{"id":2117714,"date":"2026-08-29T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2117714"},"modified":"2026-08-29T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T04:00:00","slug":"what-weve-been-playing-forget-the-classics-remaster-the-duds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2117714","title":{"rendered":"What we&#8217;ve been playing &#8211; &#8220;Forget the classics: remaster the duds&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"features\" data-article-group=\"feature\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/features\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Features<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">What we&#8217;ve been playing &#8211; &#8220;Forget the classics: remaster the duds&#8221;<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">A few of the things that have us hooked this week.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/aragorn-at-the-table-war-in-the-north-lotr.jpg?width=690&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"A hooded white man with somewhat dirty skin and stubble, sits in a dark corner lit by a candle. It&apos;s Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, and ne needs a bath.\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"aragorn-at-the-table-war-in-the-north-lotr.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"690\" height=\"388\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Warner Bros.<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"features\"><br \/>\n                    Feature<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/robert-purchese\">Robert Purchese<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Associate Editor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\n<p>Published on   <time datetime=\"2026-08-29T07:00:00+00:00\" data-auto-time-zone=\"true\" data-year=\"numeric\" data-month=\"short\" data-day=\"numeric\" data-hour=\"numeric\" data-minute=\"numeric\">Aug. 29, 2026, 7 a.m.<\/time>\n              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/what-weve-been-playing-forget-the-classics-remaster-the-duds?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          33 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"ff9dc38b-613a-4aac-8d72-3e2c62f76df2\" data-name=\"Elden Ring\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Elden Ring\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Elden Ring\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Elden Ring\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Elden Ring\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Elden Ring\" title=\"Follow Elden Ring\"><br \/>\n  Follow Elden Ring<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<h2>29th August<\/h2>\n<p>Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we&#8217;ve been playing. This week, Kelsey didn&#8217;t have to sacrifice a limb to play <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/elden-ring-walkthrough-8042\">Elden Ring<\/a> for the first time again; Bertie mucks around in the Prancing Pony with edgy Aragorn; and the rest of the team travels back from Germany. More to come from them next week!<\/p>\n<p>What have you been playing this week?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another question: do you remember what you were playing last week? You don&#8217;t have to! <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/topics\/what-weve-been-playing\">The What We&#8217;ve Been Playing archive<\/a> has you covered.<\/p>\n<h2>Elden Ring, Switch 2<\/h2>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\" style=\"display: none\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Elden Ring on a Switch? What a world we live in.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=O8Ge5uIXTYw\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;ve already written at length about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/elden-ring-tarnished-edition-switch-2-impressions-performance\">the opening hours of my experience with Elden Ring on the Nintendo Switch 2<\/a>, and spoilers in case you&#8217;ve not read it yet, but it&#8217;s not half-bad. There&#8217;s a few frame drops here and there and I worry how, later, the faster, more-demanding bosses will fare. But so far it&#8217;s honestly just really nice to be able to alternate between playing the game docked and handheld.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Sure, I find the text a little small on handheld, but the sheer novelty of being able to play Elden Ring wherever I am is something I&#8217;ve been longing for for years (without having to buy a Steam Deck, that is). It&#8217;s also been lovely to experience the game from the very beginning again after years of barrelling through New Game Plus and randomisers galore. I always joke about how I&#8217;d sacrifice a limb to play Elden Ring for the first time again (I wouldn&#8217;t really, but still), and playing it from fresh on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/platforms\/switch-2\">Switch 2<\/a> has certainly come pretty close to that being a reality (and my limbs are still intact!).<\/p>\n<p><em>-Kelsey <\/em><\/p>\n<h2>The Lord of the Wings: The War in the North, PS5<\/h2>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"The Lord of the Rings: War in the North: Legacy Edition - Official Launch Trailer\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ivVnZVGomQo?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/ivVnZVGomQo\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">The Lord of the Rings: War in the North: Legacy Edition &#8211; Official Launch Trailer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Shame it didn&#8217;t do better when it came out, because it&#8217;s got a whole compass of possible sequel ideas ready made.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ivVnZVGomQo\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been playing a game for review that I&#8217;m excited about but I can&#8217;t talk about it yet, but I&#8217;ll be able to share my thoughts soon. Otherwise this week has been so busy I&#8217;ve struggled to play much or remember what my name is. Bernard? Boris? Bertha? I even missed Big Walk Tuesday, as I&#8217;ve come to think of it, but you lovely lot organised a stand-in Walk instead, which I love.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This gives me some white space to say more about The War in the North, the surprise-remastered edition, which I had much more fun with than I expected. Maybe it&#8217;s the power of the brand, ever-propelled by the ageless Peter Jackson films, but just being in the LOTR world, in the Prancing Pony pub &#8211; with Strider-era Aragorn sitting in the corner looking all thuggish with his hood up and smoking &#8211; is thrilling. Not quite the voice I was expecting, though.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s more width to the game than I&#8217;d reckoned on. I thought an action RPG like this would point us at some orcs and off we go, but we &#8211; my partner and me in split-screen co-op &#8211; noodled around Bree for ages, doing little quests for people with dlightfully dodgy regional accents. Voice acting has come on a lot in the 13 years since this was first released.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a decent package. The action&#8217;s pretty good &#8211; the concept fits brilliantly with the endless battles of the books and films &#8211; it&#8217;s got the appropriate murky grey-brown colouring of the films (or perhaps just that era of consoles), and I&#8217;m enjoying it. Maybe I&#8217;m being kinder to it because I&#8217;m looking back on it like a museum piece, but it&#8217;s great that it&#8217;s had another shot at life all the same. Forget the classics: remaster the duds.<\/p>\n<p><em>-Bertie<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<h2>29th August<\/h2>\n<p>Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we&#8217;ve been playing. This week, Kelsey didn&#8217;t have to sacrifice a limb to play <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/elden-ring-walkthrough-8042\">Elden Ring<\/a> for the first time again; Bertie mucks around in the Prancing Pony with edgy Aragorn; and the rest of the team travels back from Germany. More to come from them next week!<\/p>\n<p>What have you been playing this week?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another question: do you remember what you were playing last week? You don&#8217;t have to! <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/topics\/what-weve-been-playing\">The What We&#8217;ve Been Playing archive<\/a> has you covered.<\/p>\n<h2>Elden Ring, Switch 2<\/h2>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\" style=\"display: none\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Elden Ring on a Switch? What a world we live in.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=O8Ge5uIXTYw\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;ve already written at length about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/elden-ring-tarnished-edition-switch-2-impressions-performance\">the opening hours of my experience with Elden Ring on the Nintendo Switch 2<\/a>, and spoilers in case you&#8217;ve not read it yet, but it&#8217;s not half-bad. There&#8217;s a few frame drops here and there and I worry how, later, the faster, more-demanding bosses will fare. But so far it&#8217;s honestly just really nice to be able to alternate between playing the game docked and handheld.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Sure, I find the text a little small on handheld, but the sheer novelty of being able to play Elden Ring wherever I am is something I&#8217;ve been longing for for years (without having to buy a Steam Deck, that is). It&#8217;s also been lovely to experience the game from the very beginning again after years of barrelling through New Game Plus and randomisers galore. I always joke about how I&#8217;d sacrifice a limb to play Elden Ring for the first time again (I wouldn&#8217;t really, but still), and playing it from fresh on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/platforms\/switch-2\">Switch 2<\/a> has certainly come pretty close to that being a reality (and my limbs are still intact!).<\/p>\n<p><em>-Kelsey <\/em><\/p>\n<h2>The Lord of the Wings: The War in the North, PS5<\/h2>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"The Lord of the Rings: War in the North: Legacy Edition - Official Launch Trailer\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ivVnZVGomQo?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/ivVnZVGomQo\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">The Lord of the Rings: War in the North: Legacy Edition &#8211; Official Launch Trailer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Shame it didn&#8217;t do better when it came out, because it&#8217;s got a whole compass of possible sequel ideas ready made.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ivVnZVGomQo\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been playing a game for review that I&#8217;m excited about but I can&#8217;t talk about it yet, but I&#8217;ll be able to share my thoughts soon. Otherwise this week has been so busy I&#8217;ve struggled to play much or remember what my name is. Bernard? Boris? Bertha? I even missed Big Walk Tuesday, as I&#8217;ve come to think of it, but you lovely lot organised a stand-in Walk instead, which I love.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This gives me some white space to say more about The War in the North, the surprise-remastered edition, which I had much more fun with than I expected. Maybe it&#8217;s the power of the brand, ever-propelled by the ageless Peter Jackson films, but just being in the LOTR world, in the Prancing Pony pub &#8211; with Strider-era Aragorn sitting in the corner looking all thuggish with his hood up and smoking &#8211; is thrilling. Not quite the voice I was expecting, though.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s more width to the game than I&#8217;d reckoned on. I thought an action RPG like this would point us at some orcs and off we go, but we &#8211; my partner and me in split-screen co-op &#8211; noodled around Bree for ages, doing little quests for people with dlightfully dodgy regional accents. Voice acting has come on a lot in the 13 years since this was first released.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a decent package. The action&#8217;s pretty good &#8211; the concept fits brilliantly with the endless battles of the books and films &#8211; it&#8217;s got the appropriate murky grey-brown colouring of the films (or perhaps just that era of consoles), and I&#8217;m enjoying it. Maybe I&#8217;m being kinder to it because I&#8217;m looking back on it like a museum piece, but it&#8217;s great that it&#8217;s had another shot at life all the same. Forget the classics: remaster the duds.<\/p>\n<p><em>-Bertie<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home Features What we&#8217;ve been playing &#8211; &#8220;Forget the classics: remaster the duds&#8221; A few of the things that have us hooked this week. Image credit: Warner Bros. Feature by Robert Purchese Associate Editor Published on Aug. 29, 2026, 7 a.m. 33 comments Follow Elden Ring 29th August Hello and welcome back to our regular [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-2117714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2117714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2117714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2117714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2117714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}