Revisiting the RE4 Remake (a re-review)

Does the Resident Evil 4 remake need to exist?

Does anything?

Great, with that sorted let’s jump into the game.

RE4 carries a complicated legacy. It’s one of the greatest and most influential games of all time, but brought in the action-focused era of the mainline series. It modernized the Resident Evil formula, but also added a level of dudebro-ness to the series that took years to shake. For the decade that followed RE4, Capcom seemed to take all the wrong lessons from it, resulting in the next two numbered sequels which set sales records, but moved the series further from its horror roots. (Yes I know the Revelations games exist, but that’s another topic for another time).

In 2023 Resident Evil was back to being a premiere horror series thanks to the mostly great RE Engine entries. Then came the RE4 remake, which had the unenviable task of combining modern RE with the unrelenting action and admittedly addictive gameplay loop of 4. I played the game at launch, felt like it mostly succeeded, and then didn’t touch it again until last week.

After finishing it again, I gotta say: the RE4 remake rocks. Mostly. It’s the best playing version of RE4 (though shoutout to the excellent Wii port with its god-mode pointer controls), and it makes an honest attempt at being a horror game. For the first 75%, at least.

The lighting, visual detail, and touch of the cinematic bring the remake closer to scary. This mostly holds true through the castle, but completely falls apart when arriving on the island, where the game becomes a military shooter that culminates in a Wave Race Blue Storm course.

The remake is paced a bit better than the original so the island doesn’t feel quite as exhausting, but it’s still disappointing. The good certainly outweighs the dull in the RE4 remake, but I can’t help and wonder what a game less beholden to the original could have been.

Fun Factor: 5/5

Vibe: 4/5

Played and captured on my PC (AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D / 4080 Super 16GB / 32 GB RAM).