Resident Evil 4 is best-selling modern remake but the top 5 is surprising

Resident Evil 4 has sold more than double any other remake (Capcom)

Estimated sales figures for modern video game remakes highlights how profitable nostalgia is, although there are some surprises amongst the biggest sellers.

Anyone paying attention to the games industry is keenly aware of how reliant it’s become on nostalgia, which is why we’re drowning in a sea of remakes and remasters at the moment, ushered in by the 2019 version of Resident Evil 2.

Just this month, Ubisoft has released a remake of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and Microsoft has just launched Halo: Combat Evolved. Even two of Nintendo’s main exclusives this year are remakes, with Star Fox and The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time both starting out as N64 games.

The reason why remakes are so in vogue is simple: they’re extremely popular, with a new report putting together a list of the best selling remakes and remasters of the current console generation.

The estimated sales figures come from Alinea Analytics, which looked at remakes and remasters that have launched since 2020 (the debut year of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X), counting sales from Sony and Microsoft’s consoles, as well as PC via Steam.

That means Switch 1 and 2 sales aren’t being taken into account, although that wouldn’t make that much difference, as the top selling remake is, by a huge margin, 2023’s Resident Evil 4, at approximately 16.8 million copies sold.

Part of that can be attributed to the original Resident Evil 4’s massive popularity and iconic status as one of the best games ever made, although it doesn’t hurt that the remake is really good too.

Surprisingly, second place goes to 2023’s Ark: Survival Ascended, at 7 million sales; a game that isn’t widely talked about outside of its dedicated fanbase.

It’s a remake of 2015’s Ark: Survival Evolved and has clearly been successful despite, being an early access game and a remaster of something that, at the time, wasn’t even a decade old.

Third place is The Last Of Us Part 1 at 6.3 million sales, despite many feeling that it was an unnecessary remake (with a very low quality PC port). Clearly it was a smart move by Sony though, who realised the remake would be a great way to capitalise on the success of the TV show adaptation.

These are solid sales figures though not all publishers would agree (Alinea Analytics)

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is next at 4.5 million sales, which rode the popularity of the original despite still retaining plenty of traditional Bethesda bugs, and Dead Space at 4.3 million sales.

Considering the original Dead Space only sold around 1 million copies this seems a very good result, but EA labelled it a flop and immediately abandoned the series and may even end up selling it off. Which begs the question of how much it would’ve needed for them to consider it a hit.

This is followed by Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth at 4.2 million sales, which was initially a PlayStation 5 exclusive in 2024. Its PC port arrived about a year later and it only came to Xbox (and Switch 2) last month.

While Square Enix admits the PlayStation 5 exclusivity hurt its launch sales, we can’t imagine a multiplatform launch would’ve dramatically improved things, especially when Rebirth is the middle part of a trilogy, which tend to not perform as well as the first and final instalments.

Unlike the other games on the list, Rebirth is drastically different to the original game, while retaining the same basic story and setting. That approach is unusual but although critically acclaimed Square Enix must consider its commerical performance disappointing, especially as it was clearly a very expensive game to make.

Lastly is Silent Hill 2, which has sold approximately 3.2 million units. This is a good example of how expectations can vary greatly between publishers. Dead Space sold more, but while it was immediately put on ice Konami was very happy with Silent Hill 2’s performance.

It was the fastest selling entry in the series until the subsequent Silent Hill f, and sold over twice as much as the 2001 original.

Although some gamers may be frustrated at the reliance on nostalgia, it’s inarguable that the standard of quality, across all publishers, has been remarkably high for these and other modern remakes.

They’ve also helped to reinvigorate or revive ailing franchises, with Silent Hill f clearly benefiting from Silent Hill 2’s reputation and the Resident Evil remakes now influencing new mainline games.

What new video game remakes are coming soon?

This report happens to coincide with comments by Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, in an interview with Famitsu, where he pushes back on the idea that there are too many remakes.

Miyamoto argues that remakes aren’t only a good way of introducing older games to newer audiences, but also says they can pave the way for ‘future developments.’

‘Young people today don’t have the opportunity to play games from 10 years ago, so remaking them to be more playable and releasing them again is a good way to meet the demand. Letting people know the original games also leads to future developments, so we’ve been actively pursuing that recently,’ says Miyamoto (as translated by NintendoEverything).

That last statement lends credence to the idea that the Star Fox remake was testing the waters for a brand new game, while Halo: Campaign Evolved is very obviously trying to refresh the Halo brand.

It can be argued that remakes are almost becoming necessary, since they’re an even safer bet than many sequels, with the money they generate (ideally) being used on original projects as well.

We’ve seeing precisely that from Capcom, which has been greenlighting weirder, more niche games like Pragmata because the success of its Resident Evil remakes allows them to take more financial risks.

Pragmata probably never would have been made if Resident Evil wasn’t bringing in so much money (Capcom)

Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

Comments Add as preferred source