The Resident Evil series is divided, in its early days, into three parts. First there’s the one that started it all (and those damned window-dogs) and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, the one where we managed to conquer our fears. Resident Evil 2, on the other hand, is the one that kept us awake at night. Not much has changed, we guess.
We’ve known about the Resident Evil 2 remake since 2015, so it’s not like the E3 reveal during Sony’s lengthy presentation is a surprise. What is surprising is just how good Capcom has managed to make this one look. We remember what it looked like the first time around. Nostalgia may ensure that you don’t appreciate just how much the game has changed for this remake. So we’ve included the original Biohazard 2 trailer below for comparison.
Developer and publisher Capcom must have been working on Resi 2 for three years or so, which is about the same length of time you’d expect for a brand new title. The effort shows, though, with massively improved character models (if you’re not a fan of gory zombies, you may want to not play this one), a wholly-revamped environment and excellent animation upgrades. Even the voice acting has been redone. It would have been all too easy to just slap on some updated textures and call it a day, but Capcom has made some loving upgrades here. Disturbingly loving, you could say.
If you’re in search of some fresh nightmares in the first outings of both Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield, Resident Evil 2 will be launching for the PlayStation 4 and 4 Pro on 25 January 2019.