At PlayStation’s conference this year at E3 we saw gameplay for a game a lot of us hoped to see, but few actually expected to. Rumours had constantly made it sound like the Resident Evil 2 Remake was in development hell. Yet E3 proved that’s not the case and that we’ll be playing the Resident Evil 2 remake on January 25th next year.
Due to all of this, and considering the original is one of my favourite games of all time, (I already own versions of it on 4 different platforms) I thought it made sense to do a deep dive into the information we know about the game, and analyse the trailers for possible clues about the direction the remake is taking.
The gameplay we’ve seen so far of the game is set in the Raccoon Police Department. From what has been shown off we know for certain that the game will have an over the shoulder camera angle and A LOT of zombies. Judging from the gameplay shown they’ll be slow moving but aggressive, meaning you’ll have to watch your turns. When they bite you the camera zooms in extremely close, making it a very uncomfortable experience and adding a level of panicked disorientation to the proceedings.
Check out this video for graphical comparisons as well as a complete breakdown of the Resident Evil trailer:
Corridors feel claustrophobic and it definitely seems like a nice balance between the 4 onwards Resident Evil games and the originals in terms of action and horror.
Gameplay has also shown that we will be able to board up windows with wooden boards that you can find scattered around the place. Although they are limited in quantity so you need to be tactical with their use. Barricading is obviously something we’ve seen a bit in the series before, but it sounds like in 2 there will be much more to barricading and it can affect how populated routes are by zombies.
Leon and Claire will still have separate campaigns although there won’t be an A and B campaign as we saw on the original PlayStation version. Obviously this will disappoint long time series fans but at least the arguments about what is canon should become much simpler. From the complete demo playthrough that we’ve seen it seems there will still be crossover moments too, which should be fun.
There also seems to be proof already that it won’t just be as simple as one of the characters being the A scenario and one being the B scenario. We go more in-depth with that in the video embedded in the article so make sure to check it out.
We also know, from the announcement press release, that “gameplay modes from the original game” will make an appearance. In an interview with Trusted Reviews, Resident Evil 2’s producer confirmed, via a translator, that the Fourth Survivor and Tofu modes will be in the game. Whether we’ll also see a return of Extreme Battle Mode and other modes from the various versions of the original game, we’ll have to wait and see.
In terms of the graphics engine we know it’s running on the RE Engine and you can expect the gore to look as unsettling as it did in Resident Evil 7, with an intense realism to everything. Some snippets of gameplay have also shown limb destruction similar to what we saw from the Molded in Resident Evil 7 but it looks even more gruesome on a human like zombie.
The game is changing the location of enemies and items and mixing up the layout too. In fact from shots we’ve seen of the exterior of the RPD it seems that there may even be extra floors to explore. The developers did confirm that new areas will be in the game and we did see that in the gameplay shown so it will be exciting to see what else is new.
One thing we know for certain is new is that the Licker won’t appear in the same place as it made its iconic debut back in 1998. When it does appear though it will definitely still fill you with the same terror it did all those years ago. Some new items will also make an appearance, like the previously mentioned wooden boards and the knife is more useful than it has ever been. It can be used to push zombies away from you and, once you do that, you’ll have to kill the zombie to get the knife back.
The remake of Resident Evil 2 will release in January 2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
