Capcom has been on an absolute tear with remaking their older Resident Evil games, lately; though a trend they technically began in 2002 with the remake of the original Resident Evil, this trend of modernized remakes made within the company's dedicated RE Engine has been going strong since the Resident Evil 2 remake began in 2019. And when, not long after that game's release, it was revealed that an eventually disappointing Resident Evil 3 remake would be on the docket less than a year later. This had fans speculating on the inevitably of Capcom killing their golden goose via a remake of one of the company's most ported games: Resident Evil 4. The announcement and development cycle may have been torture for hardcore fans--especially after the highly RE4-inspired eighth installment, Resident Evil Village--but it’s finally here; after nearly 18 years and 14 total releases across 13 (twice for PC) platforms since 2005, including mobile and VR options, the remake of Resident Evil 4 is finally here. The only question that remains is: can it possibly live up to its predecessor? Let’s find out.

 

A Respectful Reimagining

Being a remake of one of the most beloved (and ported) games of all time, the general story for Resident Evil 4 should be relatively familiar to most; six years after the events of Resident Evil 2, Leon S. Kennedy has graduated from rookie cop to special agent working with the US government, who’s tasked with rescuing the president’s daughter, Ashley Graham, from a kidnapping in a secluded section of Europe. Throughout his mission, Leon uncovers a grander plot for world conquest from the Los Illumanados cult, as well as some involvement from old enemies - and friends - that leads him to ultimately needing to take down the cult and its leaders before a parasite inside him turns him into a mindless drone at the cult's mercy.

  

Though the general storyline remains largely unchanged from original to remake, there’s definitely been some changes here. The biggest of which is a small but significant tonal change in the story itself; while the original RE4 definitely had its moments of horror, it played more like a spooky b-movie with plenty of quirky dialogue, over-the-top characters, and a generally spooky atmosphere. While all of that is absolutely maintained in the remake, it’s almost been flipped on its head; more emphasis is set on making this a grounded, more realistic (as much as Resident Evil can be) take on the story that’s pretty in-line with the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3 in terms of tone, atmosphere, and story. Fun dialogue and memorable characters are still here, but they’re definitely more subdued and less memorable for those cheesy reasons that fans of the 2005 game will remember. While this is a fine change, as I was honestly expecting something along these lines, the horror still isn’t quite up to what I was hoping; it’s still spooky, for sure, but nothing here even comes close to the likes of Mr. X from the RE2 remake, or the baby from Resident Evil Village. Sure, it doesn’t need to be overtly scary for the story to work, but if the camp factor is getting toned down, I would’ve honestly preferred to trade it in for some more scares. And on top of all this, it suffers from the modern RE problem of too many cutscenes--ones that seamlessly transition from and back to gameplay, mind you, but still too many cutscenes that pull away from the gameplay. As it is now, it’s just a slightly less campy action-horror take on a game that was already memorable to begin with.

   

That’s not to say that all changes to this reimagining are for the worse, however. While we lose some of the camp, the stories and characters are handled in an incredibly respectful way that pays homage to their roots while giving them a new spin. Leon, while more subdued, still has plenty of one-liners and memorable moments. Luis gains new life, going from a suave and mysterious, but a bit aloof ladies' man to a skeezy-looking but lovable stranger, who takes a much more active role in the story, helping Leon more directly in quite a few instances. Ashley has gone from emotionless eye candy to having at least some semblance of a personality and character growth, though she’s still quiet, subdued, and mostly just along for the ride. Even the world itself benefits from some of this reimagining, with more lore and backstory being peppered throughout the game's three core areas that gives a more overt telling of how Los Illumonados came to overtake this land that’s a bit easier to piece together than it was in the original game.

The narrative also puts a bit more emphasis on the religious/cult aspects of Illumanados and their followers, which definitely adds to the more grounded atmosphere. Additionally, each chapter isn’t a 1-to-1 retelling of the original, with additional objectives added, both mandatory and optional, and some things moved around in the name of story structure. The additional objectives are a nice touch, but most of them feel designed mostly to pad out the storyline of the game, for better or worse. All of this is to say, while there’s definitely room for complaints and improvement, I personally believe that the changes made in the characters and story department were the right way to go towards respectfully reworking the game. It’s for sure different than what many of us fell in love with, but does that make it bad? Far from it, and in fact, I’d prefer to see a try at a different take after all this time.

   

Gameplay, Presentation, and Gripes

On the gameplay end of things, there’s much less of a dramatic shift compared to the previous Resident Evil remakes. As RE4 was the game that introduced and popularized the third-person, over-the-shoulder camera to the franchise, the remake not only maintains that but perfects it, in my mind. Combat is fluid and clearly optimized, able to switch between weapons and go from melee to gun use within seconds--much quicker than the original game. Parrying attacks and slicing projectiles out of the air with your knife, while not new to the remake, are much easier to pull off this time around. Traditional strategies of “shoot, then rush in to melee” still work flawlessly, and you can finally move while aiming - something famously absent from the 2005 release. Cooperative gameplay via needing Ashley's assistance to complete certain objectives also makes its return here, and even goes as far as to show you certain areas you'll need to return to later, before you find the President's daughter. Stealth gameplay gets added into the mix here, allowing Leon to crouch and sneak up to enemies for a quick and powerful sneak attack; a feature that gets heavily recommended in various portions of the game, but ultimately isn’t required. Another major change comes in the return of breakable knives from the RE2 remake, a far departure from the 2005 original that always had Leon’s trusty blade as an option for protection, but one that adds a bit more to the resource-management horror that the franchise is known for. Multiple knives can be found throughout the game, but your primary knife has an added bonus of being both repairable and upgradeable, able to be fixed and improved via the Merchant.

  

Speaking of the Merchant, everyone’s favorite mobile mercantile is back with a vengeance, providing a much more substantial role than he did in 2005. From a character standpoint, the shrouded stranger still pops up regularly in various safe rooms to buy your treasure and sell you weapons and upgrades. What’s changed is a much more vibrant and talkative personality, with a few more dialogue options that add some welcome comic relief to the adventure. His base function may remain the same, but with some changes; as mentioned before, his weapon upgrades now include being able to upgrade your knife, repair the knife and body armor (which now also degrades throughout your use), and more interestingly, he now offers bounty objectives to encourage backtracking further than the kind typically required in the series.

These bounties give you spinels, which have been upgraded from the most basic form of treasure you can loot, to a valuable currency that can be traded for exclusive items; weapons, upgrades, treasures, survival resources, and even some tickets to get exclusive weapon upgrades in the shop. As I mentioned above, while I overall like the additional bounty objectives, most of them amount to one of four types; shoot blue medallions, kill X amount of creatures, kill a stronger variant of an enemy, or collect an item to be sold back to the merchant. This lack of variety certainly starts to be felt after a bit, and they can feel more like chores than fun side objectives. At the very least, the good news to this is that they’re optional, so those who may get bored with them, can simply choose not to do them. 

   

With all of these changes and updates to gameplay in mind, though, I have to stop and lament the lack of inclusion on three major, and fan favorite, game modes; the Mercenaries, which sees the player taking on the role of one character and facing a sort of horde mode of the game's enemies, Separate Ways, an unlockable story mode that runs concurrently with the main story with the player taking on the role of Ada Wong as she completes her mission, and Assignment Ada, an unlockable minigame that sees the player controlling Ada as she collects plaga samples. Now we’ll give credit where it’s due, the Mercenaries game mode is indeed making its way to the game in the form of free DLC released not even a month post-game release. And while I would’ve loved to see this included from the get-go, I can understand that a bit more time was needed to complete it, and at least it’s going to be a free update rather than paywall content.

Separate Ways and Assignment Ada, however, are completely MIA as of the writing of this review… for the most part. It was revealed via the Resident Evil Central Twitter account that a data miner did find assets in a folder titled “_anotherorder”, which dedicated Resident Evil fans will recognize as the Japanese title for what those of us in the west know as Separate Ways. So hopefully that game mode, along with the non-canon but still enjoyable minigame of Assignment Ada, will be making their way to the remake in the form of DLC later on down the road… but that doesn’t completely forgive their exclusion here. Like the Mercenaries, being that they’ve been part of the base Resident Evil 4 experience for the vast majority of this game’s history, it’s a bit bothersome that they’d be cut from the remake. Sure, these additions being packaged in at launch would’ve added more to the development cycle of the remake, and likely have taken time and assets away from the main game, but it’s still troubling to see that three game modes were gutted, with only one confirmed to be making its return. Hopefully, if Separate Ways does indeed get announced as DLC for a later date, it follows the Mercenaries as a free update, rather than a paid expansion; especially when assets already exist in the launch version of the game, hiding it behind a paywall post-launch would only add salt to that wound.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to talk about the graphic and sound design for this game, as I believe it complements the newly chosen story tone perfectly. Environments and characters both keep enough familiar elements that old and new fans alike should be able to recognize the core of their design, but are updated for a more modern and realistic take on the game. There’s generally more wear and physical decay added to these areas, giving them a sense of being a part of a living, breathing environment that’s been ravaged by an unfeeling parasite. It really makes the entire world feel so much more alive, having that “lived in” quality basically everywhere you go. Enemies and bosses are menacing, imposing, and honestly a bit scary looking as the las plagas parasite ravages their bodies, adding more creep factor than they had in 2005. More overtly human characters like Leon, Ashley, Ada, and Luis, all look great and definitely more grounded… in cutscenes, at least. In gameplay, they fall victim to the grimy, oil-like texture that the RE engine gives to basically everything. Still, it’s an aesthetic that works and enhances the story, all backed up by sound design and score that highlights the dreadful atmosphere.

   

But is it good?

 At the end of the day, the question still remains; is Resident Evil 4 a good remake, and a good game? To both of those questions, I say a resounding yes. Capcom has clearly learned from the failures that plagued their Resident Evil 3 remake, and more than rectified them here; the game isn’t shortened, core content isn’t cut, and the changes to the story and characters are handled in a respectful way that honors where they came from, while still offering a new and fresh take. Only time will tell if this game has the same staying power that the original Resident Evil 4 does, but for now? This is an incredibly serviceable remake, and just an overall fun game, that should be an honorable, respectful reimagining, rather than just something that reminds you of a better game.