Yes, there will be another Resident Evil remake, Capcom confirm - but they won’t say which one just yet
“We are very grateful to users that are vocal about their opinion,” adds RE4 Remake director
Surprise, surprise: Capcom are working on another Resident Evil remake in their successful series of ground-up rebuilds for the survival-horror franchise. As for whether we’ll barrel straight into Resident Evil 5 from this year’s RE4 Remake or jump back to Zero or even, uh, sideways to Code Veronica? They won’t say - yet.
Resident Evil 4 Remake director Yasuhiro Anpo gave a definitive answer when asked during a recent PlayStation partner awards event, as first reported by IGN, whether Capcom want to keep (re)making the older Resident Evil titles: “Yes.”
The reason will also come as little surprise, with Anpo saying that the positive reception to the Resident Evil 2, 3 and 4 remakes - both critically and commercially, with RE2 Remake becoming the best-selling game in the entire franchise as of August with 13.1 million copies sold - was a driving factor, along with bringing the series to new players.
“We’ve released three remakes so far and they have all been received very well,” Anpo said. “Since it allows a modern audience to play these games, it is something I am happy to do as someone that loves these older games, and we want to continue doing more.”
While Anpo was upfront in telling us what we already know - a new remake is coming - the developer refused to be drawn on which game will get the REmake treatment next.
“What game we will remake in the future is something that we would like to announce in the future, so please look forward to it.”
The obvious answer might be Resident Evil 5, with the 2009 co-op instalment still one of Capcom’s best-selling games of all time, drawing with Resident Evil 6 at 8.9 million copies sold - putting it just under Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and above Resident Evil Village and the remake of RE3.
That said, RE5’s controversial setting - which could be fixed by a complete overhaul - and the success of Resident Evil’s single-player games (the less said about RE6 and Operation Raccoon City, the better) might inspire the developers to return to prequel Resident Evil Zero, spin-off Code Veronica or even the first Resident Evil, which saw a HD remaster in 2014 but not a full remake.
Whatever lies ahead, Anpo said that the developers would be approaching the next Resident Evil remaster with the thoughts of existing fans in mind - just as they have done with the remakes so far, which Anpo sees as key to their success.
"When developing a new game, there is no way to know what will be received well by the players, which makes it difficult," Anpo said. "In the case of a remake, there are already players that have played the original, which I think can be seen as an advantage.
“We are very grateful to users that are vocal about their opinion. It allows us to develop with the players’ opinion in mind. For example, if this is how the players feel, then maybe we can make it like this. I think this is one of the reasons why our remakes are so well received."