Let’s get this out of the way: Resident Evil 4 is one of the best action video games of all time. Released in 2005, the fourth entry in Capcom’s long-running horror series is a rip-roaring mix of B-movie schlock, camp silliness and taut, finely tuned gunplay that went on to influence a generation of classic shooters, including Dead Space and The Last of Us. The protagonist is muscular special agent Leon Kennedy, the setting is rural Spain, and the mission is the rescue of the US president’s teenage daughter, who has been kidnapped by a nefarious religious cult. All that stands in Leon’s way is the small army’s worth of villagers and gruesome monsters (the slashing Garrador lingers in the mind).
Now, 18 years later, Capcom has given this titan of the genre a lavish remake, fully updating visuals, controls and environments to deliver an action experience that is arguably even better. Like the original, it starts off slow and moody — the last of the day’s sun flitting through an overgrown woodland path — before erupting into unfettered violence.
The game’s strengths are revealed in its iconic opening shootout. You will barrel roll through windows and barricade doors of a dilapidated village, using each moment to maximise every last inch of the virtual space, all while unleashing a flurry of bullets and roundhouse kicks. One of the great video game action sequences is even more pulse-quickening in 2023, the newly aggressive enemy AI and sumptuous grindhouse graphics ratcheting up the intensity.
Besides the luxurious new visuals, what’s perhaps most striking about the remake is the sheer craft of the level design that remains fundamentally unchanged yet is cast in a new light thanks to the amped-up gunplay. Whether it’s a rose garden or a vast canyon of wooden walkways, each environment plays host to a gripping game of cat and mouse between Leon and his foes. There are always places to hide and catch your breath or funnel enemies towards so you can unleash a devastating hand grenade. The combat pulls off the rare feat of feeling both tightly authored and thrillingly emergent, Leon usually surviving each scrappy fight by the skin of his teeth only to deliver another enjoyably appalling quip (“Nightie night, knights” haunted me more than some of the monsters).
Such dialogue is emblematic of a game that leans into self-aware, cartoonish dissonances. Yes, Resident Evil 4 Remake tends towards photorealism in its environment and character design, but it is also filled with punning comedy, ludicrous villains, and anime-esque showdowns, none of which ever feels overdone. That said, new, less appealing dissonances have appeared with the passing of time. Ashley’s damsel-in-distress shtick jars a little more in 2023, and there a snobbish attitude towards the country people, who are depicted as a lurching, unthinking mass.
Yet, after 18 years of increasingly gigantic open-world and live-service games, when it has become ever more commonplace to sink the best part of 100 hours into a title, time has also revealed Resident Evil 4’s virtue of focus. “Gun rhymes with fun for a reason,” utters one character, a refrain that both explains the straightforward pleasures of this landmark action game and sells short the intricacy and details that make it sing. Indeed, shooting has seldom been so much fun, nor has it ever been quite so tense. In Resident Evil 4 Remake, every pull of the trigger is a moment of high-octane drama in itself.
★★★★★
Available from March 24 on PC, PlayStation 4/5, and Xbox Series X/S
