SiN: Reloaded is out now on PS5, Xbox, Switch 2 and PC

SiN: Reloaded is out now, and Nightdive Studios has hauled a 1998 shooter back into the present with the expansion pack still attached. The remaster launched on 24 September for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC through Steam and GOG, with Atari publishing alongside Nightdive.

What Nightdive has actually changed

The 1998 campaign and the Wages of SiN expansion are both in the box, and Nightdive has rebuilt the whole thing to run at up to 4K and up to 144 frames per second. Textures and character models have been redone in HD, map layouts have been tidied, and the control schemes have been reworked for gamepad and keyboard alike. There are new achievements, re-engineered audio tracks from composer Zak Belika with mixing by Chris Mock, and an in-game vault of behind-the-scenes production material.

The nicest touch is the toggle. Players can switch between the remastered presentation and the original SiN Gold look whenever they like, which settles the argument over what changed without anyone having to trust a comparison video. On Nintendo, buyers of the Switch version get the Switch 2 Edition as a free upgrade.

The shooter that let you hack a DOS terminal

The original SiN arrived in 1998 on a stretched Quake II engine and spent its ambition on things shooters were not doing yet. Its levels were full of working machinery: DOS-style terminals to hack, security camera grids, elevators, a forklift, a patrol boat and a helicopter. Your actions opened branching paths through the story, and the combat modelled per-area damage and the ability to shoot a weapon out of an enemy's hands. Colonel John R. Blade's campaign against Dr Elexis Sinclaire, chief executive of SinTEK Industries, was the frame around all of it.

SiN has always been one of those games that deserved another chance. It was ambitious, interactive, funny, and willing to experiment with ideas that were years ahead of their time.

— Stephen Kick, studio head at Nightdive Studios

What it costs

On Steam the game is $29.99 in the United States and €29.99 in the eurozone. GOG sells a DRM-free build, which matters if you would rather own an installer than a licence tied to a launcher, and the reworked soundtrack and a wallpaper pack are sold as separate extras. Every console version arrives today alongside the PC releases.

Our opinion

Bundling the expansion is the part the rest of the industry should be studying. Wages of SiN ships inside the package rather than being resold as an add-on, the Switch 2 upgrade costs nothing, and the original rendering stays one button-press away. Nightdive is selling an artefact and an argument about it at the same time. Most remasters present themselves as replacements and quietly imply that the old version was a mistake; this one keeps both in the box and lets you decide.

Then there is the announcement itself, which still introduces Sinclaire as “brilliant, wealthy, sexy and ethically-challenged”. That line is a fossil of 1998 marketing, carried over untouched, and it lands oddly beside a remaster that has otherwise handled the source material with obvious care. Leaving it in is arguably the honest call for a preservation release, because the game is a period piece and its attitude towards its own villain is part of the record. It is also a useful reminder that restoring something faithfully means restoring the parts that have not aged well either.

The caveat is the one that follows every 1990s shooter back onto modern hardware: a rebuilt engine sharpens the textures, but it cannot redesign the levels, and 1998's conventions are an acquired taste nearly three decades on. Worth knowing before spending €30 on nostalgia. If you have any appetite for the era at all, this is a fairer proposition than plenty of full-price releases, and the free next-gen upgrade is the kind of courtesy the rest of the industry keeps forgetting to offer.