Resident Evil 4 Remake Adds Sidequests, Makes Other Changes
Leon can, in fact, block the overhead of Chainsaw Man (Capcom Edition). Unfortunately, this comes at a price. Screenshot: Capcom / Kotaku
In new coverage from Game Informer, Capcom has detailed some of the changes the highly anticipated Resident Evil 4 remake brings to the original and hugely influential horror game.
One of the major changes in the RE4 remake is how Ashley Graham (not the model) works in scenes where protagonist Leon S. Kennedy must escort and protect her. In the original RE4, players had to keep a watchful eye on Ashley’s health bar and make sure enemies didn’t overwhelm her. Ashley desperately and frequently shouts Leon’s name whenever players fail to complete any of the aforementioned tasks.
In the remake, Ashley no longer has a health bar. If President Graham’s Dumbo-eared daughter takes too much damage while Leon attempts to escort her safely away from Las Plagas, she will enter a downed state and will need to be revived, IGN reports.
According to a Capcom rep, this change to Ashley’s gameplay mechanic was made to make her “feel more like a natural companion and less like a second health bar to keep around.”
Read more: All the changes we spotted in the new Resident Evil 4 Remake trailers
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Another change in the RE4 Remake is weapon durability, especially for Leon’s Combat Knife. As seen at the end of last October’s extended gameplay trailer, Leon’s trusty chainsaw-parrying knife comes at a high cost. Instead of hanging around “old ‘reliable” throughout the RE4 remake to open wooden boxes, chip zombies, and conserve ammo, Leon’s knife will deteriorate over time, but players can have multiple knives in their inventory, which again takes the form of Leon’s iconic briefcase.
Read more: Someone Finally Made Resident Evil 4’s Inventory Briefcase A Puzzle Game
Side quests are also making their way to the RE4 remake. According to IGN, blue flyers scattered around the game allow you to acquire optional tasks that you can complete as side quests. Finally, Game Informer’s cover story mentions that quick events, a frequent feature of the original RE4, have indeed been removed, although this aspect of the remake has also been mentioned in previous interviews.
“I would say that there is “almost no” QTE. Different people have different definitions of what a QTE is, so while I can’t tell you there isn’t any at all, I can say there isn’t a prompt to pressing buttons in the middle of the cutscene,” producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi told IGN. during a preliminary interview.
Resident Evil 4 (Remake) is set to release on March 24 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.