Few games are as iconic and influential as the original Resident Evil 4. Not only did it shake the dust off the series’ survival horror formula, it was a shocking technical achievement when it launched in 2005, going on to set the standard for third-person action games. Which is to say revisiting the game for a ground-up remake is no small task. There’s nothing rotten or decayed about the original release, so where do developers strike the balance between being faithful to the 2005 classic and reinterpreting what ‘cutting-edge horror’ means?
The game’s producer, long-time Resident Evil veteran Yoshiaki Hirabayashi (who also served as producer on the sublime Resident Evil 2 remake) is well aware of the need to get that balance right. “I know that fans have their own memories of the original game, and there are a number of features that I thought should be preserved,” he tells us. “One of the most important of these is the game design of the original, which allowed players to come up with individual strategies and playstyles that suited how they wanted to enjoy the game.”
While survival horror has always challenged players to
