Resident Evil 4 Remake Review: An Infectious Refinement of a Horror Classic

The remake knows exactly when to subvert expectations to ratchet up tension.

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Resident Evil 4
Photo: Capcom

At long last, the trail of Resident Evil remakes has come full circle with a remake of Resident Evil 4, the game that every title in the series after 2005 has attempted to build upon with varying degrees of success. Along the way, Capcom has ported the original Resident Evil 4 to virtually everything—dwarfing even the number of times that Skyrim has shown up on a new platform—and, arguably, already given the game its modern-day spiritual successor in the form of Resident Evil Village. All of which prompts the question of what exactly can be gained by going back to the well of Resident Evil 4. Turns out, quite a bit.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with Resident Evil 4, the game follows ex-cop Leon Kennedy, a few years after the whole business in Raccoon City. Leon is consigned to working for a government agency, and gets sent to Valdelobos, a remote, rural area of Spain, on a rescue mission after the U.S. president’s daughter, Ashley Graham—no relation to the supermodel—is kidnapped. In his way is the accursed populace of the region, who are infected by a particularly nasty, homicidal parasite known as La Plaga and puppeteered by the region’s two most powerful men: the diminutive Ramón Salazar, the eighth castellan of the Salazar family, and Osmund Saddler, leader of the neopagan cult and paramilitary organization Los Iluminados.

The game is close in ethos to this year’s Dead Space remake. Dead Space is itself at the head of the class in terms of games that took the original Resident Evil 4’s ideas and ran with them even further. So it feels right that both remakes have adopted the same critical eye on the past. The things that worked in the original remain intact, with some smart tweaks for better cohesion between the game’s mechanics. And the things that didn’t work have either been rethought or ripped out entirely, and the developers at Capcom were ruthless about killing fan darlings when it came to some of the game’s most memorable but tonally dissonant moments.

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What’s been added in their place is new graphical detail, smarter NPC behaviors, surprise appearances from Resident Evil franchise favorites, environmental hazards and helpers, and good old-fashioned gore. The brunt of the work has gone into the combat, not just adopting camera controls that conform to modern standards, but removing restrictions wherever possible. Leon can finally walk and shoot at the same time, and his knife can be used for stealth kills, parries, and finishers, which is balanced out by the fact that knives can break if overused.

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Ordinarily, breakable weapons would be aggravating in a game such as this one, but Resident Evil 4 is so much smarter about doling out alternatives to the player across the campaign. Running out of ammo, for one, is less of a death sentence and more of a prompt to get you to innovative with the meager tools at your disposal. Enemies, meanwhile, routinely break parts of the environment, flanking the player, changing their vantage points if Leon hangs out for too long behind cover, and swarming him unless he exercises careful crowd control.

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Instead of simply forcing players to plant themselves like a tree and play shooting gallery, this remake is so much more thoughtful about how it stages its fights. That alone may seem like a small change, but going back to play the original title is a stark reminder of just how much of a difference all of the remake’s quality-of-life improvements actually make.

Indeed, much of Resident Evil 4 feels like it’s meant to become the game that the rearview mirror of nostalgia tells us we all played back in 2005, without the rude awakenings of its dated control scheme, Metal Gear Solid parodies, and upskirt shots of Ashley. That’s a mild detriment in terms of tone. Resident Evil 4 was never exactly the scariest game in the series, but without the goofy sense of humor, the game being light on actual terror is even more noticeable.

The one tangible upside of the remake keeping a much more straight face is that it does allow the subtext of the story to shine through a bit more without the original’s sillier moments undercutting the tension. The idea that the aristocrats of Spain will use any means necessary to keep a docile status quo isn’t exactly the thrust of the narrative, but the environmental lore scattered throughout Resident Evil 4 has just the right touch of venom against the ruling class to make that aspect of the story come across stronger than in the original.

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That narrative strength is bolstered by a far less tin-eared script than that of the original, a graphical upgrade that goes hard on gothic atmosphere and dread, a well-implemented upgrade system with a new-and-improved ornery British merchant (though the recently introduced optional microtransactions are a black mark against him), and creatures that still have a few unforeseen surprises up their sleeves. While this world is familiar to veterans of the original game, Capcom knows exactly when to subvert expectations to ratchet up tension.

This game was reviewed with code provided by fortyseven communications on March 22.

Score: 
 Developer: Capcom  Publisher: Capcom  Platform: PlayStation 5  ESRB: M  ESRB Descriptions: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language  Buy: Game

Justin Clark

Justin Clark is a gaming critic based out of Massachusetts. His writing has also appeared in Gamespot.

1 Comment

  1. While I have high hopes starting this game now, I always wince when I hear people gripe about the ‘dated’ controls of the original. I mean, play it, or better yet, play it with the HD mods fans have made. The 2005 game holds up so well that even though I am impressed with my initial 3 hour stint I doubt it will match the same impact or heights RE4 originally set. The original RE games never had a problem with their limited mobility – in fact they benefited from it!

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