I've always considered it a little unfair to describe this year's Resident Evil 2 as a remake of the 1998 original. For all intents and purposes, this year's survival horror epic was really more of a complete re-imagining. The control scheme was completely changed, story beats were tweaked and altered, and characters were updated for modern audiences.
It should come as no surprise then, that the Resident Evil 3 remake will also deviate from its 1999 precursor in a number of ways. What's interesting is that the upcoming zombie game will apparently go further than Resident Evil 2 did, in terms of big changes. According to Capcom, we can expect a number of key alterations in terms of gameplay, character, and story.
Capcom Producers Peter Fabiano and Masao Kawada recently revealed a ton of new details about Resident Evil 3 in the latest issue of Japanese magazine Famitsu (via Siliconera). Producer Masachika Kawata also showed up in the latest edition of Capcom TV to talk a little bit about the remake (thanks ResetEra).
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There are a lot of interesting new details to dig through, but the headline is basically that Capcom have remixed and tweaked way more of the elements in Resident Evil 3 than it did in Resident Evil 2. Among these changes, there may be some key differences in how the story ends up playing out as Jill Valentine attempts to escape Raccoon City.
A lot of the focus during development was apparently on fleshing out the supporting cast in the game a lot more. This was so that you actually care about the people Jill meets on her adventure, and have a reaction if they live or die. One of the examples given was the character of Dario Rosso.
In the original Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Rosso is a survivor who helps Jill out after losing his family somewhere in the city. There's not an awful lot to him beyond that, but he's said to play a much larger role in the upcoming remake. The producers obviously wouldn't go into much more detail beyond that because, you know, spoilers.
It was also revealed that Jill's slightly updated design was made to reflect the game's pivot towards a more action-oriented style of survival horror. With that said, the team apparently didn't want to change her look too much, as she's such a popular character. On a similar note, the character of Carlos has been updated to be a little bit more mature, but will still be a "hot-blooded joker".
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Finally, the dreaded reptilian monsters known as Hunter Beta will be making their return, but have been "reimagined". It's unclear what that means, but I'm terrified to find out.
Doubtless more changes to the gameplay, story, and terrifying Nemesis monster will reveal themselves as we get closer to Resident Evil 3's April 3rd release date. If it's even half the game Resident Evil 2 was, we're in for a treat.
Topics: PlayStation, Capcom, Resident Evil 3