With Resident Evil 4 remake, survival horror has come full circle

The original was created in 1996. Resident Evil arrived on PlayStation — tank controls, fixed camera angles, campy one-liners, and all. The game’s design mode was completely rewritten, with the focus shifting away from action and platforming to be replaced by puzzles and scarcity. Although it wasn’t the first to do so (it had several progenitors), it was certainly the most popular. It was evident that Capcom developers had ambitious ideas, even though they were not able to implement them on the available hardware at the time. The survival-horror philosophy was refined over nine more years. They updated a control system here, and softened a sharp pixel there. This culminated in 2005. Resident Evil 4 on Nintendo GameCube. Capcom just opened a portal back to the moment when video games and series were irrevocably altered.

It is possible to remake my life. Resident Evil 4 Capcom was given cause to pause. The first three games were numbered and featured cumbersome control systems. They also had many puzzles that weren’t intuitive before the remakes. These are all very different to the originals, which have a range of phenomenally fine to extremely aggressive. Resident Evil 4 Updates were not required. It’s available on most modern platforms, it controls better than many new releases, and, aside from an uneven third act, its pacing is immaculate. That its remake manages to improve on many aspects that didn’t really need improving is its crowning achievement. The third act, however, is not as strong.

Capcom via Polygon

Playing through Capcom’s reinterpretation today, it’s easy to take its fluid gameplay loop for granted: Exploring, scavenging, crafting, item management, and third-person combat all feed gracefully into one another along the course of the game, which encourages Some Backtracking is possible, but the journey is linear and takes you through semi-open spaces and sandboxes. In 2005, this structure flew in the face of earlier Resident Evils, which mainly took place in Metroidvania-esque confined settings — a mansion, a police station, or the back alleys of a Midwestern city.

This is the core of Resident Evil 4’s pristine pacing. When you’re not fighting hordes of zombie-like enemies in white-knuckle brawls, you’re scouring areas for crucial items. The next step is to find a solution. These moments are quiet enough for you to take a deep breath and yet involved enough that you can stay in that flow state.

Good pacing, the old adage goes, is at its best when you don’t notice it. As with many design principles, however, the people started to notice. Resident Evil 4’s good pacing. It was something Bill Gardner, the designer at the top of his line noticed while he was working on it. BioShock. Cliff Bleszinski used it to create Gears of War. Cory Barlog studied it when directing God of War’s massive 2018 overhaul.

Photo: Motive Studio/Electronic Arts via Polygon

The game’s intricacies weren’t lost on the developers at EA Redwood Shores, either. They were still in 2005 at the conception stages of a possible game. System Shock 3, but played Capcom’s survival-horror game and decided to make “Resident Evil 4 in space.” Their version would lean into sci-fi horror, taking tonal cues from Alien, Event HorizonPlease see the following: Sunshine. The story would be about an engineer who was a common man whose main combat skill were his welding skills. The game would be focused on crafting and scavenging and would also feature close quarters combat against zombie-like foes. It was released 15 years ago. Resident Evil 4.

Dead SpaceWith its close over-the-shoulder view and infatuation with laser sights it may be the best. Resident Evil 4’s most obvious pupil. Visceral games was rebranded and its creators took inspiration from Capcom’s sequels. Dead Space 2 And 3Like Resident Evil 5 And 6, denotes a gradual transition from survival-horror into survival-action. Intense adrenaline rushes have replaced the creeping terror. Dead Space: The sequels Worked (Resident Evil’s did not, ushering in yet another franchise reinvention with Resident Evil 7: BiohazardBut by the time Dead Space 3 It was an open-world third-person shooter that featured a veneer. Of horror and gore.

Naughty Dog was the first to release Dead Space Trilogy, just months after it had ended. Last of UsThe third-person survival-horror video game, ‘The Other Game’. Resident Evil 4. With its flow from environmental puzzles to scavenging to inventory management to intense close-quarters combat, much of which is spent traveling with a younger, more vulnerable companion, it’s not a stretch to call it Resident Evil 4 Reimagined as Cormac McCarthyan roadtrip. It’s clear that game director Bruce Straley and creative director Neil Druckmann drank from the same well as the designers at Visceral Games.

Image by Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Yet another coincidence temporal (or perhaps as a result whatever alignment the collective subconscious gave to us) Dead Space And Resident Evil 4 Remakes are possible within 2 months. Last of Us The long-awaited HBO version of the 2013 video game’s story made its return to the zeitgeist in January. In many ways a one-to-one retelling of the 2013 video game’s story (aside from several changes of location and an episode’s worth of backstory for a previously minor character), Last of Us Follow Joel (Pedro Pascal), and Ellie, westward through America. A pseudo father/daughter relation building during a Picaresque sequence of depressing encounters.

To return to Part 1: The Last of Us, Resident Evil 4Please see the following: Dead Space in such quick succession in 2023, I’m struck with a newfound appreciation for their particular kind of survival horror. It is the Resident Evil 4 Like so many other games, remake suggests that the game’s creators are at one place: The SopranosThe story is told in a narrative twist to include Ada Wong and Luis Sera. It asks the question, “Can humans ever live without a computer?” Really change. It’s an idea heavily explored in Dead Space, Last of Us, God of WarThe sequel to? Ragnarök, too.

Why? Why? These moments of terror can be made even more intense by contemplative sequences or bookends.

Capcom Image

Its many good points are worth it. Last of Us on HBO doesn’t stick the landing nearly as well as its video game source material, specifically because we didn’t spend hours on end observing these characters during the in-between moments — the ones its showrunners, perhaps understandably, left lying on the cutting room floor. The adaptation’s ending is a stark reminder that video games can work wonders with those very moments.

Resident Evil’s story is one that constantly reinvents itself. It feels like Resident Evil, just as the people infected by it, are always mutating underneath their skins and eager to be something new. Resident Evil 4In 2005, they did exactly that. Capcom cheated the formula, however. Resident Evil 5And 6Other studios took it up: Naughty Dog and Visceral Games were among those who attempted to revive the lightning. Resident Evil 4.

The 2005 game is back with a shiny new look, very soon after. Dead SpaceAnd Last of UsIt’s surreal how the original Resident Evil 3 is being resurrected. In his review of the remake, and in considering both the success and the diminishing returns of Capcom’s recent first-person Resident Evil entries, Michael McWhertor wondered, “Where do they go from here?” In playing Resident Evil 4 again, and seeing the products of its influence circle back into the limelight in 2023, I’m struck by the same question. But I’m also left wondering: What will Resident Evil do next?