Next year’s Resident Evil 3 might be a remake, but that doesn’t mean the reimagined survival horror will be exactly as you remember it.
Besides the obvious improvements – vastly superior visuals and the removal of pre-rendered, static environments – Capcom says it hasn’t been averse to making some other changes to the title. Speaking to Japanese magazine Famitsu in a recent interview (thanks, Siliconera), producers Peter Fabiano and Masao Kawada discussed several interesting topics concerning Jill’s return, chief among them being how the development team hasn’t shied away from making a number of adjustments over its predecessor.
Resident Evil 2‘s critically acclaimed rebirth, by comparison, remained remarkably loyal to the original game and only made a handful of diversions from the source material. An entirely rewritten intro sequence – where Leon and Claire stop off at a gas station on Raccoon City’s outskirts before venturing into their personal nightmare – and more liberal use of Mr X weren’t exactly ‘small’ amendments, however, so we’re interested to see how events pan out come release day.
As for the remaining major talking points, Fabiano and Kawada reveal that the majority of development work has already been completed, with delays being extremely unlikely at this late stage. The remaining time between now and launch will be used to make final balance tweaks and other optimisations.
And, as fans had rightly assumed thanks to initial footage shown during Sony’s State of Play last week, Resident Evil 3 will place a greater emphasis on action-oriented gameplay. That’s not to say Jill will have access to infinite ammo and healing items but rather, that she’ll have more movement options to evade Umbrella’s flesh-eating creations and, of course, the big bad bioweapon himself, Nemesis. Some curious changes, then, but we have every faith Capcom will hit yet another homerun next spring.
Resident Evil 3 remake is out April 3rd, 2020, for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. For our handy roundup of all the details released so far, see here.
