The Resident Evil 4 Remake goes on sale next week, and the review embargoes have just dropped. The critics seem to agree: this is as good as you hoped, and as scary as you feared.
The game, which is available for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X and Windows, is a next-generation version of the 2005 classic and follows US special agent Leon Kennedy, who must save Ashley Graham from her kidnappers. She's the daughter of the US President. The place she's being held is full of nightmarish creatures and some pretty scary people too. What could possibly go wrong?
I played the original back in the day and found it really scary and really difficult. And it looks like you can say the same of the remake. The crowds are even more dangerous and numerous than before, and while you're a more formidable hero than you were in the original the difficulty has been ramped up so it feels just as tough.
Should you buy Resident Evil 4 Remake?
If you have a strong stomach, yes. The Resi 4 Remake does the same thing as the recent Dead Space remake: it delivers the visuals your brain tells you that the original version did. If you compare the remake to the original the differences are dramatic, and what was pretty gruesome in 2005 is even more horrific in the remake's razor-sharp 4K.
According to Polygon, Capcom has repeated the trick it pulled off with the RE2 remake in 2019, "making a groundbreaking but now dated game feel brand-new again." Our colleagues at GamesRadar agree, saying that "Capcom has delivered a great remake of a classic game, one which captures everything that made it so special to begin with. Resident Evil 4 Remake is full of action and variety that's as exhilarating now as it ever was."
Over at The Verge, they reckon it's "a modern blockbuster with an old-school heart". And Eurogamer is clearly very impressed too, with Aiofe Wilson writing that "Resident Evil 4 Remake follows this formula [for Capcom's remakes] and builds on it, displaying a confidence in both the original game's strengths and its own innovations to deliver something that feels at once intimately familiar to old fans and excitingly fresh for newcomers." That's high praise indeed.
