How Resident Evil 4 Could Benefit From a Remake

Bringing back such a game ahead of its time means Resident Evil 4 's remake has a lot to live up to. That's precisely why Capcom has to perform a very delicate balancing act if Capcom intends to truly remake Resident Evil 4 in the flavor of its most recent remakes. A lot of what the original game introduced to the world of games has now become commonplace for third-person shooters, survival horror games, and other genres in general. That being said, there are plenty of quality-of-life updates Resident Evil 4 deserves that a remake could achieve thanks to innovations made in games from the past dec


However, many fans are loyal to the brand just because of the survival horror aesthetic. Not saying they would turn their back on Capcom if they don't meet their demands. They would just adore the company even more with a Code: Veronica rem


Resident Evil 4 represents a completely different challenge compared to the recently released remakes. Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 both initially came out on the first PlayStation console way back in 1998 and 1999, respectively. Sony's first console didn't have the luxury of rendering highly complex character models or 3D environments, storing larger amounts of data, and any other modern conveniences games from the mid-to-late 2000s onward have. Resident Evil 4 came out for the GameCube in 2005, and though it wasn't necessarily the first fully dimensional Resident Evil game, it was the first to take advantage of next-generation hardware to craft a highly detailed wo


Resident Evil 4 , though featuring plenty of familiar cramped spaces that the franchise was known for, was the first game to truly blow the world out into a more vast, open-air world. The game still remained true to the core of Resident Evil , but Resident Evil 4 was revolutionary not only for the franchise but for games in general. Despite being confined to the series' trademark tank controls, the game was incredibly innovative in perfecting the third-person shooter genre. The over-the-shoulder camera design in Resident Evil 4 greatly succeeded where many other precursor games had experimented and failed in previously. Some of the best third-person shooters released since 2005 have Resident Evil 4 to thank for its incredible aiming technol


If Capcom wants to get to the root of what initially made the RE series special, they should stick along the survival horror route. The recent remake of Resident Evil 3 already brings fans into a horror/action-adventure hybrid. With a RE4 remake, Capcom would be venturing even further away from the survival horror cal kestis fighting style set

Another aspect of Resident Evil 4 that was innovative for the time was its sense of scale, despite its linearity. Leon runs through rural Spanish villages, mineral mines, gothic castles, modern military installations, etc. Even in its 15-20 hour runtime, players travel to such an interesting variety of locales that the game is perceived to be much grander than it is. Even now, as the game creeps up to 15 years old, the world of Resident Evil 4 has a sense of sprawl balanced perfectly with its actual size. Now with modern technology allowing for higher graphical fidelity, a remake could see that scale expanded with larger highly detailed environments further beyond what the GameCube was capable of. Invoking that sense of scale that was so impactful in the original game would be perfect for a Resident Evil 4 rem


From there, a Resident Evil 4 remake could continue making miniscule changes, but there's not really much else to tackle ideally. Resident Evil 4 's experience was already an incredibly well-balanced experience that any changes beyond the aforementioned may work to cheapen a remake in the spirit of the original game. Though Capcom has found success in implementing radical changes as well , it'd be interesting to see how a reimagining could be tackled for Resident Evil


The T-Virus infected crows were also not in the remake. In the original Resident Evil 2, crows looked like normal birds, albeit they were slightly larger in size and were aggressive towards the player. They became infected by the T-Virus by consuming other animals infected with it, such as insects or meat from corp


Given this, the personalities of both playable characters weren't as fleshed-out, especially when compared to modern games. However, based on dialogue alone, Jill did not really embody the traits of a traditional video game heroine, and while she is capable enough to handle the situation she's in, she lacked the flair and personality that is common in today's video game protagonist. But in retrospect, even if it wasn't intentional, Capcom's portrayal of Jill in the first Resident Evil game does make sense, given that this game served as her origin story. Prior to the mansion incident, Jill has no experience in dealing with bioweapons, so it wouldn't really make sense to portray her as a badass bioweapon killing machine when this is the first time that she even knew bioweapons exis