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U Resident Evil franchising it has been such a core part of video games that it is impossible to imagine a world without it. During the decades, the series went through a lot, and had many highs and bass– and what is higher for the whole company than Resident Evil 4?
Capcom has put so many versions of Resident Evil 4 over the years, including an acclaimed current-gen remake in 2023. But its first release was for the Nintendo Gamecube on January 11, 2005 as the penultimate game in a series of console exclusives called Capcom Five, and marked a major shakeup. for the series. After several versions were conceived and scrapped, series director/producer Shinji Mikami took the reins full reinvention. At that point, he and other developers felt things were getting long in the tooth and hoped to spice things up in the right ways.
Among Mikami’s key changes were replacing the zombies with a new dead enemy called Ganados, using a more dynamic camera instead of fixed angles, and not centering the story on the evil Umbrella Corporation. But the biggest change was in how the game was played: rather than slow, tank-like controls, I wanted more of an action focus and third person, shoulder over shoulder. This style of play does not sit well with everyone on the team but them came around he once explained for what he wanted the changes he made. In a 2004 interview with IGNproducer Hiroyuki Kobyashi similarly assured the fan base that it was still a proper one Resident Evil game, just one that could also serve as a jumping-off point for those who bounced from previous entries or hadn’t played the games.
Now, we all know Resident Evil 4 it received critical acclaim and is considered one of the best games of all time. It is also one of the most influential: from Gears of War and Dead Space to the most recent The last of us and god of war you can find a lot of his DNA in every major third-person game that came out between 2006 and now. Similar mimicry was found in other survival horror series at the time, with new installments then Silent Hill and Alone in the dark it also tries to go for an action/horror mix, but not with the same success or brilliant reception. Later on Resident Evil games continued the combat shooter in the third person, and the first person Resident Evil Village was developed as a mixture of that game and 2017 Resident Evil 7, according to Village director Morimoto Sato.
Ma Resident Evil 4 the biggest impact came when it was brought to the PlayStation 2 in October of the same year. In a way, it was the most definitive version of the game, as it featured new features and material not found in the Gamecube version, including the “Separate Ways” side story with supporting character Ada Wong. The PS2 was known for having an incredible third-party game library back in the day, and RE4 he was among the cream of the crop. Resident Evil has never been an exclusive series of PlayStation, but the two are still linked, and as with Final Fantasy, it meant something at the time to have a mainstream entry on a PlayStation console.
However, his jump to the PS2 was not without its bumps. Once Capcom revealed Resident Evil 4 it wasn’t Gamecube exclusive, Mikami’s anger at the situation helped lead to the creation of several new developers. The first was Clover Studio, where Mikami and Hideki Kamiya – the man who scrapped RE4 ideas led to the creation of Devil May Cry– worked on cult classics like Hand of God and Eyes. After this studio closed, the two helped co-found PlatinumGames, which Kamiya led the studio and directed its main action series. Bayonetta and the beloved gem 2017 Nier: Automata. For him, things have come full circle: have left the platinum in 2023, he is now in charge of the recently announced Clovers Studiowhich makes a follow up to eyes. Meanwhile, Mikami founded Tango Gameworks, which continued to create the Bad Inside games and 2023 is extremely fantastic Hi-Fi Rush. Microsoft close Tango later by Rush release, but the study was recently reborn from Krafton. Mikami left Tango before its closure, and it seems that it has since started a new study which presumably does its own thing.
Whatever Mikami’s next project ends up being, it will inevitably draw comparisons to his previous work, and Resident Evil 4 in particular. There is no escaping the shadow of that game, both because of how deep it has become in video games over the decades, and also because it is played in almost everything in some capacity. Even if Capcom suddenly decided to stop the survival horror franchise at this point, that wouldn’t do much of anything. Resident Evil 4 it refuses to be forgotten, and probably never will be, since it has become so ingrained in the medium.
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