When Are Our Favorite Video Games Going to Get Next-Gen Remakes?

Rebooting major franchises is big business — just look at Hollywood. Year after year countless sequels and remakes make it to a big screen near you. And it’s easy to see why: the flicks dominate at the box office as moviegoers flock to familiar favorites (eight of 2015’s ten highest-grossing films were either sequels or remakes).

Yet, for whatever reason, this doesn’t happen nearly as much with video games. Sure, sequels are big business, but few all-out remakes come to your favorite console or PC. So, when contemporary, fan-made trailers for classic first-person shooter GoldenEye 007 and pioneering tactical espionage action favorite Metal Gear Solid — both of which were created using Unreal Engine 4 — popped up this past week, it got us thinking: what if some of our old favorites finally got the modern reimaginings they deserve?

Behold: ten classics (in chronological order) that we’d love to see updated for play-throughs on our PlayStation 4s and Xbox Ones.

Contra (1987, Arcade)
Thanks to its implementation of simultaneous two-player gameplay, the arcade classic basically introduced the world to co-op shoot-’em-ups — and exists as a precursor to the multiplayer and online play that dominates shooters today. Considered by many to be the hardest game of all time, an updated Contra — complete with the variety of playing perspectives that marked the groundbreaking original — would undoubtedly be welcome by those who couldn’t put down the seemingly impossible Flappy Bird. Sure, it’s ridiculous story may not have aged well (it’s set in 2633, but probably inspired by the Iran–Contra scandal of the ’80s), but who doesn’t love a little guerrilla warfare?

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988 Arcade)
While Contra arguably introduced the world to two-player co-op, 1987’s Double Dragon perfected it — this time in beat-’em-up form. And what beat-’em-up was even better than Double Dragon? Double Dragon II: The Revenge. Corny title aside, The Revenge ruled (damsel-in-distress theme, brutal murder at the hands of the Black Warriors, Hurricane Kicks, a clone-starring final battle, etc. etc.) and deserves a do-over after 2013’s horrible Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons release.

Battletoads (1991, NES)
Yes, Battletoads is an obvious Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rip-off. Yes, it has a horribly unoriginal name (admittedly, its original title — Amphibianz — was infinitely worse). And yes, like Contra, it’s brutally difficult. But if you haven’t played the original 1991 release recently (and, really, who has?), then you’ve probably forgotten that space mutant warriors Rash and Zitz were way funnier than their teenage, sewer-dwelling counterparts — and their game was much better. Thankfully, Battletoads is available in all its side-scrolling, platforming glory as a part of last year’s Rare Replay compilation . And a reboot may not be that far off after all: Xbox head Phil Spencer — who’s known for promoting upcoming games via his attire — rocked a Battletoads tee on stage at last year’s Windows 10 event.

Cyber Stadium Series: Base Wars (1991, NES)
Before the likes of NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, there was Base Wars: an oddly-titled futuristic baseball game — starring robots, no less. Set in the 24th century with baseball owners who have finally gotten sick of paying dopes like A-Rod a kajillion dollars to DH, the game hilariously fused America’s pastime with the likes of tank-driving cyborgs and upgradeable weaponry. With a new coat of polish, Base Wars — a precursor of sorts to 1993’s Super Baseball 2020 — could revive the fast-paced, action-packed, arcade-style sports games of old.

Doom (1993, PC)
OH WAIT, this is already happening. And thank god — the series hasn’t seen an entry since 2003’s Doom 3 and the FPS pioneer is one of the most obvious candidates for a next-gen makeover. We can only imagine how badass the final demons and gunplay will be in id Software’s insane id Tech 6 engine.

Donkey Kong Country (1994, SNES)
Is there anyone who owned an SNES back in the ’90s that didn’t own Donkey Kong Country? Aside from Super Mario World (which was packaged with the SNES back when the console launched in 1990), Donkey Kong Country was the SNES’ best-selling game, and rightfully so: the game operated on a simple premise — Donkey and Diddy Kong set out to recover their stolen bananas from King K. Rool and the Kremlings — and combined then cutting-edge graphics with old school side-scrolling levels for the first proper DK installment in more than a decade. And while the game has been rereleased in various forms for different platforms, we think the 1994 original deserves to become a modern side-scroller purely on nostalgia factor alone.

GoldenEye 007 (1997, N64)
Who would have thought a tie-in to a James Bond film could be so awesome? GoldenEye 007 is still to this day one of the greatest first-person shooters of all time, not to mention a pioneer of split-screen deathmatches. Multiplayer aside, however, Goldeneye‘s globe-trotting affair made for the perfect video game while liberties with the weaponry at your disposal (like the Golden Gun and Moonraker laser) were more than welcome. Though 2010’s reimagining (starring the current Bond, Daniel Craig) largely got things right, we’d love to see a more faithful remake, Pierce Brosnan and all — not to mention an expansion of the multiplayer that made the original so hard to put down.

Metal Gear Solid (1998, PlayStation)
Have you played The Phantom Pain? It’s no wonder the game appeared on so many best-of lists for 2015: Hideo Kojima’s Konami swan song has gorgeous graphics and virtually flawless gameplay. And yes, the classic Metal Gear Solid already saw its tactical espionage action remade once before with 2004’s The Twin Snakes for the GameCube. But who really played it? Despite critical acclaim (and new voiceovers and cutscenes to boot), the game went on to sell less than a million copies. Combine The Phantom Pain‘s gameplay with the compelling/insane story of the 1998 original (something TPP largely lacked), and we’ll gladly give you our money. Given Kojima and Konami’s acrimonious split, however, a proper MGS remake is undoubtedly wishful thinking (sobbing emoji).

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998, N64)
The best Zelda game resurfaced last year with a fan-made, Unreal Engine 4 makeover and we’ve been wanting to boot up a fully playable take on Ocarina of Time ever since. Maybe the greatest game of all time, the N64 classic has seen a number of solid ports (the best of which was 2011’s remastered release for the 3DS), but who wouldn’t love a ride across the kingdom of Hyrule — and a trip through time — in HD?

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004, PS2)
We love Grand Theft Auto V, but San Andreas will always be our favorite GTA entry. Thanks to some near-perfect voice acting, CJ is probably the most compelling Rockstar character to date. Plus, a soundtrack chock-full of west coast hip-hop classics and the scope of the in-game environment made us all want to live and die in L.A. Given how far GTA has come in the years since, we would do anything to get the gang back together and protect our turf in a shiny new update to the corrupt locale of the Cali-set classic.