Last year’s Resident Evil 2 was a spectacular game, and a masterclass in how to modernize and reimagine a widely beloved classic. And it was instantly obvious to anyone who played that Resident Evil 3 would greatly benefit from a similar modernization as well. As it turns out, it was instantly obvious to Capcom as well.
Soon, we will be stepping into the shoes of Jill Valentine again, as she looks for a way out of the crumbling remains of Raccoon City while the terrifying Nemesis chases her around. The excitement surrounding the game has been extremely high since the moment it was announced, and given how close it is now to release, it’s going to go higher and higher still with every passing day.
Owing to that, here, in this feature, we’ll be talking about fifteen pieces of info you should know about Resident Evil 3. Without further ado then, let’s jump right in.
EXPANDED STORY
This is not surprising, given Capcom’s track record with Resident Evil remakes, but they’ve confirmed that they’ll be expanding upon the original game’s story with Resident Evil 3. Several characters (such as Carlos, for instance) will see their stories being changed quite a bit. Meanwhile, given that live selections and the original game’s alternate endings have been cut from the remake, it should be interesting to see what parts of the story Capcom change or remove, and what they add.
MORE REMIXING THAN RE2
Resident Evil 2 made some changes to the original game’s story, but the it didn’t really add an awful lot of significant stuff (especially compared to what the first remake did with Lisa Trevor). With RE3, Capcom are being more ambitious, with the developers having confirmed that they’ll be remixing the story a lot more than they did in last year’s remake. They’ve also hinted that the stories of RE2 and 3 remakes will intersect more than the stories of the originals dude, which should be interesting to see.
MORE ACTION-ORIENTED THAN RE2
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who played the original Resident Evil 3. While it wasn’t as action-oriented as Resident Evil 4, and definitely not as action-oriented as Resident Evil 5 (let’s not even mention 6), the original RE3, though still very much survival horror, was a much more action-focused game than its predecessor (which itself was a lot more action-focused than the first Resident Evil). Unsurprisingly, the remake will be taking that approach as well.
There’s several ways it will be doing that, so let’s go over those points one-by-one.
DODGE
As an experienced STARS member who’s had quite a bit of experience in dealing with zombies and bio-organic weapons, Jill is a pretty capable survivor by the time Resident Evil 3 kicks off, and that’s something that manifests itself in gameplay as well. Like the original RE3, the remake will have a dodge mechanics (and it’ll be much easier to use than it was back in 1999). What’s more, if you can pull off a perfect dodge at the final second before a hit lands, you’ll enter a short window of slow-mo during which you’ll be able to take shots at the enemy you just dodged away from.
FASTER PACE
Resident Evil 3 is all about escalation- while the first two games (and their remakes) saw players dealing with a maximum of three or four enemies at a time, the streets of Raccoon City in RE3 are going to be flooded with the undead. While we’re not looking at a Dead Rising situation here, given how many enemies there will be to contend with at any given time, and given the fact that Nemesis will be giving chase on a near-constant basis, RE3’s gameplay is going to be much faster paced than RE2. Players are going to have to keep moving around, and dodging and avoiding enemies will be just as important as taking them out- in many cases, even more so.
Oh, and speaking of Nemesis…
NEMESIS
The hulking BOW Nemesis is going to have an overbearing presence in RE3 in terms of both story and gameplay. He’s built on the same AI model as the RE2 remake’s Mr. X, which already makes him a formidable foe, but it looks like he’s going to be an even bigger threat thanks to the moveset he will have at his disposal. He can attack Jill with a tentacle, which he can also use to drag her toward him from considerable range; he can leap over Jill from behind her to cut off her escape routes; hell, he even has a flamethrower. If Mr. X was “gon’ give it to ya”, Nemesis is going to “shove it down your throat.”
INVENTORY PICKUPS
Given that Jill is going to spend much of her time in Resident Evil 3 on the move and running away from something or the other, Capcom are also making some tweaks to inventory-related things to keep up with the game’s faster pace. For instance, when you pick things up, the game will no longer pause and take you to the inventory screen. Instead of having you manually place newly picked up items in your inventory, the game will instead automatically place things in your inventory as soon as you pick them up. That should have some interesting implications on things like combining stuff, for instance. Additionally, you can also expect to find a lot more ammo lying around in RE3 than RE1 or 2.
OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES
In spite of its faster pace, Resident Evil 3 will still give you the time and room to stop and smell the burning corpses. Raccoon City will have plenty of locations that will be entirely optional that you will want to visit nonetheless for everything from extra resources to weapon upgrades. Traversing through the game’s environment, you’ll be finding things like lockpicks and bolt cutters, which will let you access many of these optional areas if you want.
TRAPS
Using the environment to deal with enemies was something the original Resident Evil 3 toyed around with, but it’s something that remake will be doing to a much greater extent. You might find red explosive barrels lying around, so kiting several zombies and watching them all get caught in an explosion with a single bullet is something you’re gonna want to do. Meanwhile, there will also be electrical boxes in some areas, which you can shoot to send out a shock to enemies in the vicinity in order to stun them- even Nemesis. Using these hazards and traps to deal with enemies is probably going to be crucial, especially on harder difficulties.
KNIVES
Resident Evil 2’s remake did some interesting things with knives, turning them into degradable items that you’d find quite a lot of throughout the game. Resident Evil 3 is getting rid of that change- knives will no longer have a durability mechanic attached to them. The knife that Jill does have won’t be a defence item either, since the game will instead be pushing players to perfect the dodge mechanic instead.
ASSIST MODE
Resident Evil 3 is going to be a pretty intense game, but there will, of course, be lower difficulty levels for those who want a more relaxed experience. Similar to RE2, there will be an Assist Mode. Playing with Assist Mode on will, of course, see you facing off agains weaker enemies and getting more resource pickups. Additionally, the game will also hand you a powerful assault rifle, as well as regenerating health. There’s been no mention so far of auto-aiming, which RE2’s Assist Mode did have, but it’s probably safe to assume that that’ll be in there as well.
RESISTANCE
Though Resident Evil 3 won’t, unlike the original, have a Mercenaries mode, there will be something besides the campaign that players will be able to dive into. Resistance is a 4v1 multiplayer mode which will see four players playing as human characters (each of whom have different attributes and specializations), who will be going up against one player controlling a Mastermind character (the likes of Annette Birkin, Alex Wesker, Oswell Spencer, and more). As a Mastermind character, players will be able to create traps and summon and take control of various kinds of enemies, from zombies and Lickers to Mr. X and William Birkin.
MORE RESISTANCE DETAILS
So what exactly is the goal in Resistance? Keeping in line with RE3’s whole “escape” theme, the group of four players will be tasked with escaping from the map within a time limit, while the Mastermind will do everything in their power to prevent that from happening. While things such as enemy kills will add precious seconds to the clock, dying will mean the opposite.
Also, one of the playable characters is named Martin Sandwich, which is… something.
FILE SIZE
Resident Evil 3’s full size will be a little over 43 GB, as per its listing on the Microsoft store. Interestingly though, the campaign and Resistance will both be separate downloads. Of its total size of 43.01 GB, Resident Evil 3’s campaign will weigh a total of 21.93 GB (which is very similar to RE2’s size at launch), while the remaining 20.47 will be taken up by Resistance.
MINIMUM PC REQUIREMENTS
Resident Evil 3 looks like a visual beast, but its minimum system requirements are surprisingly not that demanding. They’re pretty much in line with RE2, so if you played that on PC last year, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect. In addition to the aforementioned storage space, you’ll also need DirectX 11, a 8 GB RAM, and either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 or an AMD Radeon R7 260x. On the processor front, you’ll need either an Intel Core i5-4460, or an AMD FX-6300.