My interest was in the DLC; the actual separate "Switch 2 editions" released and price like new games didn't need to exist.

For the record, I actually did download the DLC for Kirby and the Forgotten Land; I already owned the game though.

Adding additional content is not the problem, it's remastering games that really don't need it rather than investing those resources in actual new games.

Or more generally any game, including older games, if they're not improved significantly in the so-called remaster. There's been what feels like an increasing amount of 'remasters' for old games, where the advantages are debatable, but the remaster costs at least 20-30€/$, and the original, which might've cost something like 10-20€/$, is removed from sale entirely (and usually not included with the remaster either).

Going slightly offtopic, but this is definitely a topic I have feelings about, so might as well throw in a post about it.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered isn't sold for full price. It is $10 if you have the game already, and $40 if you don't. The assets are vastly improved. 

Compare that to something like BOTW Switch 2 Edition where the game is $69.99 or $10 and you're basically just getting a resolution and framerate bump. 

None of these "need" to exist, but games don't "need" to exist in general. They're luxury goods, not food stuff, medicine, or clothing. 

At the risk of going further off topic, I'd argue that's still a bit of a cash grab given it was already playable with enhanced graphics/performance via BC. I wouldn't call the upgrade "vast" either, but that's a subjective thing.

It's true no game "needs" to exist per se, but it's not exactly a hot take that Horizon Remastered was kinda unnecessary, I recall that being a pretty widespread sentiment when it was announced.

We've diverged a long way from the OP at this point though, which is my bad, so I'll leave it there.

I mean the difference is pretty much night and day (regardless of one's evaluation of if it is worth the $10.) I think it is relevant to the original topic in so much that the game is directly referenced in the article shared, and an argument is made  that AI output nearly always produces slop, yet Remastered isn't received widely to be such in the area where AI was applied - animations. I don't think a hypothetical third Horizon game would be slop either, even if it used the animation tool being referenced. 

I wouldn't consider it night and day personally; the colouring's been modified a lot, but Horizon already looked pretty good so it's not a game where a remaster was greatly needed, though that's just my personal opinion of course

DF did a video on it when it released, and from an objective perspective the changes are numerous (much more than a shift in the color palette.) Individual asset quality had improved, environmental effects have improved, the density of world assets is improved, animations (where AI was applied according to the article/Sony boss) are more diverse and extensive, water and character models are greatly improved, audio was improved, etc. I think it is a fair opinion to say that this wasn't necessary given how good the game looked already, but a lot of work did go into the remaster nevertheless and the output definitely was an improvement with labor put into it.

This is what John says at one point in the video. 

"The very idea of remaking this game seemed silly when we first got wind of it, but it turns out that's not what we're looking at all. Instead what we have is a robust remaster helmed primarily by Nixxes while introducing a full suite of options that we first saw in the second game."

"I walked away pretty impressed as I said in the beginning I was very skeptical. You can hear me talk about this in prior DF Directs in fact. I was not sure I wanted to see a studio pour presumably years of work into remaking a game at the expense of new content. In the end, however, it turned out to be a really good opportunity for Nixxes to produce something different from their usual PC conversions. That the team was able to manage this remaster while also releasing a number of PC ports suggests they were a perfect fit for this project after-all. Furthermore, if you already own the game I think 10 bucks is a fair asking price for this upgrade when considering how much has been added. Too much work has been poured into this to offer it as a free upgrade I think it is fair to say. So given the near perfect technical execution of this remaster I'd say my initial skepticism was unwarranted. In the end Nixxes did a truly great job here."  

I wasn't saying the colour scheme was the only change (just to my eye one of the most immediately noticeable ones, the mood feels quite starkly different in some shots) or that there aren't other updates to things various assets like water/foliage/etc, those are evident, it's more that, to my eye, the difference isn't big enough to where a full blown remaster was really needed.

To my mind at least, remasters and such are for when the original game doesn't hold up any more and is really showing its age, which I didn't think was the case for Horizon.

I think it's a little wild to undersell how big of a difference the Horizon Remaster from Nixxes is; its pretty much upgraded to be almost on the level of HFW, even with new mocapping down and a similar set of accessibility options.

Whether its necessary to have been made from a consumer perspective is debatable, but you're getting a far superior experience all-round. From a developer perspective, it's an important learning step for Nixxes as they become more ingrained with Decima. I wouldn't be surprised if they are being prepped to take over the Horizion MP game so that Guerilla can have their whole team focused on Horizion 3 at the soonest possible time.

That said, I don't think there's any evidence that their AI use was what we currently associate with gen ai: ai that has been taught on vast amount of data that belongs to other artists etc. Ai/ automation/ ML: as long as all of these are not stealing other's works, then I think it's fine. Automation has existed for decades, whether ppl like it or not.