Resident Evil 2 remake officially underway at Capcom

By Danny Cowan August 12, 2015

Resident Evil 2 Remake – Special Message from Producer “H”

Capcom will publish a remake of its classic survival horror game Resident Evil 2, producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi confirmed today.

The decision to upgrade Resident Evil 2 for modern platforms follows an outpouring of fan support for a remake in recent weeks, culminating in the project being officially pitched last month. Capcom has since approved Hirabayashi’s pitch, setting the project in motion.

“It’s been great to see so many positive comments from fans that have pushed the project to get approved,” Hirabayashi stated. “The team here at Capcom Japan really appreciates fans’ passion and support and will do our best to bring fans what they really want.”

Interest in the Resident Evil series has swelled over the last few months after a revamped version of the original Resident Evil hit the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and other consoles in January. Capcom confirmed that the game was a sales success, announcing that a similarly enhanced version of Resident Evil 0 is slated for a multiplatform launch in 2016.

While the Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0 reissues are based on previously released versions for the Nintendo GameCube, Resident Evil 2 requires a complete overhaul. Late-’90s ports for the Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 saw only minor improvements, and did not upgrade the core experience in the way that Resident Evil‘s subsequent GameCube remake did.

Given the time and resources required for a Resident Evil 2 remake, Hirabayashi turned to fan outlets on Twitter and Facebook in order to drum up support for the project. His efforts elicited hundreds of responses, prompting Capcom to give him the go-ahead for pre-production.

Capcom has mined past entries in the Resident Evil series for revenue following the release of Resident Evil 6 in 2012, which largely met with low review scores and a negative reception from fans. The series has seen few entries since, save for the occasional reissue and spinoffs like the recent Resident Evil: Revelations 2.

A release date for Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 remake is not yet known.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Contributor

Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…

Gaming

How long is Dragon’s Dogma 2?

A sphinx in Dragon's Dogma 2.

Open-world RPGs can be anywhere from around a dozen hours long to well over 100. Dragon's Dogma 2 is very unique, even among others in the genre, for not adhering to a lot of traditional design philosophies, such as how it handles fast travel. If anything, that will only add to your total playtime, plus there are all the optional quests to do, Vocations to try out and level up, and more if you're a completionist. If you're wondering if you have the time to fit Dragon's Dogma 2 into your schedule among all the other games releasing, here's how long you can expect this adventure to last.
How long is Dragon's Dogma 2?

For the main quest, Dragon's Dogma 2 can probably be beaten in around 25 hours, give or take. That's assuming you mainline the story as efficiently as possible and don't get stuck on any boss fights being under-leveled. A more realistic playthrough where you explore a bit, do some side content, and maybe go for the true ending will push you into the 30 to 35-hour range, as it did for us.

Gaming

The best vocations in Dragon’s Dogma 2

Dragon's Dogma 2 key art featuring a knight with a fiery hole in their chest.

Your Vocation defines your role in combat in Dragon's Dogma 2. Everything from your skills to what weapons and armor you can use is tied to this class. You will pick from just a handful at the beginning of the game, but can easily change Vocations later on, as well as unlock more than twice as many new options than what you start with. It can take a while to really get a feel for a Vocation and how it performs in combat, as well as to look through all of its skills and augments, before knowing if it's worth sticking with to level up. Personal preference will play a part to some degree, but these Vocations have the most potential to make you the strongest Arisen in history.
The best vocations in Dragon's Dogma 2

You can pick from 4 Vocations at the start of Dragon's Dogma 2, but will end up with a total of 10 by the end of the game if you unlock them all. New Vocations are unlocked by completing quests, but they are almost unmissable. Four Vocations -- the Magick Archer, Mystic Spearhand, Trickster, and Warfarer -- can only be used by your character and not any Pawns.
Warfarer
There's very little downside to being a jack-of-all-trades in Dragon's Dogma 2, which is exactly what the Warfarer is. This is the only Vocation that can use any weapon in the game AND learn any skill from other Vocations. This is the only Vocation that really lets you build whatever class you want and gives you the ability to adapt to any situation you find yourself in. The main downside to this class is it has the lowest base stats, but that is a small price to pay for how versatile you can be.
Mystic Spearhand
Hybrid Vocations are all quite powerful, but we put the Mystic Spearhand at the top of the heap. This class turns you into a fighter that can take advantage of magic to output crazy damage. The two almost overpowered abilities you get here are the ability to slow enemies for a short time and to create a magical mimic that doubles all your actions. It is great for both crowd control and large single targets, but takes a while to unlock and lacks some range.
Warrior
If you're going to be a straight-up melee fighter, you might as well hit with the biggest weapon you can, right? The Warrior swings swords large enough to make Guts blush and is a full-on tank. You won't be doing anything fancy with this vocation beyond charging up and swinging as hard as possible. The obvious drawback is any flying or ranged enemy will counter you, so bring some Pawns in those classes to cover your bases.
Sorcerer
For those who fancy themselves a pure mage, stick to the Sorcerer over the actual Mage vocation. While the Mage is more focused on healing, it is the Sorcerer who gets the best offensive spells you will want to be casting. If you have a second Sorcerer with you, you can even sync up and decrease your casting time. If not, you will need some tanks to take aggro while you deal with some slightly long casting times and low total health.
Thief
As far as the starting Vocations go, the Thief is the one we find the most fun and viable for the entire game. This is a light and speedy build focused on critical hits and being able to climb and hang on to large beasts. Once on, you have a number of great skills to stagger and knock down an enemy so the rest of your squad to gang up on it. Just don't get hit because you're one of the squishier Vocations.

Gaming

Capcom responds to negative reception of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s PC port

A beastren in Dragon's Dogma 2.

Dragon's Dogma 2 launched today, and while it had a warm critical reception, players are having a lot of problems with its PC port in particular. Currently, it has an overwhelmingly negative user score on Steam, with over 13,000 reviews as of the writing. Capcom has addressed common criticism of the game in the hopes of quelling the frustration of PC players.

Players are a bit peeved at the inclusion of microtransactions in all versions of the game, as well as the fact that it uses Denuvo anti-cheat software that's known to impact game performance. I already found the game to be poorly optimized on Xbox Series X/S, but the issues get even worse on PC. For a game that already has demanding minimum required PC specs, performance still isn't good for a lot of players, with frame rate drops, crashes, and freezing happening often. Players have had to find odd ways to improve the frame rate by doing things like murdering NPCs.