Summary
- The Resident Evil franchise has evolved through the decades, with Resident Evil 4 Remake hinting at a possible open-world direction ahead.
- Resident Evil 4 Remake showcased open-ended areas and side missions, laying the groundwork for a potential open-world Resident Evil 9.
- The concept of an open-world Resident Evil game is worth exploring, as seen in the success of Resident Evil 4 Remake's larger scale.
The Resident Evil franchise has evolved a lot over the last few decades, both for better and for worse. When Resident Evil debuted in 1996, it was a groundbreaking survival horror game that used fixed camera angles, and just less than a decade later, it released a groundbreaking third-person action-horror game. Although the series might have lost its way a bit in the 2010s, it picked things back up with Resident Evil 7, a game that once again evolved the franchise in a new direction.
From the sound of recent rumors, it seems like the Resident Evil franchise could be in for another big evolution, this time pushing the series into uncharted, open-world territory. While the concept of an open-world Resident Evil game might not make immediate sense to most long-time fans, it's a premise that's certainly worth exploring, and Resident Evil 4 Remake proved that the series could shine with a larger scale.
Modern Resident Evil Games Won't Know True Horror Unless One Rare Enemy is Reprised
The Resident Evil games each have their fair share of scares, but there’s one classic RE enemy that still makes players tremble with fear.
Resident Evil 4 Remake Hinted at How an Open-World Resident Evil Could Work
Resident Evil 4 Remake Had a Few Open-Ended Areas
While the vast majority of Resident Evil 4 Remake follows the original's linear structure, there are a few brief glimpses of some more open-ended environments. For instance, Resident Evil 4 Remake's beginning village area starts off as a simple collection of arenas that players linearly work their way through, but a few hours in, players are given free rein over the village's many interconnected areas, giving them the opportunity to explore and discover any resources they may have missed before. Resident Evil 4 Remake's village is far from a proper open world, but it does give fans a glimpse of what a cohesive, larger-scale Resident Evil world could look like.
By far the most open-ended part of Resident Evil 4 Remake is its brief but memorable boat section, in which players can freely visit a handful of islands and caverns from a central hub area, and complete objectives in any order they see fit. Again, this brief section of gameplay can't be qualified as a fully open world, but it does do a good job of proving that an open-world Resident Evil game could work. If Resident Evil 9 does end up going open-world, then it should use this RE4 sequence as the foundation, simply increasing its scale but keeping its general formula intact.
This wasn't the first time a Resident Evil game experimented with an open-ended structure. While many Resident Evil games have had a central hub area, few have felt quite as open and large-scale as Resident Evil Village's, which connected all of the game's areas in a fairly cohesive fashion while also offering plenty of worthwhile exploration in and of itself.
Resident Evil 4 Remake Teased Side Missions
Another piece of groundwork that Resident Evil 4 Remake laid ahead of Resident Evil 9's rumored open-world is its handful of side missions dotted throughout the game. Taking the form of blue request notices, these Resident Evil 4 side missions tasked players with gathering specific resources, or killing certain enemies, acting as a natural evolution of the original's blue medallion activities. While these missions rarely offered something truly special, the rewards gained by completing them usually felt worthwhile, and that's something an open-world Resident Evil should remember for its own side content.
Resident Evil 4
- Released
- March 24, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
Survival is just the beginning.
Six years have passed since the biological disaster in Raccoon City.
Agent Leon S. Kennedy, one of the survivors of the incident, has been sent to rescue the president's kidnapped daughter. He tracks her to a secluded European village, where there is something terribly wrong with the locals.
And the curtain rises on this story of daring rescue and grueling horror where life and death, terror and catharsis intersect.
Featuring modernized gameplay, a reimagined storyline, and vividly detailed graphics, Resident Evil 4 marks the rebirth of an industry juggernaut.
Relive the nightmare that revolutionized survival horror.
- ESRB
- M for Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
- Capcom
- Publisher(s)
- Capcom
- Franchise
- Resident Evil
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- How Long To Beat
- 16 Hours
- Metascore
- 93
