Skip to main content

Resident Evil 3 Remake isn’t just a game. It’s my shot at redemption

Nothing sticks in the mind like regrets. How many nights have I settled into bed, sleep mere moments away, only to be yanked away by memories of missteps? Should I have asked her out? Did I spend enough time with my grandfather before he died? Why didn’t I lie when they put me on the spot?

In my museum of regrets, one piece stands above all the others. A PlayStation disc, purchased used from a Hollywood Video, its black underbelly scratched…perhaps thrown in rage by its previous victims. On the front, a mutant’s joyless grin and the title Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

Resident Evil 3 - State of Play Announcement Trailer | PS4

About nine or ten years old, and already with the first two games already under my belt, I went into it with the confidence of youth. Slowly, over the course of weeks, I was broken. Resident Evil 3 was more than I could handle.

Recommended Videos

Now, Capcom has announced a remake, and with it I have a chance to conquer the demons of my youth.

Slowly, over the course of weeks, I was broken. Resident Evil 3 was more than I could handle.

Armed with limited weapons and ammo, Resident Evil 3 (like its predecessors) tasks you with navigating a zombie outbreak, and some occasionally cruel camera angles, while foraging to keep your always-strained supplies from running out. Resource management is key. Do you try to run by that zombie down the alley, or shoot him with one of your ten remaining bullets, knowing you might not find more for a while?

RE3 added a new wrinkle. The eponymous Nemesis, a hulking zombie that pursues you throughout the game. Although RE2 had experimented with a similar figure — a bald, trench coat-clad fellow known as Mr. X — Nemesis took the idea to new extremes.

He was relentless. Anywhere you went, he could appear, whether leaping through a window or politely opening a door behind you, hissing the word “Stars” (his goal is to kill every members of the S.TA.R.S. police unit, including protagonist Jill Valentine). Like a big, patchwork Sting, he’s watching every move you make.

I know what you’re thinking. Big zombie? Just outrun him! You would be wrong. Like a young Shaq, Nemesis is built like a tank but moves with the speed of a gazelle, and he wants to dunk your skull into the pavement. He’s immortal, too. Go ahead and empty your whole arsenal into him. The best you’ll do is knock him down for awhile.

Resident Evil 2 built up my resistance to the series’ shambling zombies and brutish grotesques, but I wasn’t prepared for Nemesis. The atmosphere of constant paranoia was too much for my young heart to take. Hunted ceaselessly, I was forced to confront inevitability itself, the realization that time and the universe would move on no matter how I struggled.

Fleeing from Nemesis, I understood for the first time that I was mortal. One day my skin will sag, my bones will crumble, and I will be only so much dust scattered across a tiny slice of the cosmos.

I never beat Resident Evil 3. Although I put the game down, Nemesis didn’t stop pursuing me. His cold gaze is reflected in every unfinished project, every failed New Year’s resolution, every night spent staring out the window, glass of whisky in hand, as Moonlight Sonata creeps out of my speakers.

Fleeing from Nemesis, I understood for the first time that I was mortal.

Whenever I’m asked my greatest weakness, I bite my lip, resisting the urge to confess that I am forever haunted by my failure to beat Resident Evil 3. “Um,” I stammer instead, “I guess I just work too hard.”

So, when rumors began to swirl that Capcom was working on a remake of RE3, I felt my pulse quicken, a cold tide of sweat chilling me as I thought of seeing my old foe once again. This time in high definition.

But I’m not a child anymore. I can’t live in the past. Life rarely gives you a second chance, a shot at redemption, but that’s what I might find with the return of Resident Evil 3. I’ve been hardened by the travails of adulthood, by hours of fleeing from the upgraded Mr. X in 2019’s Resident Evil 2 remake.

I’ll be waiting, Nemesis. This time, I’ll be ready.

Will Nicol
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Nicol is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends. He covers a variety of subjects, particularly emerging technologies, movies…
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is more like Dead Space’s remake than Resident Evil 4’s
Frank talks to Jessica in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster.

Don't let Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster's name fool you; this is essentially a full-on remake of Capcom's classic zombie game. While the narrative and core gameplay loop are the same, Dead Rising has seen a complete visual overhaul, as well as a few gameplay tweaks to make it more enjoyable to play. It's the same great game you remember, but it now just feels like something that could be released in 2024 rather than 2006. After going hands-on with Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, it's clear that this game is less like the remake treatment Capcom gave Resident Evil 4 last year and more like the one EA gave Dead Space. It's an extremely faithful modern upgrade for a horror classic that still holds up today.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster - Announcement Trailer

Read more
Live service isn’t gaming’s holy grail — and Bungie just proved why
A planet floats in the sky in Marathon.

If there's one sign we can take from the unprecedented number of layoffs across the games industry these past two years, it's that we're in the midst of an identity crisis. The industry isn't in any danger of crashing, but publishers and studios are now being forced to adapt to the new market in ways they may never have had to before. The two major strategies seem to be falling back to the safety of established IP, and rolling the dice in the hopes of launching a successful live-service game. The latter has been attempted by just about every big player in the space, from EA to Xbox, but very few have managed to siphon off a big enough audience from the established titles to last any meaningful length of time.

Recent layoffs at Bungie are just the latest sign of that. The Destiny 2 studio just cut 220 jobs in the wake of its successful and critically acclaimed The Final Shape expansion. Even if you manage to beat the odds and create a popular live-service game, it's becoming clear that that's still not a golden ticket that publishers can rely on.
High-risk, low reward
It's nothing new in the games industry for big publishers to chase the latest trends. Live-service games are just the latest example, albeit a more broad one since it is more a business model than a genre. Instead of trying to recapture an audience with sequels and new titles every few years, these games hold an audience almost indefinitely and earn a consistent drip-feed of income that amounts to more profit in the long run.

Read more
You can now play the original Resident Evil on PC in all its retro glory
Chris Redfield shooting a zombie in a hallway looking at a door behind him in the original Resident Evil game.

Capcom has made it easy to experience older Resident Evil titles with the help of its many recent remakes, but you were mostly out of luck on modern platforms if you wanted to actually play the original versions of those titles. Well, the GOG PC gaming storefront announced Wednesday that you'll soon be able to play the first three Resident Evil games in their (mostly) original forms.

Right now, however, only Resident Evil is available. For $10, you can play the iconic 1997 survival horror game with just a few quality-of-life improvements to make it run well on your Windows 10 or 11 PC. The GOG version makes some very small changes to the gameplay, including improving the timing of cutscenes and making it easier to exit the game, and it now has support for most modern controllers.

Read more