Another Resident Evil remake is just around the corner with Resident Evil 4 Remake out later this month. we went hands on with this late last year, but we’ve now been privy to some new gameplay and footage from a pretty large chunk of the game, starting in Chapter 4, battling through the castle and even getting a quick look at a late-game boss battle.
We’ve got a bunch of takeaways from this for how Capcom has overhauled and remade this horror classic, but if you’re wary of spoilers, you’ll likely want to avoid the last couple of points. The same holds true of the video below.
RE Engine still looks RE-ally good
Resident Evil 4 remake builds on the RE Engine once again, and this is still one of the best-looking game engines out there – this despite being cross-gen with the PS4 version (but no Xbox One). From the amount of detail on the characters and environments, to the way that light and shadow is cast by the flashlight and flaming torches, RE4 is a real looker that’s sure to push the new generation.
Horror with a full course of action
Resident Evil 4 Remake goes all in on the action side of horror, enhancing the game up to modern standards and making changes well beyond just switching away from tank controls!
There’s the classic one-two hit of shooting to stagger an enemy and then going in for Leon’s roundhouse kick – in particular, shooting a leg will disorient them and open them up for this – and there’s some barmy wrestling style finishers as well, but then there’s also the knife. As we covered from our first hands on, this has been completely overhauled, letting you parry everything from incoming farm tools, to thrown firebombs, and even the giant claws of the Garrador that you meet under the castle!
The knife is also very useful as a finisher, to stop an infected enemy then sprouting tentacle heads. Just beware it’s now a consumable, and you’ll need to pay to resharpen it when you can.
Here, take a flyer…
Capcom isn’t just making a pure retread of the original, but making changes and adding new content to it as well. One example is with more side quest missions dotted throughout, which can be acquired by picking up blue flyers from the Merchant. The one we saw added the task of selling a gold chicken egg with a reward of three Spinels in return.
Attaché some more customisation
Naturally you’ll be heading to visit the Merchant plenty of times through the game, grabbing weapons, upgrading things, and fixing up that knife, as mentioned above.
The attaché case returns with its grid of inventory space, but it’s been brought up to date with the quick weapon and item switching on the D-pad found in other recent RE games.
Want to look even more 90s badass with that attaché case? Well, you’ll be able to change the colour of the case and go one step further by adding special charms to it, like it’s a gun in a free-to-play shooter. These aren’t just cosmetic charms, but can give you perks, like a chicken charm doubling the health recovery for all egg types.
Boats, lakes and caves
One area that Capcom has expanded is the lake, with the ability to hop into a speed boat and explore a cave network filled with Ganados and other things to find. There are mysterious new shrines and strange painted symbols everywhere! What will this all mean? We’ll find out pretty soon.
Are you still the Babysitter-in-Chief?
RE4 fans dread having to babysit the President’s daughter once she’s been rescued, and Capcom are thankfully making big changes to what she brings to the remake.
In particular, she doesn’t have a straight up health bar anymore, and you can give her commands to be “tight” to Leon or “loose” depending on if you’re about to get into a fight or not. It’s a subtle change from follow, wait and hide from the original.
But she’s not like an invincible companion NPC. Ashely can still be downed and need to be revived quite quickly, and enemies can also grab her and start to try and kidnap her all over again. Make sure to react quickly to free her in that case, because it’s game over if she gets dragged too far away!
Taking a knife to a QTE fight
A maligned QTE sequence from the original Resident Evil 4, Capcom has completely overhauled the Jack Krauser boss fight. Now, thanks to the enhanced knife abilities throughout the remake, you can actually fight him this time as the back and forth and narrative reveals take place.
So there we have it, our seven takeaways from the new gameplay footage of Resident Evil 4 Remake. We’re now less than a month away from the game’s release on 24th March across PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4 and PC, with PSVR 2 support in development as post-launch DLC.
