The long-rumored Resident Evil 4 Remake has reportedly seen a partial internal reboot after creative differences pushed Capcom to reassign the project to its mainline development team, potentially delaying the game to as late as 2023.
According to a report from VGC (opens in new tab), the team that handles core Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games, Capcom Division 1, has now been tapped to handle the bulk of the Resident Evil 4 Remake. Prior reports indicated that M-Two, a relatively new studio led by former Platinum Games CEO Tatsuya Minami, was put in charge of the remake after its contributions to the Resident Evil 3 Remake. However, sources say M-Two has had its role on the game “significantly reduced” following its most recent project review, primarily because Capcom wants to take the remake in a different direction.
M-Two was reportedly approaching the remake as a near shot-for-shot recreation with very little deviation from the original. However, Capcom is said to be pushing for a less restricted approach that gives the Resident Evil 4 Remake room to incorporate new features and ideas not present in Resident Evil 4 itself, hence the internal handoff. Sources stressed that this sort of creative shift is not unusual for Capcom, and countless other games have changed directions mid-development before, but this sort of internal reboot could push the game out of 2022, long believed to be its target release window.
The key takeaways here are: the Resident Evil 4 Remake never had an official release date but it may now be coming later than initially expected, and it may also be more off-script than traditional remakes. This is all coming from a reliable source, but it should be treated as unofficial until Capcom addresses the Resident Evil 4 Remake on the record. We’ve reached out to the publisher for clarification and will update our reporting if we hear back.
In official Resident Evil news, the new Resident Evil Maiden demo has left us thirsty for the full game coming this May.