Resident Evil 4 Remake got its fair share of screentime in yesterday’s Capcom Showcase 2022. In it, we got to get a better look at our protagonist, Leon Kennedy.
Resident Evil 4 Showcase Gives Us a Closer Look at Leon and The Enigmatic Village
Leon S. Kennedy is one of the lucky ones. He survived ahorrific zombie outbreakin Racoon CIty, caused by the Umbrella Corporation 6 years prior. Most men would not leave such an event without some scars. Resident Evil 4 Remake’s Leon looks just like that. A man who survived the unthinkable and carries it around with him.
Resident Evil 4 Remake was one of the games thatCapcom highlighted in its Showcaseon June 13. Originallyannounced back in early Junein thePlayStation State of Play, the remake is planned to be released next year on August 11, 2025.
Capcom is developing this remake to “achieve state-of-the-art quality for survival horror suitable for 2023 while preserving the essence of the original game”.
Let’s take a look at what Leon’s next adventure will entail, shall we?
Returning to Its Roots
Let’s just get this out of the way - the Resident Evil 4 remake looks absolutely stunning. Capcom has been on a roll with creating visually striking, horrific, yet stable games with its REngine. The way that the Remakes of Resident Evil 2 & Resident Evil 3 andVillagelook is on the next level of visual fidelity.
RE4 looks even better. Everything has been rebuilt from the ground up, from the village’s architecture and layout to the enemy designs, even to Leon’s face. Let’s talk about that real quick first.
Leon S. Kennedy
The original RE4’s Leon looked like a clean-shaven and simple young man. He was just a special agent under the president’s payroll. He was eager to simply do his job. The Remake’s Leon looks like a rugged, tired man. Yet at the same time, this makes him more “mature and fearless due to his past experiences”. Leon’s eyebags and gruff persona show it all.
This is a person who has survived a zombie apocalypse and dreams about it constantly. No man should have to live through the terrors that Leon did.
And yet little does he know he’s about to go through something even worse in this small European village in the middle of nowhere. He’s about to become a hero once more.
The Village
Resident Evil 4’s most iconic locations are its small, barren village and its monolithic castle. But everyone’s journey would bring them first and foremost to the dilapidated town. A town where they are attacked and surrounded by these “ganado” enemies.
Gone is the older, browner look of the village. Leon can no longer see farther than a few feet in front of him. His surroundings are now covered in fog. This new lighting and sense of isolation caused by the fog are intended to bring a new feeling of fear back into the series. It is nice to see that Capcom is bringing back horror as RE4 was somewhat known to shy away from that and move towards action.
It is also nice to see the general return of fog into horror games. Mist was primarily used for titles such as Silent Hill 2 not only as a way to create a tense environment but also due to system limitations of the PlayStation at the time.
With the emergence of more powerful hardware, these restrictions were no longer a widespread problem, and draw distances could be extended. The unfortunate downside of this was that the thick layer of fog would no longer be required and thus players could see what lay before them and anticipate scares.
It’s All in the Perspective
Of course, it wouldn’t be “Resident Evil 4” if it didn’t retain its iconic third-person over-the-shoulder perspective. Prior games in the series up to RE4 took upon an isometric fixed-camera look that could hide things just out of sight. RE4 changed the game and made the world fully 3D.
The remake will also have its signature action combat with hordes of ganados. Unfortunately, we have only received glimpses of these terrifying enemies, so fans will need to wait a bit longer to check one out up close. Capcom does reiterate that they have been completely redesigned “in order to truly bring out the concept of terror of people controlled by madness”.
One very apparent upgrade in Leon’s arsenal for Resident Evil 4 Remake is that he can finally move and aim at the same time! No longer will Leon need to be rooted in place to defend himself or line up a shot. This feature should be very liberating as theDead Space gamescontrolled similarly, and those were still terrifying even if their protagonist could fire on the go.
Our Evil Resident
Resident Evil 4 Remakelaunches on consoles and PC on July 19, 2025. The game doesn’t have any preorder bonuses, but knowing Capcom we should have a few editions announced before the launch.
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