Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake – an (un)necessary remake?

Avantgarden Games decided to modernize the fabulous adventure from Starbreeze Studios, but it’s not entirely clear why.

The original Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons was developed by the Swedish Starbreeze Studios, which you probably remember from the Riddick dilogy, Syndicate, Payday 3, and other great games. Brothers doesn’t really fit into this company. It’s a short, about three hours, somewhat sad adventure of two brothers who go in search of the water of life to save their sick father. By and large, the game was an experimental indie project with non-verbal storytelling, an original scheme of controlling two characters at the same time, and a perfectly recreated atmosphere of the Grimm fairy tale. The heroes’ path ran from a Nordic settlement through dark forests and caves inhabited by wolves and trolls, battlefields littered with the bodies of giants, through the ruins of castles and cities, and onward to a mythical spring.

At the same time, the game did not make any attempt to tell the player about the world in which the events take place, and even the few dialogues were voiced in a pseudo-language, which did not prevent the player from immersing himself in what was happening on the screen and worrying about the fate of the characters: on the contrary, the player was motivated to explore the surroundings and invent the history of this fairy-tale world for himself. And it was interesting to explore, because the locations turned out to be very atmospheric, and enemies were not often encountered, so nothing prevented you from looking at the fairy-tale scenery. The fact that the brothers behaved differently when interacting with the same objects and characters added to the atmosphere. The older one seemed more serious, but, unlike the younger one, completely incapable of playing musical instruments, for example. The younger one was a typical brawler who would spit in a well and try alcohol (this moment looked strange then, and it looks the same now).

Why are we still talking about an eleven-year-old game? It’s because the remake differs from it only graphically – it’s exactly the same game, only the Unreal Engine version has changed, and some cutscenes have become more spectacular. And I can’t say that this is definitely a good decision – somehow, after the appearance of improved textures, some of the fairy-tale atmosphere disappeared from the game, and it became more… gloomy, I guess.

Otherwise, there are no changes at all: you still control the older brother with the left stick and trigger, and the younger brother with the right stick. At first, this system doesn’t seem very convenient, especially since you have to control the brothers sometimes synchronously and sometimes in turn, but you get used to it very quickly and, except for certain moments, there are no problems. Although you’re not immune to confusion if the brothers suddenly change positions on the screen while running, or if one brother or the other falls off a cliff because you released the wrong trigger.

The brothers are not interchangeable, the older one is stronger, and therefore he is responsible for switching heavy levers, carrying loads, or throwing the younger one somewhere higher. The younger one, in turn, can crawl where the older one cannot. In fact, the vast majority of local puzzles are based on these differences, which are unlikely to cause you any problems.

In general, both the original Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and the Remake are more about narrative than gameplay and mechanics, but there is one very strong decision in the game that connects the first and second in a way that perhaps no one else does. Ironically, this is one of the main spoilers and I can’t go into details, just play the game to the end and you’ll understand what I mean.

Actually, the main question now is whether you should buy the remake if you’ve already completed the original? Hmm. I’m not sure, unless you really want to see how the picture has changed. And for those who missed this wonderful game, we advise you to definitely get acquainted with it, but whether you want to play the original version or the remake – decide for yourself, depending on which visual style you prefer, you can find a trailer with a comparison of graphics below.