Resident Evil 2

Requiem alternates the series' two eras to serve both audiences. Resident Evil: Requiem mixes Grace Ashcroft's first-person haunted-house horror, echoing 7 and 8, with Leon Kennedy's campy third-person action, echoing 4 to 6. Switching to Leon works as a palette cleanser when tension peaks.

"Just when your anxiety is amped up to breaking point, the perspective shifts to Leon and you get to blow off some steam."

Capcom builds remake pillars from feelings, not features. Resident Evil 2's guiding principle was that players should "get the same feeling we got back in the day, even though the outer layers are different." Resident Evil 4's pillars were its lightning-fast pace, b-movie dialogue, varied ways to tackle encounters, and replayability.

Any new idea had to fit inside a pillar, which frees the team to rework mechanics without changing how the game feels. The Dead Space remake used the same approach with sci-fi horror, unbroken immersion and creative gameplay.

Changing content freely gives veterans of the original a reason to play. The Resident Evil 4 remake moves, reorders, expands, shrinks, cuts and replaces content. The village siege looks familiar until the player climbs a tower and it plays out differently from memory.

Capcom says an exact copy would not be fun or interesting, and that its remakes show love through what they change and what they keep. Beat-by-beat remakes pair new graphics with dated gameplay and give owners of the original little reason to buy.

Every new player power in Resident Evil 4 came with a counterweight. Leon can now strafe, so Capcom made enemies more aggressive and more numerous. The knife gained a parry and a stealth takedown, but it breaks and must be repaired by the merchant.

In 2004 Capcom did not want to go into the "shooting / army type genre", so the original Leon could not strafe and became a turret when aiming. The offsets keep "Leon one step behind" and the game as pulse-pounding as ever.

Modernise and fix old complaints without breaking the original's dynamic. Capcom cut Resident Evil 4's button-bashing quicktime events, saying "QTEs are not popular in today's games." For the much-criticised Ashley escort, it tweaked her AI, health bar and characterisation instead of making her an invincible helper.

An invincible partner, common in games since 2005, would have changed the original's dynamic.

Heavy changes are fairest when the original stays playable. The Resident Evil 4 remake sits beside a moddable HD remaster, so players who want the original can still get it.

Old games vanish through dead hardware, delisting and server shutdowns, while Rockstar and Blizzard pulled originals for poor remasters. The older Resident Evil games remain hard to play today, and Mark Brown hopes Capcom fixes that as it has with Mega Man compilations.

The remake moved the camera tight behind Leon to make fear intimate. Capcom tried keeping the fixed viewpoint, then chose an over-the-shoulder camera. Hard aiming and a tight camera behind Leon kept the claustrophobia, and the producer said they wanted encounters "intimately terrifying in nature."

The closer camera makes zombies feel more visceral and connects the player to Leon, but it loses authored set pieces like the fixed-camera Licker intro.

Softening Nemesis after stress complaints made Resident Evil 3 the least-loved remake. Mr. X's relentless chases in Resident Evil 2 drew complaints of stress. Resident Evil 3 then limited Nemesis to boss fights and set pieces, possibly in response, and critics found him neutered.

Turning Jill's invincible stalker into a simple set piece lost the sensation of the PS1 original. DUSK programmer Dillon Rogers: "Devs need to be careful not to let their own fans ruin their games."

Optional assisted modes welcome newcomers without changing the core game. Resident Evil 2 through 4 offer an assisted difficulty with health regeneration and aim snapping, which players can choose rather than have forced on them. The first Resident Evil remake was designed to ease in new players, since the original threw them in at the deep end.

By contrast, the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes made a team-wide EXP Share permanent, wrecking the balance. Resident Evil 2 also explains what its assist mode does rather than patronising players who choose it.

Village used a one-line vision to rebalance combat. Resident Evil Village's vision was "struggle to survive", which guided the rebalancing of combat after playtesters disliked it.

Sound-only threats lock out deaf and hard-of-hearing players. Resident Evil 2 gives no visual sign of Mr. X's footsteps, and CanIPlayThat called it virtually unplayable early on for deaf and hard-of-hearing players. Resident Evil Village has excellent audio but no way to express it to them.

Far Cry: New Dawn and Far Cry 6 caption nearby sounds with an arrow pointing to the source and a distance.

Optional assisted modes welcome newcomers without changing the core game. Resident Evil 2 through 4 offer an assisted difficulty with health regeneration and aim snapping, which players can choose rather than have forced on them. The first Resident Evil remake was designed to ease in new players, since the original threw them in at the deep end.

By contrast, the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes made a team-wide EXP Share permanent, wrecking the balance. Resident Evil 2 also explains what its assist mode does rather than patronising players who choose it.

Control options lag behind Western shooters. Resident Evil 3 requires holding the shoulder button to aim with no toggle, and one gamer refunded it for that reason. Resident Evil 2 offers only preset controls rather than full remapping.

Resident Evil 2 does let players choose the laser dot colour for colourblindness.

Softening Nemesis after stress complaints made Resident Evil 3 the least-loved remake. Mr. X's relentless chases in Resident Evil 2 drew complaints of stress. Resident Evil 3 then limited Nemesis to boss fights and set pieces, possibly in response, and critics found him neutered.

Turning Jill's invincible stalker into a simple set piece lost the sensation of the PS1 original. DUSK programmer Dillon Rogers: "Devs need to be careful not to let their own fans ruin their games."

Optional assisted modes welcome newcomers without changing the core game. Resident Evil 2 through 4 offer an assisted difficulty with health regeneration and aim snapping, which players can choose rather than have forced on them. The first Resident Evil remake was designed to ease in new players, since the original threw them in at the deep end.

By contrast, the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes made a team-wide EXP Share permanent, wrecking the balance. Resident Evil 2 also explains what its assist mode does rather than patronising players who choose it.

Sound-only threats lock out deaf and hard-of-hearing players. Resident Evil 2 gives no visual sign of Mr. X's footsteps, and CanIPlayThat called it virtually unplayable early on for deaf and hard-of-hearing players. Resident Evil Village has excellent audio but no way to express it to them.

Far Cry: New Dawn and Far Cry 6 caption nearby sounds with an arrow pointing to the source and a distance.

Control options lag behind Western shooters. Resident Evil 3 requires holding the shoulder button to aim with no toggle, and one gamer refunded it for that reason. Resident Evil 2 offers only preset controls rather than full remapping.

Resident Evil 2 does let players choose the laser dot colour for colourblindness.

Finally beating a relentless stalker turns fear into triumph. In Resident Evil 2, finally downing Mr. X after running from him all game feels magnificent, the same payoff as Pac-Man's power pellet.

"The idea of finally being able to defeat an invincible and unstoppable opponent is a potent one."

The original's fixed cameras gave total control over framing and fear. The PS1 Resident Evil 2 used static CCTV-style angles. Its Licker intro uses leading lines to the window, a shot from the creature's view, a high angle that makes Leon look small, and blind corridors.

The setup came mostly from PlayStation hardware limits, but "it does give the devs complete artistic control of the action."

The remake moved the camera tight behind Leon to make fear intimate. Capcom tried keeping the fixed viewpoint, then chose an over-the-shoulder camera. Hard aiming and a tight camera behind Leon kept the claustrophobia, and the producer said they wanted encounters "intimately terrifying in nature."

The closer camera makes zombies feel more visceral and connects the player to Leon, but it loses authored set pieces like the fixed-camera Licker intro.

Dynamic difficulty keeps players between bored and stressed. Resident Evil 4 adjusts its difficulty dynamically to hold players in the flow zone.

Undercutting control keeps an armed Leon feeling vulnerable. Resident Evil 4 stops you moving and aiming together, uses a poor camera, limits resources and cramps the inventory, while tough enemies attack from all angles. The early village stays scary even with a shotgun and grenade.

"You never felt fully in control of the situation." Dead Space borrowed its regenerating hunter idea and save point style.

Capcom pulled the series back to its survival horror roots. After the series drifted to set pieces like jumping a helicopter on a motorbike, Capcom took it back to tight corridors and herbs.

Loosening those rules would change what the game is. No moving while aiming, limited briefcase space and restricted save locations were each chosen to deliver tension. Letting players move while aiming or save anywhere is compared to adding an easy mode to Dark Souls.

"To change them, would be to fundamentally alter the game."