Resident Evil 4 Remake Has A Possibly Divisive Demo

Capcom has released gameplay footage for the Resident Evil 4 Remake demo, and – it might not be what Resident Evil fans want?

Yes, this time Capcom’s remake treatment may not land as well as the last two games in the series, but before I explain why I think so, let’s talk about the gameplay footage itself.

The demo goes through the majority of Chapter 1, all the way through the part in Chapter 1-3 where the church bell rings through the village. The Ganados stop chasing Leon, and even being hostile. They drop their weapons and converge towards the bell.

The gameplay and narrative are tight and fast. If you played through the original game, you will see some parts of the game have received a bit of remixing, but it will still be useful to know where you need to go and what to find.

You may have received a small heads up earlier when Capcom revealed that you won’t be able to save the wolf this time. When you come across it, unfortunately, the wolf has already passed on, as it wasn’t spared after it got caught in the bear trap.

The Resident Evil 4 Remake demo mainly demonstrates the good and the bad of this remake series so far. While many players will appreciate that the stories have been simplified and cleaned up, for a tighter narrative to run across the games, the modernization also disposes of some aesthetic considerations when the original games were made.

It’s my honest opinion, as good as the older Resident Evil games were, that Resident Evil 4 is unique in being a highly accomplished product as it was. The narrative beats of the two police officers joking around Leon before the sudden car crash is lost here.  And by that I mean the scene is completely gone.

There are other choices here that are consistent with what Capcom’s newer studios have done to what was really Shinji Mikami’s earlier vision for the franchise. While that vision was often messy, and doesn’t hold up gameplay wise per game installment, those earlier generations of developers made use of those shortcomings to create some unique moments in the earlier games. Resident Evil 4 may also be different from the earlier games, in that the generation that grew up on them is comparatively younger, and may even include newer gamers. Did this one in particular need this drastic a remaking?

Critics may not necessarily pan this game, but you can rest assured that it is not something that they will be able to ignore. Players may not be up for what this game did to the original as well, but we won’t be waiting to long to find that out.

Resident Evil 4 Remake will be releasing on March 24, 2023, on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and Microsoft Windows via Steam. You can watch the demo and decide for yourself what to think about it here.