Resident Evil developer Capcom has struck critical and commercial gold with their remakes of classic games in the series, with 2019’s Resident Evil 2 Remake one of the finest titles of its generation. With Resident Evil 3 also remade, rumors are building that the beloved Resident Evil 4 is getting a full remake to bring its high-octane brand of horror to the newest console generation.
This remake is a long way off, but a new release today lets you experience Leon S. Kennedy’s roaring rampage through an infected Spanish village like never before.
Resident Evil 4 was first released in 2005 for the Nintendo GameCube, and though it’s been ported many times since then, those early 2000s textures now seem blurry and vague.
And so, back in the mid-2010s, a group of fans started the Resident Evil 4 HD Project to give the game a complete graphical overhaul. The first plan was to simply work from the same texture libraries and photo references Capcom used when developing the game, but those resources proved limited. This resulted in a global quest to hunt down the exact architectural features the studio photographed to use as textures, a mission that took them to historic locations in Spain and Wales.
The mod also fixes a lot of modeling and texture mapping issues, improved lighting, enhanced AI, pre-rendered cutscenes, and transforming 2D assets to 3D. Despite all these changes, their ethos was to remain “committed to the original visuals”, leaving this as more of a restoration than a remake.
The results speak for themselves, and the HD project is now inarguably the best way to play Resident Evil 4. Capcom even appears to be fine with this, as no cease-and-desist letters have been sent out, and the project is being promoted on the Resident Evil 4 Steam forum.
If and when a Resident Evil 4 remake does happen, it’ll likely differ significantly from the original game, so it’s good to know that this classic is now looking the absolute best it can.
Playing the HD project requires you to own Resident Evil 4 on Steam, and instructions on downloading and installing can be found on the mod’s official website.