Resident Evil 2 (2019 video game)

Resident Evil 2 (2019 video game)
Resident Evil 2 is a 2019 survival horror game developed and published by Capcom. A remake of the 1998 game Resident Evil 2, it was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in January 2019 and for Amazon Luna, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in June 2022, and a Nintendo Switch cloud version released in November 2022. Players control the rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy and the college student Claire Redfield as they attempt to escape Raccoon City during a zombie uprising.
Capcom considered remaking Resident Evil 2 following the release of the remake of the first Resident Evil in 2002. It was delayed as the producer, Shinji Mikami, did not want to divert development from Resident Evil 4 (2005). Capcom announced the Resident Evil 2 remake in August 2015 and released the first trailer and gameplay footage at E3 2018. The game was built on the RE Engine, which was also used for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
Resident Evil 2 received praise for its presentation, gameplay, and faithfulness to the original. It received numerous awards, including winning Ultimate Game of the Year at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards. By June 2023, it had sold 12.6 million units, outselling the original Resident Evil 2 and becoming the best-selling game in the franchise. It was followed by remakes of Resident Evil 3 in 2020 and Resident Evil 4 in 2023.
Gameplay
Resident Evil 2 is a survival horror third person shooter game with tactical and stealth elements – unlike the remake of the first game, which sought to update and improve the original experience, this remake completely reimagines the gameplay and story for modern audiences. The game is set in Raccoon City, a fictional mountain city in the Midwest that is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and allows the player to choose from one of two characters, Leon S. Kennedy or Claire Redfield. The protagonist chosen affects the weapons, areas, items, subplot, supporting protagonist (Leon has Ada Wong, a mysterious FBI agent investigating the Umbrella Corporation, and Claire has Sherry Birkin, the young daughter of an Umbrella executive being pursued by a monster) and the final boss.The player is able to freely explore the environment around them while scavenging for resources such as healing items, ammunition, and key items used to solve puzzles and advance the story. Due to the technical and graphical upgrades offered by the RE Engine, the environment is now rendered in full 3D using photorealism, improving its appearance and allowing for the tank controls of the original version to be replaced with a more flexible control scheme similar to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard – the player can move in any direction, rotate the camera around their character, alternate between walking and sprinting, and move around while shooting (however, standing still while aiming will tighten the crosshair, improving the accuracy and power of gunshots). Many areas are also completely dark, requiring use of a flashlight to see in and adding a new element of horror to the game.
As the player explores, they will encounter zombies and other hostile creatures that will attack and attempt to kill them on sight. The player is armed with various weapons – both Leon and Claire have their own handguns, but their other weapons differ (Leon has a shotgun, magnum, and flamethrower, while Claire has a grenade launcher, submachine gun, and the “Spark Shot” stun gun). Knives and both regular and stun grenades can also be found and used as sub-weapons – if an enemy pins the player, they can use a sub-weapon to push them off and save themselves from taking damage, albeit at the cost of decreased effectiveness. Zombies are much stronger than in the original, able to take more bullets before going down, get back up after being knocked down unless their head was blown off, and chase the player into different rooms – the damage model has been greatly improved, with enemies reacting to damage from gunshots in real time and capable of having limbs blown off. Taking damage decreases the player’s health, shown by a heart rate monitor in the inventory, and if the player takes too much, they will die, forcing the player to restart the game from their last save point. Herbs and first aid spray can be used to heal.
The player has an inventory with eight slots which they can use to store their items and equipment but can expand the space available by finding hip pouches. Items in the inventory can be examined in a 3D model viewer (this is often used to reveal the purpose of key items), combined with others to produce beneficial items, such as combining gunpowder to create ammunition or herbs to create stronger herbal blends, or discarded if they have served their purpose. Safe rooms which enemies cannot enter contain item boxes, which can store spare items to be retrieved later, and typewriters, which can be used to save the player’s progress – unless playing on Hardcore difficulty, the ink ribbons have been removed, allowing the player to save as much as they want (though the number of saves is still tracked).
During the game, the player will frequently encounter the Tyrant, a mysterious B.O.W. developed to hunt down and kill survivors. The Tyrant cannot be killed, only momentarily brought down or stunned, and will follow the player throughout the environment except into safe rooms, forcing the player to incorporate stealth tactics to evade him as they search for puzzles and items required to progress. Both protagonists also have a section where their supporting partner briefly becomes playable – Ada can use an EMF gun to hack and overload electronic devices, while Sherry can crouch to fit through small gaps and focuses more on stealth. Beating the game unlocks the “2nd Run” for the other protagonist, which remixes item locations and contains the true final boss and ending to the story. The remake also adds difficulty modes, Assisted, Standard, and Hardcore, which determine the abundance of items, strength of enemies, and whether the game autosaves or requires ink ribbons to use typewriters.
Both of the bonus modes, “The 4th Survivor” and “The Tofu Survivor”, return – the former is unlocked after beating the 2nd Run and sees special ops agent Hunk attempt to go from the lower waterway of the sewers to a rescue helicopter outside the police station while battling through a large gauntlet of enemies. Beating it unlocks “The Tofu Survivor”, which replaces Hunk with a block of tofu that only has knives – however, the remake adds new characters to this mode, who all have a unique item loadout. Completing specific in-game objectives, or “Records”, will also reward the player with concept art, 3D models of characters and items, or in some cases, special weapons with unlimited ammunition or durability.
The Ghost Survivors
“The Ghost Survivors” is a free bonus mode added to the game that is available from the beginning, and focuses on a series of “what-if” scenarios – each scenario depicts an alternate timeline where a side character who dies in the main story survives, and the player can control them as they attempt to reach a specific area in a manner similar to “The 4th Survivor” – unlike that mode, however, “The Ghost Survivors” contains special zombie types, zombies with backpacks that can be looted after killing them, and resupply machines that let you choose one of three items to take from it. The modes also contain a “Training” difficulty, which gives the player an increased starting inventory and the benefits of Assisted difficulty but doesn’t track the players completion time.
“No Time To Mourn” features gun shop owner Robert Kendo, who must get from the gun shop to the proposed water purification room in the sewers to reach a rescue helicopter. His mode features poison zombies, who can poison the player with their bite and release a cloud of poison after dying, and zombies wearing propane tanks that can be shot to cause a damaging explosion.
“Runaway” features Katherine Warren, the mayor’s daughter, who must get from the director’s room of the orphanage to the jail in the police station to save her boyfriend Ben, another side character who dies in the main story. Her mode features “Pale Heads”, which are faster than regular zombies and have regenerative abilities.
“Forgotten Soldier” features Ghost, a special ops agent like Hunk, who must get to the cable car of the laboratory to escape before the self-destruct sequence activates. His mode features the Tyrant and zombies wearing bulletproof armor.
“No Way Out”, unlocked by clearing the main story, features Sheriff Daniel Cortini. Cortini is the only character who has different gameplay from the others – here, he must hold out in the gas station against waves of zombies breaking in and kill 100 (70 in Training) to be rescued by Leon and complete the scenario. His mode features every special zombie type seen in the previous modes.
“The Ghost Survivors” has its own set of Records separate from the main story, which unlock cosmetic hats the player can wear. While these have no effect on gameplay, one, the cat ears, grants infinite ammo.
Synopsis
Plot
On the night of September 28, 1998 two months after the events of Resident Evil, rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy makes his way toward Raccoon City to start his first shift at the police department. At a gas station on the city outskirts, he meets Claire Redfield who is looking for her missing brother. The gas station is overrun by zombies, as well as the rest of Raccoon City after a strain of the T-virus was carried into the city water supply. The two reach the Raccoon City Police Department but are separated when a truck driver crashes his vehicle. The pair discover the station is overrun by zombies, and Leon encounters a bitten Lieutenant Marvin Branagh, who holds information about a secret passage out of the station. Branagh later succumbs to his bite and turns. The player character eventually finds the underground passage but is attacked by mutated Umbrella Corporation leading scientist William Birkin and wards him off.
Inside the parking garage, Leon is attacked by zombie dogs but is saved by Ada Wong. Ada claims to be an FBI agent sent to retrieve the "G-virus", the virus responsible for mutating Birkin which he developed with his wife and coworker Annette. She hopes to retrieve a sample of the G-virus to incriminate Umbrella. Claire finds paperwork confirming her brother had left Raccoon City weeks prior to investigate Umbrella elsewhere, and eventually she runs into Sherry— a young girl and the daughter of William.
Leon discovers reporter Ben Bertolucci in the holding cells, imprisoned by corrupt Police Chief and serial killer Brian Irons for investigating Umbrella. As Ben tries to convince Leon to release him, he is killed by the Tyrant— a monster created by the T-virus. Leon attempts to leave the station, but is attacked by the Tyrant and saved again by Ada. They discover gun salesman Robert Kendo and his infected daughter Emma inside his gun shop. Leon pledges to help Ada retrieve the G-virus sample to prove Umbrella's corruption after Robert is forced to kill his daughter before committing suicide. Leon and Ada meet Annette in the sewers before she forces them to pursue her to the underground Umbrella lab NEST, unwilling to give up the G-virus sample. The two kiss as they descend to NEST.
Sherry is kidnapped by Chief Irons, who has been covering up Umbrella's activities, but William arrives and injects Irons with a "G-embryo". Claire reaches the orphanage where Irons is keeping Sherry, but the embryo births from Irons's stomach and kills him. Claire is knocked unconscious by William as they flee into the sewers and she is separated from Sherry. William infects Sherry— certain her body will not reject the G-virus and will allow it to replicate.
Finding Sherry and descending further underground into NEST, Claire finds the G-virus vaccine and Annette administers it to her daughter. Leon finds the G-virus sample but runs into Annette again. Annette outs Ada as a mercenary selling the sample to the highest bidder before she is mortally wounded by William. Ada demands the sample from Leon at gunpoint, but is knocked off into the abyss below the facility along with the sample and Leon is unable to save her. Annette dies and as the NEST facility is set to self-destruct, Leon is attacked by the Tyrant, now a mutated and deadlier "Super Tyrant". Ada, seemingly surviving her fall, tosses Leon an RPG which he uses to finally kill the Tyrant. Claire staves off a further mutated William before the trio reunites on a train out of the facility. William attacks the train once more in a final mutated form, but the train is decoupled and William is destroyed in the lab's destruction. The next morning Leon, Claire, and Sherry emerge far outside the confines of Raccoon City and into safety. Leon and Claire vow to continue their fight against the Umbrella Corporation.
The Ghost Survivors
In No Time To Mourn, the player controls Robert Kendo, the owner of the titular Gun Shop "Kendo" - while Robert survived the initial fallout, he lost his will to live after both his wife and his daughter Emma were infected with the t-Virus - he is encountered briefly in Leon's run after escaping the police station, then he leaves to put down his daughter before committing suicide. In the alternate scenario, before Robert can pull the trigger on his shotgun, he receives a radio message from one of his long friends, who managed to call a rescue helicopter for them to leave in. Bidding goodbye to his daughter, Robert manages to reach the helicopter in the sewers and escapes from Raccoon City, safe.
In Runaway, the player controls Katherine Warren, the mayor's daughter. Katherine was invited to the orphanage by Chief Irons to see her boyfriend Ben, only to be attacked by Irons and killed - her corpse can be found on a table in the director's room. In the alternate scenario, Katherine manages to grab a knife off the table and stab Irons in the throat before she is injected with poison, killing him. Taking the prison keys off his corpse, Katherine decides to save Ben and makes her way back to the police station, where she reaches Ben's cell and frees him. The two lovers then embrace each other in a hug, although their fate is left uncertain.
In Forgotten Soldier, the player controls Ghost, a special ops agent who was killed by William Birkin after he mutated into G. In the alternate scenario, Ghost narrowly survives his encounter and makes his way to NEST to finish his mission to obtain the G-Virus. As he explores the facility, as the lab's self-destruct protocol activates, he finds the G-Virus sample dropped after Ada's fall, and takes it. Ghost manages to reach the cable car and sets off for safety, but is then held at gunpoint by Ada (who somehow survived her fall), who takes the sample off him. Ghost's fate is left uncertain.
In No Way Out, the player controls Daniel Cortini, a local sheriff who investigates the gas station following reports of cannibalistic murders in the area - he is killed by the first zombie the player encounters in the game, and turns soon after. In the alternate scenario, Daniel manages to overpower and kill the zombie, but becomes trapped inside the station as it goes under siege. Fending off wave after wave of zombies, Daniel is eventually saved by Leon just as he is overpowered, and the two set off for Raccoon City in the same manner as the beginning of the game. Their fate is left uncertain, although it is implied that Cortini would take Claire's place in the story.
Development
The original Resident Evil 2 was released for the PlayStation in 1998. Following the release of the 2002 remake of the first Resident Evil for the GameCube, Capcom considered a similar remake of Resident Evil 2, but series creator Shinji Mikami did not want to divert development away from Resident Evil 4. In August 2015, producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi announced in a video that the remake had been approved and was in active development, ending the video with the phrase "We Do It". No further details were released until Sony's E3 2018 press conference, when Capcom released the debut trailer and gameplay footage and removed "Remake" from the title. Hideki Kamiya, director of the original Resident Evil 2, said that he had pushed Capcom to create a remake for years. Hirabayashi said the team was striving to capture the spirit of the original game, and that the team incorporated feedback received about Resident Evil 6, a game he also produced.
To meet modern expectations, the team altered some character designs to better match the more photorealistic setting; for example, Leon no longer wears large shoulder pads, which were added to distinguish his original, low-polygon model. Ada's red dress was dropped in favor of a trench coat with sunglasses for similar reasons. Though they strove to make a "modern, accessible" game, they focused on horror over action, hoping to preserve a claustrophobic feel. The game uses the RE Engine, the same game engine used for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017), which allowed Capcom to modernize the gameplay. Producer Tsuyoshi Kanda acknowledged the difficulty of making zombies seem scary and threatening, as they had become ubiquitous in entertainment media since the release of the original Resident Evil in 1996. By removing the fixed camera angles, the team had to use different ways to conceal enemies, using elements such as room layout, lighting, and smoke. The new camera system also affected the sound design, as it no longer made sense for sound to come from a fixed source. The faces of several character models are based on scans of real people - for example, Leon S. Kennedy is based on the model Eduard Badaluta, Claire Redfield is based on the model Jordan McEwen, and Marvin Branagh is based on the music producer Patrick Levar.
The game features a Dolby Atmos soundtrack. While the Japanese voice actors for Leon, Claire and Ada in Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City returned to reprise their roles, the English-language voices were recast with Nick Apostolides, Stephanie Panisello and Jolene Andersen replacing Matthew Mercer, Alyson Court and Courtenay Taylor respectively, due to Capcom's decision to use non-union voice actors. The non-union voice cast also provided the performance capture.
Release
Resident Evil 2 was released on PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One worldwide on January 25, 2019. The game supports enhancements on the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, offering either 4K resolution or 60 frames per second. A demo known as the 1-Shot Demo was released on January 11, 2019. It ends after 30 minutes and does not allow repeat playthroughs, however the same demo was later rereleased as the "R.P.D. Demo" and does allow repeat playthroughs. A collector's edition was made available for the console versions, featuring extras such as a Leon S. Kennedy figurine, a hardcover art book, a R.P.D. renovation poster, and a digital soundtrack.
On December 12, 2019, a final update was introduced to the Resident Evil 2 remake where the protagonist of Resident Evil 3, Jill Valentine, has written a letter to Kendo. This letter can be found at Kendo's gun shop right after Leon and Ada escape from the police station. Reading this letter also unlocks an achievement called "Chasing Jill".
Versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S were announced on March 2, 2022, and released on June 13, 2022 alongside upgrades for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017) and Resident Evil 3 (2020). These versions include visual enhancements including ray-tracing and high-framerate modes, and the PlayStation 5 version supports haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. Owners of the game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are able to upgrade for free, and a free upgrade patch for the Windows version was also released simultaneously. A version for Amazon Luna was announced on May 26, 2022, and was subsequently released on June 9, 2022. A Nintendo Switch cloud version was released on November 11, 2022.
Downloadable content
Resident Evil 2 contains various downloadable content packs. Upon launch, the game included five DLC costumes for Leon and Claire available for $2.99 each: Leon has a sheriff outfit and a noir outfit, while Claire has a military outfit, a noir outfit, and the motorcycle suit worn by Elza Walker, the protagonist of the original game's development build - the noir outfits allow the player to play using a black-and-white filter. There are also three different variations of the "Samurai Edge" handgun, based on the models used by Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Albert Wesker in the first Resident Evil game, which were also released for $1.99 each - the Chris and Jill models were included as bonus for players who pre-ordered the game. Finally, the Original Ver. Soundtrack Swap, available for $2.99, allowed the player to replace the game's soundtrack with the original.
Later, on February 15, 2019, Capcom released the original models for Leon and Claire from the 1998 release as free DLC. A third bonus mode, The Ghost Survivors, was also added to the game, which features four bonus missions: "No Time to Mourn", "Runaway", "Forgotten Soldier", and "No Way Out". The mode centers around side characters who die in the main story, and depicts alternate, non-canon scenarios where they survive. "No Time to Mourn" (featuring gun shop owner Robert Kendo, who commits suicide after putting down his infected daughter), "Runaway" (Katherine Warren, the mayor's daughter who is normally murdered by Chief Irons), and "Forgotten Soldier" (Ghost, a special ops agent who survives G's assault) require the player to reach a destination as they make their way through waves of special enemies, while "No Way Out" (Sheriff Daniel Cortini, who is normally killed by a zombie at the beginning of the game), which is unlocked after completing the other three missions, requires the player to defeat a wave of a hundred zombies inside the gas station from the beginning of the game.
Reception
Following its E3 2018 showing, Resident Evil 2 won the "Best of Show" award at the 2018 Game Critics Awards. The 1-Shot Demo received over 4.7million downloads worldwide.
Resident Evil 2 received "universal acclaim" for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, and "generally favorable reviews" for the Windows version from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. On OpenCritic the game has a 97% critics recommend score out of 205 critic reviews.
Ben Reeves of Game Informer wrote that "Resident Evil 2 not only looks great, it plays well, and it forces you into a series of dark encounters that are a total rush." Keith Stuart of The Guardian wrote that it was "a reminder of how beautifully crafted survival horror games were in their heyday." The Daily Telegraphs Tom Hoggins described the game as a "thrilling return to the legacy of the 1998 original".
IGNs Daemon Hatfield originally gave the game an 8.8 in their review, only to increase it to a 9.0 after being made aware of the unlockable second playthrough that presents the story from another point of view. They stated in their review that "Capcom did a fantastic job of resurrecting all the best parts of the classic Resident Evil 2 and making it look, sound, and play like a 2019 game."
Chris Carter of Destructoid called the game "A hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage." Aoife Wilson of Eurogamer described it as "a masterly reimagining of a modern classic". Polygons Michael McWhertor wrote that Resident Evil 2 showcases "the very best of survival horror"; similar praise was expressed by Heather Alexandra of Kotaku, who wrote that the game "provides some of the best moments in the franchise". Alessandro Fillari of GameSpot said that with Resident Evil 2 "the classic survival horror franchise embraces its past in a new, exciting way".
Sales
Three million copies of Resident Evil 2 were shipped in its first week of release and four million in its first month, with more than one million on Windows. It became Capcom's second biggest launch on Steam after Monster Hunter: World from 2018. Resident Evil 2 debuted at number two on the Japanese charts with 252,848 retail sales, after Kingdom Hearts III. As of March, the game was still among the top 20 best selling video games in Japan with more than 352,000 sold units. Resident Evil 2 also topped the UK charts, becoming Capcom's biggest UK launch since Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017) in physical retail sales, and was the UK's best-selling game in January 2019, despite being available for only two days. By December 2019, the game had sold over 5.8 million units, overtaking the sales of the original Resident Evil 2. It had sold over 10 million units by July 2022, and 12.6 million units by June 2023.
Awards
Notes
References
External links
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