Greetings, baconeers! Your Resident Evil fanatic friend, InfiniteKnife here to talk a little bit about what I’m excited to see in the new Resident Evil title dropping this week!

Resident Evil 2 is one of my all time favorite games, and when this remake was announced a few years ago, I could barely hold in my excitement that we’d get to see this classic brought to life with modern graphics that were simply not available on the PS1 in the late 90s. After Resident Evil 7 released in early 2017 (check out my review), I noted that the franchise took a HUGE step in the right direction to get back to what made the games so great, which were primarily horror fueled by an emphasis on exploration and resource management.

Resident Evil 2 promises to be even more terrifying than the original release, 21 years ago.

A big difference we’ll see with Resident Evil 2 is that it’ll move away from the tank controls and fixed camera angles of the original, instead using a more Resident Evil 4-esque over the shoulder 3rd person camera, which will make this new title feel quite different from it’s predecessor. I don’t think that change will be a bad thing, at all. Despite being released nearly 14 years ago, Resident Evil 4 took the RE franchise to a place we never thought it would go, and it largely worked. It was among the first games to introduce the 3rd person over the shoulder shooter and I’m honestly ecstatic to see one of the original stories able to be experienced in this way.

Here are a few of the things I’m most excited (and hope) to see:

The main characters

– Leon and Claire were a great team of main protagonists and the characters they each meet in Raccoon City add interesting elements to their stories. It will be interesting to see how much of the original story remains the same and what the writers decided to change.
– It is a little bit of a bummer that Paul Haddad and Alyson Court won’t be reprising their roles as the voices for Leon and Claire, respectively, but from what I’ve heard from trailers, I do really like the new voice actors and am excited to hear how the script plays out through their voices.
– It’s also cool to see that both Leon and Claire will still have their respective playable scenarios, even though they are no longer going to be split in to A and B like the original. I’m wondering if there will be any addition of things like any doors that require both players to unlock or if any decisions made can affect the other’s playthrough.

Resident Evil 2 through the RE Engine

– Resident Evil 7 introduced us to the RE Engine, in which we saw some impressive character models and beautiful environments. From the little we’ve seen of the RPD building and surrounding areas of Raccoon City, it looks like Resident Evil 2 will be a gorgeous game to look at as we play through.
– From the demo, it looks like dealing with the zombies will be significantly tougher than in the original as they can take several headshots before going down, and even get back up unless you score a critical hit. The RE engine makes for some really cool effects when you are shooting a zombie, including shooting off limbs and making bullet holes everywhere you hit one.

The Horror

– The original Resident Evil games were largely about the horror element, hence the Survival Horror game genre being a common term. Although Resident Evil 2 will control like a shooter, early indications are that we’ll be back to the roots of exploration, puzzle solving, and resource management.
– I’ve mentioned it before, but when you’re playing a horror game that involves shooting enemies, it makes it a hell of a lot less scary if you know that you’ll always have enough ammo because you find it lying all over the place. On the other hand, when you’ve got a group of 3-4 zombies coming at you down a hallway and you’ve only got 10 bullets left, you really feel that sense of dread and tension that adds to the experience.

4th Survivor

– I have admittedly, never played the Tofu campaign to completion (He only gets a friggin knife, man!) but I am beyond thrilled that he and Hunk are making a comeback in this release.
– I would imagine they will have their own respective 4th Survivor modes very similar to the original, but we’ve yet to see the details.

New Locations

– While I’m beyond excited to explore familiar areas like the RPD building, I’m stoked to see what new areas there will be to explore and even what changes were made to familiar ones.
– From the One Shot demo, it’s already clear that while there are definitely areas of the police station that we’ll instantly recognize, there have been some significant changes made that will be awesome to check out.

All in all, I’m stoked to play Resident Evil 2 when it releases this Friday, January 25th,  and will be streaming it live on the NerdBacon Twitch channel, so you can experience the horrors right along with me!

The fun will begin at 9am PDT (Noon EDT), so mark your calendars and I hope to see you then!