A remake of Resident Evil 4 has been in the rumour mill for a couple of years now, and given the success Capcom continues to enjoy with the series on both critical and commercial fronts, it’s not surprising that the company would turn to a remake of possibly the franchise’s most beloved instalment to date.
Fresh leaks a little over a year ago claimed that while M-Two – the developer of 2020’s Resident Evil 3 remake – had originally been the new project’s lead developer, following the 2020 remake’s relatively muted reception, Capcom brought the project over to its internal Division 1 team, with development being rebooted. It seems, however, that they may not have entirely wiped the slate clean.
In a recently published repot, Fanbyte’s Imran Khan states that according to sources familiar with the project, while Capcom’s internal team has indeed taken over the project, with M-Two becoming a support studio, the work that the latter did on the game is still being used- so it’s not as much of an overhaul as some may have initially thought.
Additionally, the report also states that rather than developing the remake as a faithful scene-by-scene recreation of the original Resident Evil 4, Capcom is looking to make various story and dialogue changes. The primary purpose, it seems, is to adjust the tone of the game- while the original was famously campy, Capcom wants the remake to fall in line with the style of more recent Resident Evil releases and have a spookier tone.
One example of such changes is the iconic opening section of Resident Evil 4, which sees protagonist Leon S. Kennedy arriving at a village and having to mow down its entire brainwashed population in a tense shootout. In the remake, this encounter will now allegedly take place at night- in fact, according to the report, a “decent portion” of the game is going to take place at night.
It’s also claimed that various side characters are also going to be given more screentime and bigger roles in the remake, which falls in line with previous leaks about the game. Meanwhile, the Ada Wong-focused content is also seemingly going to be better integrated in the experience. The original Resident Evil 4’s campaign, Assignment: Ada, and the campaign that was first introduced in the game’s PS2 version, Separate Ways, will both apparently be combined into a single package. Right now, it’s unknown if this will be part of the remake’s base experience or if it will be added on as post-launch DLC.
Interestingly, the report also claims that the Resident Evil 4 remake is also going to pick up and repurpose ideas from scrapped builds and concepts for the original game- such as a demo that is well-known to series fans that sees Leon exploring a castle and dealing with chilling supernatural threats, from black smoke to possessed floating dolls. In what capacity these ideas will make it into the remake remains to be seen, but this tidbit should be of great interest to series fans.
Meanwhile, based on what’s mentioned in the Fanbyte report, it also seems like the recent leaks for Albert Wesker concept art were not for the RE4 remake after all, but for another project that’s possibly been cancelled by now.
Finally, the report claims that Capcom plans on announcing Resident Evil 4’s remake in early 2022- which means an announcement could be scheduled for sometime in the coming weeks or couple of months, if things are indeed planned as the report states. We’ll keep an eye out for any new details, so stay tuned for more updates.