After the recent back-to-back successes of Resident Evil remakes, there was little doubt in anyone’s mind that Capcom wasn’t going to slow that train down anytime soon. The company itself confirmed last year that it had every intention to keep developing more Resident Evil remakes, and though we’ve yet to hear any official details on those plans, recent leaks have indicated that the company has already taken several steps to put those plans into practice. Interestingly enough, however, it doesn’t look like Capcom has chosen the games for Resident Evil’s next remakes that many would have deemed the likeliest candidates to be remade next.
After having delivered remakes of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 in recent years, most would have expected that Capcom would stick with the series’ numbered entries. The company had already skipped Code Veronica before moving to 4, which meant that the majority of series fans were confident that Resident Evil 5 would be the next remake (especially because ending scenes in Resident Evil 4 and its DLC, Separate Ways also seemed to be pointing to an imminent RE5 remake). At the same time, many in the fanbase also felt that it was only a matter of time before Capcom went back and did another remake of Resident Evil 1.
According to recent leaks, however, neither of those two is being remade. As per prominent insider Dusk Golem, Capcom is currently working on remakes of Resident Evil Zero and Resident Evil – Code: Veronica (which, as per the insider, are two among five Resident Evil games that are currently being worked on, Resident Evil 9 being another one). Other reliable sources like IGN and VGC’s Andy Robinson have also corroborated Dusk Golem’s claims, which means it’s looking more than a likely at this point that the next remakes we see from Resident Evil are going to be ones that not many would have expected to see.
Obviously, Zero and Code Veronica aren’t numbered games, while the two of them also don’t enjoy the sort of universally glowing reputation that a lot of other, previously remade Resident Evil games did, all of which is to say that Capcom likely would have viewed them as less financially attractive prospects than full-fledged numbered Resident Evil games- a notion that many would say was proven accurate when, after Resident Evil 3, Capcom chose to remake Resident Evil 4 instead of Code Veronica, even though the latter was what the series’ chronology demanded.
But as unlikely as remakes of Zero and Code Veronica would have seemed to many – especially at a point where Capcom does have other numbered Resident Evil games to turn to as options when deciding what to remake next – in my view, it’s the best possible decision that Capcom could have made for Resident Evil and its fans at this point, and for multiple reasons.
The biggest and most obvious of those reasons is the plain and simple fact that remakes of RE Zero and Code Veronica are just much more interesting prospects than remakes of, say, RE1 and RE5. For starters, we’ve already had a remake of Resident Evil 1, and it was already an unabashed masterpiece. Sure, the remake itself is quite an old game at this point, and another take on the classic that reimagines it as a third-person game built in the RE Engine does sound like a salivating prospect- but a remake of a game that has already received a pretty darn good remake in the past is inherently an idea with more than a little friction.
Then you have Resident Evil 5, which doesn’t feel like it’s in need of a remake. Sure, the game is a decade and a half old at this point, but it doesn’t feel that old. It doesn’t have all the polish and gameplay improvements of modern Resident Evil games, and obviously, its visuals and tech have aged (as well as aspects of its story and writing), but all things considered, Resident Evil 5 is still a hell of an action game, especially if you’re playing co-op. Could it be even better with a remake? Sure. But it wouldn’t be the sort of exciting, radical leap forward that gets you out of your seat.
You know what would be that kind of a leap? You guessed it. Either Zero or Code Veronica would almost definitely get that sort of a leap. Both of them are games from Resident Evil’s fixed cameras era, which means their remakes are going to feel similar in the magnitude of their changes to the likes of Resident Evil 2 and 3. Visually, mechanically, narratively, and from a design perspective, Resident Evil Zero and Code Veronica’s remakes are both going to look and feel significantly different than the originals, and that in and of itself makes them much more exciting than other potential RE remakes.
And yes, both games are going to require significant reimagining, because both of them have major issues in different areas that drag them down- issues that Capcom will have to address as priorities if it wants the remakes to be received well. Resident Evil Zero’s lack of item boxes and its character swapping mechanics led to some of the game’s most frustrating aspects, while Code Veronica is notoriously poorly tuned with its resources, difficulty, and design, in addition to having an infamously off-rails and over-the-top story.
Obviously, Capcom will have to keep a lot of those elements in place, otherwise, why even bother remaking those games, right? For instance, you can’t imagine a Code Veronica without characters such as Steve or the Ashford twins, even if they weren’t exactly the most universally beloved characters, and similarly, you can’t imagine Resident Evil Zero without having players frequently switching between Rebecca and Billy. The company will, however, have to find a way to heavily rework and redesign those problematic elements.
Characters will have to be entirely rewritten, performances will need to be completely new takes, mechanics and significant portions of the design will have to be entirely overhauled- remakes of Resident Evil Zero and Code Veronica will likely be radical overhauls, a lot of which will simply be down to just plain necessity. And isn’t that a much more interesting way to remake a game than the much more conservative approach Capcom undoubtedly would have taken with Resident Evil 5? And sure, an entirely new vision of what Spencer Mansion and its iconic, horrifying hallways can look like is an alluring idea, to say the very least- but given the option, we’d much rather hold off on that and prioritize other remakes first.
Sure enough, it seems like that’s exactly what Capcom has done as well. There’s absolutely no way that the company isn’t eventually going to get to remakes of Resident Evil 1 and 5- one way or another, and at some point in the future, both of those are absolutely, without a shadow of doubt going to happen. But in holding those games back for now and deciding to go with Zero and Code Veronica first, not only has the company gone with the more creatively interesting picks that will give their developers much greater freedom in how they choose to recreate the source material, it has also ensured that it isn’t going to have to worry about having run out of games to remake anytime soon. Until then, we couldn’t be more excited about the prospect of Resident Evil Zero and Code Veronica receiving the sort of remake treatment that other games in the franchise have enjoyed in recent years.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
