Resident Evil 2 has looked stunning in every single second we’ve seen of the game so far. A lot of that is down to the game’s impressive visual direction and the incredible attention to detail it’s exhibiting, while Capcom have also spoken in the past about how much their decision to go with a third person over-the-shoulder camera has contributed to that as well.
In their recent annual financial report, Capcom dedicated a good section to Resident Evil 2, and talked about the various improvements they’ve made to its tech in terms of story, visuals, and sound design to deliver an experience that is worthy of living up to the original Resident Evil 2, which seems to be in line with what they’ve previously said their ambitions for the game are as well.
“With this title, it was important to respect the original while making the newly rebuilt RE 2 enjoyable,” Resident Evil 2 producer Tsuyoshi Kanda wrote in the report. “To this end, in addition to the story, game system and visuals, we focused on the audio.”
“In terms of the story, we followed the original while creating an even stronger sense of drama,” he said, “For the game system, to maximize the fear of being eaten by zombies, we employed an over-the-shoulder third person perspective, enabling the user to see both the character they are playing and the attacking zombie. For the visuals, we used our proprietary RE ENGINE to create a photorealistic world of horror that could be mistaken for live action.”
Kanda then went on to talk about sound design in quite a lot of detail. “In terms of audio, we used Capcom’s dynamic mixing stage, a newly built 3D audio booth in our R&D building with 7.1.4 channel Dolby Atmos,” he said. “This enables changes in sound in real time using binaural technology, enabling realistic audio that makes players feel as if they are actually there. Zombie moans can be heard to the right and left, in front and behind, affecting not only the sense of sight but of sound to make users experience a greater feeling of horror.”
What they’re doing definitely seems to be yielding very impressive results- which you can see in action for yourself in the recently released thirty minutes of gameplay footage. Capcom have even mentioned that the direction they’re taking with Resident Evil 2 might influence future Resident Evil games as well.
Resident Evil 2 launches on January 25 for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
