technical requirements and support needs.
But Here’s Why It Still Sucks
The problem is that these publishers are fundamentally misunderstanding what makes these games special to their fans.
When someone says they want to revisit Mass Effect 3, sure, most people are thinking about Shepard’s story. But for a significant chunk of players, their fondest memories are of grinding through multiplayer matches with mates, unlocking new alien races, and desperately trying to extract during wave 11.
By leaving out multiplayer, publishers are essentially saying, “We know you loved this part of the game, but it’s not financially convenient for us to include it.” It’s preservation by committee, where only the parts that make business sense survive.
The Warcraft III: Reforged Disaster
Want to see what happens when a company really stuffs up a remaster? Look no further than Warcraft III: Reforged, which didn’t just omit features – it actually made the original game worse.
Blizzard stripped out win/loss records, ranked multiplayer, custom campaign features, and a bunch of other options and modes. They didn’t just forget to bring multiplayer forward; they somehow managed to take steps backward. It’s like renovating your house and accidentally removing the plumbing.
The backlash was so severe that it became a case study in how not to handle a remaster. Even today, fans still consider it one of the worst remasters ever released.
The Marketing Problem Nobody Talks About
Here’s the thing that really gets my marketing brain spinning: these companies are missing a massive opportunity.
Imagine if BioWare had announced Mass Effect Legendary Edition with multiplayer included. The conversation wouldn’t be “oh, another remaster.” It would be “holy hell, they’re bringing back the multiplayer!” That’s a news cycle. That’s social media buzz. That’s free marketing.
Instead, every remaster announcement now comes with the caveat “but without multiplayer,” which immediately disappoints a portion of your potential customer base before they’ve even seen a screenshot.
It’s like advertising a concert reunion tour for a beloved band but announcing upfront that the lead guitarist isn’t coming. Technically, you’re still getting the band, but you’re also creating negative sentiment before you’ve sold a single ticket.
The Few Success Stories
Not everyone has abandoned ship. The Doom + Doom II remaster that dropped in 2024 included not just improved graphics but also added online multiplayer, new episodes, and even a new campaign called “Legacy of Rust.” id Software understood that preservation means preserving the complete experience, not just the bits that are convenient.
Similarly, when remasters DO include multiplayer – even if it’s just local co-op – the reception is universally more positive. People appreciate the effort, even if they never actually use the feature.
What Should Publishers Do?
If I were consulting for these companies (and trust me, they’re not calling), here’s what I’d suggest:
Option 1: Include it with a sunset date. Launch with multiplayer, commit to supporting it for 12 months, and be transparent about it. Let players know they’ve got a year to enjoy it before servers go offline. At least then you’re preserving the experience temporarily rather than not at all.
Option 2: Community servers. Build in support for community-run servers from day one. Let the fans keep their own games alive. Games like Minecraft have proven this model works brilliantly.
Option 3: Be honest about priorities. If you genuinely can’t include multiplayer, at least acknowledge why and what you considered. Don’t just pretend it never existed.
Option 4: Stop charging full price. If you’re only remastering half the game, maybe don’t charge $50-70 for it? Just a thought.
The Bottom Line
The gaming industry’s approach to remastering multiplayer content is, quite frankly, lazy. I understand the business realities. I get the technical challenges. But at some point, we need to ask ourselves: if we’re not preserving the complete experience, are we really preserving anything at all?
Every time a remaster launches without its multiplayer component, we lose a piece of gaming history. Those experiences – the late-night raids with mates, the competitive matches that got your heart racing, the co-op moments that made you laugh until you cried – they’re just… gone.
And for what? To save money on servers? To avoid the hassle of maintaining legacy code? To funnel players toward newer, more profitable titles?
It’s short-sighted, it’s disappointing, and it’s becoming the industry standard. And unless we make enough noise about it, it’s only going to get worse.
So next time a publisher announces a remaster of your favourite game, maybe ask the question: “But will it have multiplayer?” Because increasingly, the answer is going to be no.
