Capcom shed some light on the upcoming Resident Evil 2 remake

Capcom has taken to the US Playstation Blog to share new information on the Resident Evil 2 remake, including details of the box art and a rather pricey collectors edition. The developer also shed light on the new character models and Racoon City that we will soon see when the game releases early 2019.

The Resident Evil 2 remake has been on the cards for an extremely long period of time. In a different time many years ago, Nintendo managed to scoop the series as an exclusive for their then new Gamecube. They received the highly acclaimed Resident Evil Remake and it was originally intended they would also receive remakes of  2 and 3. In the end they received  Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil 4 instead, we certainly weren’t complaining at the time.

For many, Resident Evil 2 is a favourite of the series. The original had a difficult development with a 60% finished version of the game being scrapped and Capcom started again. Nobody was complaining though when on two discs in 1998 Resident Evil 2 came out to rave reviews and cemented the series in gaming culture. The remake was announced back in 2015 and despite rumours that it had become vapourware, release was confirmed this year at E3 and it’s looking really REALLY good.

Producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi has shed some light on the character designs of Leon and Claire as well as the setting of Racoon City. With Leon, on contrast to his later appearances, they wanted a fresh faced look reflective of the fact that this is his first day on the job and how he would look with photo realistic graphics.  This included creating a physical version of Leon’s costume and scanning it into the game, adding minor details and changes afterward.

With Claire Redfield, Resident Evil 2 is her first appearance in the series. Her updated design used the same technology scanning of real world clothes in an effort to capture as much detail as possible. There was discussion between the team of what aspects they would retain from her original appearance all that time ago. In the end they centred on an appearance that would be based on her iconic arrival scene entering Racoon City on her Motorbike.

For Racoon City, Capcom focussed on two main concepts being a sense of wetness and fear of the dark. The events of Resident Evil take place on a dark rainy night, so we can expect flooding with a misty brooding atmosphere with terrors looming in the shadows. A perfect setting to allow their RE engine to blow us away with cutting edge lighting effects.

Aside from some context around design, Capcom also announced a collectors edition retailing for USD $199 (crikey!) which translated into Kangaroo Currency almost equals a Nintendo Switch. Alongside the obligatory special outfits for use in the game, it also comes with a 12 inch Leon Figurine,  a digital soundtrack plus also a couple of interesting books. Specifically, a set of blueprints showing how the museum was renovated into a Police Station. There’s also Ben’s File, a 32 page art book from a freelance journalist that appears in the game containing photos and files from the Racoon City incident never before seen.

Not sure at this point whether the collectors edition will be released officially in Australia. But hey, we live in the age of internet shopping with free shipping and now as adults we have the money for overpriced collectibles, right? Although for that price they could have popped in a download code for the original.

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