Highlights
- Resident Evil 4 Remake's success lies in its ability to revitalize the original experience by reimagining it for a modern setting, which has garnered praise from fans.
- The perfect format for Resident Evil 9 would be to follow the template of Resident Evil 4, ensuring a balanced blend of horror and action that appeals to a wide audience.
- The simplicity of Resident Evil 4's storyline and the focus on the main character, Leon S. Kennedy, contributed to its long-lasting popularity. Capcom should maintain this formula for Resident Evil 9 to avoid losing the essence of the series.
As the Resident Evil franchise has taken a huge turn back towards what fans have been familiar with in its early years, it has resulted in nothing but praise all around. Arguably, the most successful of all recent titles including remakes is the Resident Evil 4 Remake, as it completely revitalizes the original 2005 experience. Taking what fans loved in the first instance, and reimagining this to fit a more modern setting, appears to have worked wonders.
With the next mainline installment of the franchise, Resident Evil 9, Capcom will be doing itself a huge favor by keeping its ninth installment close to Resident Evil 4 in several of its aspects, especially if the main characters are set to make a return.
5 Trendsetter Title
Many fans of Resident Evil 4 will be aware of the monumental legacy the game has had on other titles. From the introduction of the over-the-shoulder camera perspective opposed to the franchise's fixed camera angles to the jump in graphical fidelity at the time compared to its predecessors, Resident Evil 4 provided one of gaming's best experiences.
With both the original and remake now available as a template for Capcom to work from, this is the perfect format for Resident Evil 9 and should stand as a staple for the rest of any future releases in the franchise, with or without the main characters fans love.
4 Best Balanced Horror & Action
When it comes down to many of the other entries in the franchise, fans will often find that they tend to lean too far into action or horror, leading to compliments or disappointment among different crowds. While both the original Resident Evil 4 and its remake produce a great balance between the two tones, the 2023 version exceeds in this lane, providing a more serious and menacing feel for players.
Despite the franchise's primary roots in horror, the action has now become a pivotal feature of all entries, and Resident Evil 9 will benefit from staying within this same line, but adhering more toward Resident Evil 4's style. Although some titles may lean much further into one of the two tones as mentioned previously, the inclusion of the two has proven successful in recent times.
3 Simple Storyline
One of the main aspects of Resident Evil 4 in both versions that have contributed to its long-lasting success and popularity is the simplicity of its story. While there are other story arcs and characters that come into play during the journey, the focus is Leon S. Kennedy's rescue mission, where the number one priority is rescuing the president's daughter, Ashley Graham.
Although there is always room for expanded storylines and more lore, Capcom must ensure that Resident Evil 9 keeps this formula, and does not become unrecognizable in the aspect of its story and characters, which was one of the criticisms fans held for Village's Shadows of Rose DLC despite it all occurring within a dream.
2 Main Character Focus
Resident Evil 6's biggest issues not only lay in the region of an overabundance of action but also the inclusion of multiple campaigns. While previous entries such as Resident Evil 2 included two separate campaigns that were interwoven with access to Leon or Claire Redfield, Resident Evil 6 took this up another notch by adding two more campaigns.
As for most of the more renowned titles in the franchise, especially Resident Evil 4, Capcom executed its elements of playable characters perfectly, with its Mercenaries mode allowing players to use characters aside from Leon. In the case of Resident Evil 9, Capcom should stick with one campaign alone with either one or two playable characters like Resident Evil 5, but ensure that this focuses on the characters and their role in the story as opposed to the overabundance in Resident Evil 6.
1 Multiple Regions
Despite Resident Evil 4 only featuring three distinct regions in the Village, Castle, and Island throughout the entirety of its runtime, Capcom has executed this so well that it allows gameplay to feel fresh and new within each playthrough. Not only did this help in the aspect of providing new scenery and a different atmosphere each time, but it also meant that enemies' appearances would be much different, or new enemies entirely would come into play.
This seems to be the best manner to create an overall pleasing Resident Evil experience, and given the templates of Resident Evil 4 in both of its versions, Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, and Resident Evil 8 Village, already present for Capcom to work from, it could all build toward creating the best experience yet with Resident Evil 9. If developers can replicate or even come close to the scenery and environmental storytelling that Resident Evil 4 provides, then it will lead to nothing but success.
Resident Evil 4 Remake is now available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.