After remakes for RE2 and 3, Capcom ventures into what is arguably the most popular part of the series. The remake of the groundbreaking Resident Evil 4 surprised us when we played the demo, not only with new visuals, but also with some new features.
Much has already been written about Resident Evil 4. And in contrast to the “Resident Evil” films or the immediately cancelled Netflix series, also a lot of good things. The game not only revolutionised its own series, but also set a benchmark for upcoming action-adventures.
After Resident Evil 5 and 6 bitterly offended many fans, Capcom made things good again with the new direction in the seventh and eighth parts as well as the strong remakes. But with the remake of the fourth and cult-revered spin-off, none of that counts anymore: Resident Evil 4 doesn”t just need a proper remake; it needs to bang! Capcom can”t afford a misstep with this classic.
We played an almost 30-minute demo of Resident Evil 4 Remake on the PlayStation 5 for you and let crazy people attack us with pitchforks and chainsaws – until the bitter end. What the RE4 remake taught us in the process (apart from being scary), we reveal to you in the giant preview.
Table of Contents
A forest to fear
The playable section begins as the original once did: a police car drops Raccoon City policeman Leon S. Kennedy off in a forest, with only a gun in his hands and a mission in his luggage. Once again, he has to rescue the president”s daughter, who has been kidnapped by the sect Los Illuminados.
Not only does the story sound familiar, you feel reminded of the old Resident Evil 4 from the very first step. Those who already know the old part will feel right at home in the remake. Only with the small difference that the forest from the 2005 game is no longer recognisable in the current remake.
The brown forest of yesteryear, sparsely overgrown with a few individual trees and bushes, is history. Now you are standing in the middle of a dense forest that could have come out of a horror story. You are hemmed in by gloomy branches and have to make your way through thorns and twigs. Here and there a raven flies over your head.
If you shoot the bird in time, it leaves behind a few ptas, the in-game currency. This will sound familiar to connoisseurs of the original. Newcomers can look forward to an extremely dense and eerie atmosphere. Every metre feels threatening to you, as if a zombie or cultist could jump out of the bushes at any moment.
Bloody details
But your first battle is still a little long in coming. It takes place not directly in the forest, but in a run-down house. A wild-eyed inhabitant attacks you in his kitchen and you have to defend yourself. Either with your pistol or your knife.
Typical of the Resident Evil series, ammunition is a rare commodity and should be used sparingly. In the demo, however, your knife will only keep a few enemies at bay until it becomes useless. But there are a few new features for the blade.
You can now parry your opponent if you block his attack at the right moment. Leon can then either counter with a good kick or with a direct stab in the neck. This is not particularly demanding from a gameplay point of view, but the animations seem all the more fluid for it.
If you counter the first opponent with the blade, you should not expect a quick, short thrust. Instead, there is a separate, surprisingly long animation for it, which is so bloody that it is almost a horror cliché. A wave of blood spurts out of the crazed man as he sinks to the kitchen floor with a cry of pain.
Looking around, the level of detail in the kitchen is similar to that of nature outside. A beautifully flickering fireplace, almost too detailed intestines on the kitchen table, almost realistic-looking cobwebs – this room alone doesn”t seem to offer enough space for the wealth of detail.
In purely graphical terms, then, the Resident Evil 4 remake is an absolute treat waiting for you. But in times of PlayStation5, Xbox Series X and RTX 4090, you can expect a lot.
New and familiar
The rest of the demo remains bloody. You will meet some cult followers who want to send you into Game Over. Some throw axes at you, others chase you with pitchforks and torches. For fans of the series they are old acquaintances, for newcomers they are psychopaths who deal out more damage than you think.
Getting stabbed by a pitchfork is incredibly brutal and Leon”s screams are so believable that it can scare you. If you are not careful in battle, your opponents will even sneak up behind you and grab you. A nice detail is that they turn you directly to the next enemy so that he can attack you. You can escape their grip via a quick-time event, but most of the time you”ll take more damage than you”d like.
Resident Evil veterans will get to grips with the third-person controls more quickly than those who only came into contact with the seventh and eighth parts. Classic item management with various herbs is also back, as is placement in your menu. You can rotate and arrange your weapons, healing sprays and other items until they fit into your inventory in the most space-saving way possible.
All of this is very reminiscent of old games, but now appears in a modern and less bulky guise. What immediately caught our attention was the option to craft something. We couldn”t find the necessary items in the demo, but according to Capcom, you will find numerous raw materials in the finished game that you can use to quickly and easily create other items.
Subtil goes differently
In the beginning level you will also be introduced to another new mechanic: sneaking. Leon can now sneak up on enemies and take them out with his knife. But you have to be careful that no one notices you, otherwise you will be surrounded.
But you have to find out for yourself whether sneaking really offers any added value. It is helpful in some places to secretly make one of the cult followers harmless, but at the latest then you will be discovered and will resort to your usual weapons. So the sneaking mechanics seem to be superficial at best and, at least in the demo, are nowhere near the depth of play of a Hitman or Splinter Cell. In the demo, however, subtle action was hardly possible with it.
It was a lot easier to go for the kill. In the last few metres you reach the notorious village of Pueblo. And no sooner have you set foot there than a policeman is burnt at the stake by several inhabitants before your eyes. His screams are terrifyingly loud, but at the same time they are also impressive.
This may sound macabre, but the screaming at the stake is an example of how impressive the sound design has become in the remake. Every shot reverberates, every kick and every knife attack has impact, the desperate screams go through your spine. This only benefits the atmosphere.
And as you stand there, in front of the burning fire, in the almost peaceful sunlight of the small village, you could almost say it”s an idyllic scenario. But then you hear the distinctive sound of a chainsaw and you run for your life.
All against one
The legendary section in the village of Pueblo marks the last part of the demo. And it”s a tough one. The entire village is out to get you, the countless inhabitants hunt you down relentlessly with everything they have. You run through the narrow streets, jump over fences, run past chickens and cows, while the angry mob behind you wants you dead.
Every now and then you can turn around for a moment and fire a few shots, but then the mob has already closed in again and you have to flee once more. If you search thoroughly, you will also find stun grenades and hand grenades. If you are clever, you can manoeuvre your pursuers into a narrow alley. If you then throw the hand grenade into the crowd, the villagers will turn into red mist. Even with few resources, the game still gives you enough opportunities to succeed in battle.
But the biggest threat that stands out from this bunch of chainsaw-wielding maniacs is the one wearing a rag bag over his face. If he catches you, it”s over and you have to watch the saw eat through Leon”s body – and like every death scene, this is also extremely bloody.
If you escape into one of the houses, Leon blocks the door with a cupboard. Those who know the original will immediately know which house it is. While the chainsaw behind you is already slowly coming through the door, you rush up the stairs where a shotgun is hanging on the wall. The fun can begin and already the first shot shows its effect.
Not only the massive sound, but also the hit feedback from the enemies is technically impressive. A close-range shot causes the head to explode, revealing small, virus-like tentacles. Even in the midst of all this hustle and bustle, the richness of detail is positively striking. A direct hit on the legs causes the enemies” limbs to fly off in a high arc.
At this point at the latest, a USK rating from 18 years of age should be certain – if the detachable extremities even make it into the finished game in this country and do not fall victim to the scissors. Whether Resident Evil 4 Remake will be released uncut is unclear at this point.
Hidden innovations
The chase in the village recalls the quintessence of Resident Evil: horror and terror. In other words, what many fans accuse the fifth and sixth parts of having lost. You can”t take a breather, nowhere is a safe spot and everywhere your wild-eyed pursuers seem to be ahead of you.
Admittedly, in the houses you have a fleeting moment of peace until the inhabitants rattle the doors and place ladders at the windows. You can knock these over, as you did in the original game, but sooner or later you will have company. Look around and you will also discover some interesting interactions with your surroundings.
For example, you can shoot the oil lamp in a barn and set a cow on fire. The burning animal then runs through the village and takes everyone with it who stands in its way. The cow was there before, but the interaction didn”t exist then.
There is also an exciting new feature in your fight with the chainsaw. If you run past a certain spot in the village, you trigger a special event. The chainsaw man suddenly tears down the pillar of a barn with his eponymous weapon. The barn collapses with a loud crash and blocks your escape route. So you have to look for a new route and all this while the chainsaw approaches.
You have to trigger this event first though. It is easy to miss this small but very surprising event. Similarly, you can simply not set the cow on fire. The game doesn”t tell you what new options are available and what you can interact with. This invites veterans to experiment, but also means you can miss things just as easily.
Winking developers
The wild chase through Pueblo demonstrates all the qualities that Resident Evil stands for. The iconic level from the original game is presented to you in modern graphics. Everything looks cohesive and the presentation is as impressive as you would expect. The sound, the screeching of your enemies, the visuals – this is how a fully-fledged remake should present itself. And yet there seem to be small reminiscences of the 2005 game.
When Leon leaps out of the window, it is strongly reminiscent of the animation from 17 years ago, as is the look of the enemies and the environments. You can sense a wink from the developers almost everywhere.
In the past, there was a tower in the village that you could climb up. It was one of the few ways to take a breath and keep the madmen at bay. If you now go to the same place, the wooden floor will collapse and you will end up in the middle of your pursuers. You will soon notice that the developers know the old tricks and want to surprise you in many places.
But you are not supposed to defeat all the enemies in the village. It”s more about a short chase that raises your pulse until the church bell rings. Then the villagers fall into a kind of trance and run into the church in a daze. At this point, the demo ends, like the original game, with familiar writing: Resident Evil 4.
Editor”s Verdict
It wasn”t much of a section that I got to play. If I had walked through it straight as a die, I would have got to the end of the demo after probably ten minutes as well. But instead, it took me just under half an hour on my first run-through. Why? Because the game invites you to explore. Not because it has an open game world, but because it has so many small details. The eerie forest, the dense atmosphere, the eerie village with all its possibilities. If the maniacs weren”t lying in wait for me everywhere, it would be a nice place for a walking holiday.
With its previous remakes and despite the criticism of Part 3, Capcom has set the bar very high itself. After the demo, though, I”m confident that they”ll live up to expectations here. They want to stick to the 24 March 2023 release date. Not every texture and game function is right yet, but I hope that the developers will improve the small technical details before the release. It remains to be seen what other innovations you will find in the finished game besides the sneaking mechanics, crafting and parrying.
You know as well as I do that Resident Evil 4 is a milestone and beloved classic. So Capcom has to deliver a perfect remake and can”t afford a misstep – and so far every step seems to be right too.
