by The team decided not to try to “recapture lightning in a bottle” and just stay true to the original.
Resident Evil 4 Remake co-directors Kazunori Kadoi and Yasuhiro Ampo admitted that they originally did not want to remake the game as they saw the original as a “masterpiece”.
After the success of the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 remakes (mostly), it wasn’t a huge surprise when Capcom announced that they were also remaking Resident Evil 4. As beloved as the second and third games are, however, Resident Evil 4 it’s on another level and generally considered a masterpiece, which has made some apprehensive about it being remade. Turns out, the directors of the remake were worried too.
During a recent interview with Game Informer, Kadoi and Ampo discussed their approach to remaking Resident Evil 4, which is an interesting proposition considering both Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 were remade to fit the style of Resident Evil 4. Before even as they discuss the development of Resident Evil 4 Remake, Kadoi and Ampo admit that Resident Evil 4’s status as a “masterpiece” hampered the remake.
Ampo said, “Honestly speaking, I didn’t want to do this. Between the RE series and even games in general, the original RE4 has become something of a legend. I knew it would be difficult to successfully remake it, and if we made a mistake with any update we did, we would piss off their fans.”
Kadoi echoed these thoughts, saying, “When I first heard about remaking RE4, my first impression was that since the original is a masterpiece, a remake would be difficult. So I didn’t want to do it.”
Thankfully, both directors decided to jump onboard the Resident Evil 4 remake, and decided to approach it a little differently than they’ve done with past remakes. For starters, the team decided not to “recapture lightning in a bottle”, noting that the original had such an impact and that the best thing to do was stay true to the original and try to evolve it in smaller ways.
To do this, the team replayed Resident Evil 4 to see what they could change or evolve, which resulted in the removal of quick events, along with other gameplay changes for Ashley, such as her being able to climb stairs and generally being less disruptive. . .
