Twist Capcom’s Arm Hard Enough and We Might See Resident Evil 2 Remade
Arguably the most coveted title in the series next to the genre shifting Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 2 is still on fans’ minds fourteen years after it took a ragged bite out of the gaming scene.
In a recent Q&A with RE6’s Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, the producer admitted that no remake was currently in gestation (“Just to lay all the cards on the table, that way there’s no rumor-mongering or things like that.”), but he was quick to note that enough interest in such a project would probably be taken very seriously by his bosses at Capcom.
“If the fans really clamor for it; if there’s a groundswell of support for remaking that game, then I think that’s something Capcom would take under consideration,” says Hirabayashi, who’s no stranger to retooling horror classics, having overseen motion capture work for 2002’s critically acclaimed Gamecube remake of the original Resident Evil.
If RE2 were remade a few years after that title, it might be easy to predict where the development staff would want to take the survival horror benchmark. Now, though, with Capcom’s serious hard-on for the action dollar, it’s harder to say. Personally, I wish to see the original’s framework used – fixed perspectives, inventory management, focus on exploration etc. – but modernized from the ground up. I don’t need or even want to be able to do barrel rolls or falcon punch zombies into mulch; I’m getting plenty of that nowadays.
I would, however, love to see them pull off RE2’s unique dual-scenarios simultaneously utilizing co-op. In real-time, you could either experience the story together giving your partner constant support or you would have the option of splitting up to hunt down keys and solve puzzles so that you can blow through the police department faster. The results would harken back to what Outbreak wanted to accomplish rather than mirroring RE5’s implementation of the feature. Time will tell what Capcom chooses to do (or even if they choose to do anything at all).