As an exciting surprise Resident Evil 2 was added to the XBox Game Pass subscription library and it seemed almost fated to be the next game I would be playing. I was once again ramping up interest in the Resident Evil series having recently completed Resident Evil 7 as well as completing the great downloadable content that was available for RE7. The DLC’s (downloadable content) for RE7 ranged from great to not so great but the DLC’s usually offer multiple new maps or game modes and are low priced so that’s always a plus with me. I’ve been gravitating towards the Resident Evil series once again as the remakes (RE2, RE3, and RE4) are being created via the Resident Evil 7 compute and graphics engine, RE Engine (TM) and that makes all the difference. From what I understand the remakes are currently in development and are slated to be released as AAA titles this year, 2024. The Resident Evil 2 remake was released late 2023 and I personally started the adventure in January 2024 and am currently about 50% through the single player campaign played on standard difficulty.
I became a fan of the current Resident Evil interface or compute and graphics engine while playing RE7: Biohazard last year. I’ve written an article on that as well and that may be found elsewhere on the site. Capcom, Simplygon Studios, and RE Engine are the producers of the game, the graphics, and the 3D graphics engine so if your introduction to the Resident Evil series happened to be RE7: Biohazard you will immediately be comfortably familiar with the gaming interface. But from there the games wildly diverge. Resident Evil 2 was the second installment of the original slate of games and has always been a fan favorite on the Playstation console, as it was the follow up to the wildly successful original Resident Evil which was released in 1996. I believe the same can be said of the upcoming Resident Evil 3 and 4 releases as they follow the original storyline but with a modern interface and other modern accoutrements which in my opinion make the game shine and be highly relevant here in the 21st century.
Resident Evil 2’s gameplay thus far has been outstanding AND challenging and this too has been a staple in the stable of Resident Evil games. Not every release in the Resident Evil franchise were great and there were a couple RE releases (here’s looking at you RE5 and RE6) which tried to go in new directions or simply as money grabs by the evil corporation but Capcom took notice of this and rewarded the fan base by getting everything back on track with the Resident Evil 7: Biohazard release.
I know this may irk some of the die hard RE fans but personally I think the remakes are better than the originals. But to those folks I say this: I’m 54 years old so I was there when the original Resident Evil franchise kicked off so I have played the originals which should put me on square footing to offer my opinion on not only the remakes, but the originals as well as well. The remakes and new releases evolved to take full advantage of todays’ multi-core CPUs’ and dedicated graphics cards (hello Nvidia and AMD Radeon) so as I said earlier in this sentence the evolution of Resident Evil is a franchise that is releasing quality AAA titles. Capcom listened to their fanbase and gave us what we wanted. Who could ask for more? Well… 😉
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