Finally revealed at the tail-end of 2019 to rapturous applause, Resident Evil 3‘s long-awaited remake is due to arrive in a matter of weeks.
Similarly to last year’s acclaimed reimagining of Resident Evil 2, Capcom is rebuilding the survival horror from scratch for modern audiences and that includes total redesigns of its central stars. Like Leon and Claire before her, Jill has received a new look for her own nightmarish tale of escape from Raccoon City and for good reason. While various elements of the character remain intact from her original appearance, Jill’s transformation is drastic, to say the least, and, according to the developer, one that was necessary to make the game more believable.
Speaking in the latest monthly issue of Game Informer (H/T, Tech Raptor), art director for Resident Evil 3 remake, Yonghee Cho, reveals that Jill’s over-sexualized design in the original game spurred a lot of internal discussions. “There were a lot of discussions internally about that direction,” says Cho, adding “The original design of Jill Valentine was clearly going for sex appeal, but that was not the right direction.”
The result of that change in direction is a protagonist that’s considerably better equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse, with artists having replaced Jill’s original tube top and miniskirt with something not only more practical, but believable for someone known to be well-trained in combat situations. Some purists, of course, still decry the alterations as a pseudo form of censorship, a totally moot sentiment to have, considering alternate outfits reverting Jill’s appearance to that of her 90s original are available as a pre-order bonus. The best of both worlds then.
Resident Evil 3 is out April 3rd for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, with a demo due to release later this week. See here for all the details.
