Resident Evil 2‘s remake was a welcome surprise when it was finally unveiled at E3 this year- the game looked spectacular, and like a great modern reimagining of the classic, beloved game. That said, apparently Game Director Kazunori Kadoi, Team Director Yasuhiro Ampo, and Producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi had not expected it to be as well received as it was- they stated in an interview with Famitsu (translated by DualShockers) that the game winning the Best of E3 award took them by surprise, though they were of course honored that it did.
They mentioned that the game, since it comes two years after Resident Evil 7, had to look better than it. However, given the different visual styles of the games (photorealistic for RE7, and cinematic for RE2), as well as the fact that it was this development team’s first stab with the RE Engine, it took them some time to get the look right.
That was not the only way, however, that they were concerned with the passage of time- for instance, the game is set in 1998 USA, and they were very conscious to be as authentic to the look and feel of that era as possible (down to even the grunge music they selected).
The developers shared that the game has a lot of possibility for variation- for instance, it was possible to leave the police station in the E3 demo, it’s just that no one actually noticed. Similarly, the game will offer a lot of flexibility for speedrunners, with a lot of options to shave off large swathes of play time. They also said that even a knife only run is possible, should you want to make things harder for yourself.
Development on the game is going smoothly, and they anticipate no trouble from here on out- that’s good. That means you can play Resident Evil 2 in all its glory when it launches for PS4, Xbox One, and PC next year, on January 25.
