
A rare look inside the studio behind some of the world's highest-quality rebuilds and remasters — including February 2018’s Shadow of the Colossus.
Bluepoint Games is a studio known for their consistently excellent results in the realm of remastering, refurbishing, and remaking classic games.
So, you’d expect their headquarters to be bit flashier than the outwardly unremarkable building they share in Austin, Texas. Their unassuming workspace doubles as an analogy for the studio itself: a group more passionate about their work than fame and recognition.
Watch the video at the top of this post, captured during a recent trip to Bluepoint Games, for a rare peek inside the studio behind some of the industry’s most well-regarded remasters.
Bluepoint has grown into a team of a few dozen employees, but it all began with two people. Marco Thrush, now president of the company, and Andy O’Neil, the studio’s current vice-president. Marco and Andy built the still-in-operation Bluepoint Engine, and worked together to create Blast Factor, which launched alongside PlayStation Network in 2006.
Bluepoint is in a unique position: having led the remastering process for so many legendary titles, the studio has had lots of opportunities to poke around the inner workings of some of the most technically impressive experiences from their respective generations. I asked Peter Dalton, the technical director on PS4’s Shadow of the Colossus, how he and the team took advantage of these opportunities.
“We’ve definitely learned from each of them,” Peter explains. “From the original God of War series and bringing that to PS3, and seeing how they solved certain problems, to working with Naughty Dog’s technology for Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection.
Bluepoint’s art director, Mark Skelton, has similar respect for the artists whose work he’s now responsible for recreating. “It’s amazing what they did with what they had. There are so many tricks and so many unique, groundbreaking things that they did in that game that I’ve never seen since or before that.”
When remastering a classic, it must be tempting to fix each and every mistake, oversight, or inconsistency you would find. But where does one draw the line? Skelton shares a geographical example from Shadow of the Colossus:
“So one of the areas is kind of wooded… I noticed — this is kind of funny — that it was a dual waterfall area. And the dual waterfalls had a U-shaped section that connected them, which to me made absolutely no sense. Where’s the water coming from?
“Things like that we talked through and made sure that if we did make changes to it, that it didn’t have huge ramifications, visually or playwise. So what we decided to do was connect it to another connection that was kind of a mountain waterfall, which fed that waterfall, which in turn fed those two.
“To me, changes like that were important. It makes more sense, and it was maybe just an oversight at the beginning of the first one. Stuff like that I don’t have a problem changing. You know, stuff that makes people scratch their heads and go why?”
The more you talk to the people at Bluepoint, the more you realize that this obsessive attention to detail is core to the studio’s ethos. Occupying a corner of the studio’s floorplan is a custom rack of four huge TVs, each representing one of the market’s most popular sets in a given price range. They wire PS4 dev kits to this rig to see the final product the way players will see it.
If there’s one factor that clearly drives Bluepoint, it’s the desire to do right by fans — to do justice to the legacy of each and every game they choose to rebuild or remaster.
“To us, making the game the way you remember it is the most important mission that we have, regardless of everything else,” explains Randall Lowe, one of the testers on the original PS2 release of Shadow of the Colossus, and now a producer on the 2018 PS4 version. “We need to make sure that the game you’re playing now feels like the thing that you played in the past. If we don’t hit those notes, then we failed in what we were setting out to do.”
Studio president Marco Thrush elaborates: “The games we work on, we hand-pick them — we usually have lots of choices, and we get to pick the ones we care most about or that we truly believe the player will enjoy most once they get rereleased. So we always give the best we possibly can on every single title we work on. I hope it shows in the end result.”
Shadow of the Colossus launches February 6 on PS4, but in the meantime, you can learn how it runs on PS4 Pro, watch the game’s opening sequence, read our hands-on impressions, watch an episode of PlayStation Underground recorded at Bluepoint Games, or peruse a series of other SotC videos over at our YouTube channel. Phew!
Bluepoint are clearly masters of their craft, and it’s really great to get a closer look at these often unsung heroes of game preservation / restoration :-)
I really want me and fans to get in contact with Bluepoint games to share our love for them for all the brilliant remasters ^_^
After ive enjoyed alot of God of war collection + Gravity Rush remastered + Platinumed all 3 uncharted collection, i’m looking forward to grab Shadow of the Collossus :)
Because of this i also really want them to remaster PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale for PS4, so i can play with my friends with my fave Sony characters.
You guys are the best in remastering games. Any hints on the next remaster? Ico? Ni No Kuni? The original Infamous games?
Thanks BluePoint for letting me enjoy professionally and respectfully remastered versions of old favorites or games I missed first time around.
Love what you guys have done in the past, and looking forward to what you’ll do in the future.
Also really loved when you kinda called out how badly handled the Silent Hill HD collection was…If only there was some studio known for remastering older titles for newer hardware who happen to have a stellar track record to do a proper HD collection or HD remake of Silent Hill.
making remasters probably isn’t the way to get high acclaim or a fan base but I do own 6 of the 9 titles you’ve released and will be buying SofC remaster as well. I very much appreciate the work you do. remasters i’d still like to see for ps4/5:
psychonauts
MediEvil 1 and 2
rachet and clank (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8)
LBP 1 and 2
killzone 2
god of war I and II (fully remastered)
demon’s souls
echochrome
fat princess
portal 1 and 2
dead space
Since the PS4 is my first PlayStation console, I have never gotten to experience this wonder of a game. When it was revealed at E3 this past year, I cried. I had heard so much about it and now, I am finally able to play it for myself! I ordered the Special Edition (it’s only $50, which is a steal for all that it comes with (but there’s no soundtrack…)) and I cannot wait to get my hands on it! Thank you Bluepoint Games!
It’s going to be a great year for me on PS4! Here are the games I’m excited for that have a release date:
-Celeste on January 25th (the soundtrack is absolutely incredible!)
-Shadow of the Colossus on Feb 6th
-Owlboy on February 13th (I really want the physical edition for this!)
-Crossing Souls ALSO on February 13th
-Fe on February 16th
-A Way Out on March 23rd
One other thing: PLEASE REMAKE ICO FOR EITHER THE PS4 OR SONY’S NEXT CONSOLE! That is all I have to say.
I want that SoC T-Shirt and also that coffee cup! anyway to get them??
Would love to see remasters for Kingdoms of Amalur and Ni No Kuni. Thank you for all your hard work and for being so amazing at the RemasterCraft.
We could use as ps all stars game on ps4….
a new Blast Factor would be nice
Sony should buy Bluepoint Games and make them port all of classic playstation games to ps4, there are alot of playstation 1, 2 or 3 games that I want to play on my ps4 with 60 fps and 4k graphics :)
I hope their next project is either colony wars remaster, ape escape 1-3 remaster, god of war 1-2 + portables remaster, or at least puppeteer remaster.
The Puppeteer should get remastered to VR, it was already made for 3D.