Joining the recent wave of remastered classic games, Praetorians – HD Remaster, by developers Torus Games and Pyro Studios and publisher Kalypso Media, plants its 17-year-old flag into the new decade. For more than a decade, Praetorians has been praised as an underrated RTS and fans of the game were elated to hear that an updated version was coming to Steam.
Because Praetorians – HD Remaster has been out for so long, and there aren’t any new features added in the HD Remaster, the point of this review will be to assess the value of purchasing the updated version, as opposed to assessing the quality of gameplay of the original game.
Where it Stands Now
In a time when Total War, Warcraft, Starcraft, and other real-time strategy games crested upon a golden era for the genre, Praetorians stole its own little piece of the pie. Carried by its simple but fleshed out mechanics, ahead-of-its-time cinematics, and believable historical immersion, Praetorians earned its deserved spot amongst the great RTS of the early 2000s. There is no disputing the fast-paced, highly strategic, and widely varied gameplay that offered both great singe and multiplayer experiences.
In Praetorians – HD Remaster, all of the best parts of the original game are left in-tact. In fact, it is so in-tact that there is almost nothing different about it; a double-edged sword–they maintained the golden aspects that the community would be enraged if tinkered with, but at the same time, there is nothing that has been added to the game to change the experience even slightly. Despite the success and nostalgia for the original game, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment that, for a game that’s been out for 17 years, there’s nothing new added–no new map pack, no new unit types, no new mission branch or something to keep this remake from bombing like Warcraft 3: Reforged has.
To make this review possible, because I hadn’t played the original Praetorians back in the day (I was a WC3 custom game player), I went back to older VODs in order to compare the graphical improvements that are, in essence, the only updated part of the game. While there are more polygons embedded in each environmental texture and character model, I honestly can’t say that the remastered version looks considerably better than the original. Reading up on the original, part of what made it so memorable was its solid graphics and stellar cutscenes, but they didn’t even update the cutscenes–making one of the coolest parts of the game seem like one of the most outdated parts now.
Another Reforged-like Failure?
Luckily for us, the launching of Warcraft 3: Reforged gives a reference point for a game of similar age, nostalgia, and potential cash-grab potential to stack Praetorians – HD Remaster up against. If you haven’t followed the release of Warcraft 3: Reforged, then you’ve missed the user reviewer crusade on Metacritic against it, where it is now averaging a 0.5 out of 10 as a score. In short, the overwhelming hate for the remastered RTS classic comes from a few sources: the older graphics somehow look better, there is no new added content, the gameplay changed from seamless to bugged, the community development user end agreement forfeits all creative property to Blizzard, and it tainted the original servers by requiring the $40 purchase to access the older game. Now that’s a lot of game production sins wrapped into one nightmare, and Praetorians – HD Remaster doesn’t fail quite as hard, but it does come up short in some desired areas.
Like Warcraft 3: Reforged, Praetorians – HD Remaster could be characterized as an underdeveloped, easy cash-grab by Pyro Studios and Torus Games for its lack of new content, shabby updated graphics, and (future withstanding) lack of support for community content development. While Praetorians – HD Remaster doesn’t ruin the original experience with new bugs or with shady corporate practices, it does little to actually make the experience any better.
Final Verdict
Therefore, in explicit consideration of the value the remaster is asking as opposed to the value of the original game, which is $20 for the updated and $5 for the original, I must urge that the original is more worth the money. Both versions play exactly the same, with the exact same amount of content to play through, and the updated graphics for the extra $15 dollars for a game that is approaching 20 years old stretches my interest thin. While not the dumpster-fire that Warcraft 3: Reforged was, Praetorians – HD Remaster fails in a similar vein–disappointing fans that want new content while asking for what can only be seen as an easy cash-grab.
Check Out the Praetorians – HD Remaster/Commandos 2 Video:
Praetorians – HD Remaster is available for PC via Steam.
For more information, please visit: https://www.kalypsomedia.com/us/1008/praetorians-hd-remaster/steam-version/pc
Recent Michigan State University grad and current Game Studies researcher who plays fantasy RPG's to escape, Smash to compete, and Stardew to chill. Also have a +1 to rage/toxicity resistance due to the many hours sunk into WoW, R6, and LoL.
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