Category: Video Gaming

With the overwhelming success of the Resident Evil 4 Remake, which adds yet another checkmark to Capcom’s initiative to reimagine the first set of titles in the classic horror franchise, it begs the question of what will come next. While fans have pleaded for a remake of the beloved and challenging RE: Code Veronica, that has been left open-ended for now. However, with Albert Wesker’s appearance at the end of the RE4 Remake, the prospect of Resident Evil 5 being revamped is now entirely possible. Here are 6 things we’d like to see in a Resident Evil 5 Remake.

Using the RE Engine

Capcom has been making more that sufficient use of its new development engine for the franchise, from the remakes of Resident Evil 2, 3, and now 4 to the original installments of Resident 7 and 8 which further built upon the universe with new protagonist Ethan Winters and villain Mother Miranda who had ties to Oswell Spencer from the very beginning. The RE Engine has not only brought the story of Resident Evil into the modern scope, but provided all manner of possibilties for a new level of visual storytelling.

This was clearly evident in the Resident Evil 4 Remake, which revamped all of the classic version’s character models, environments, and gameplay in very effective and practical ways. The same could easily be done for Resident Evil 5’s Chris Redfield, who already made his revamped appearance in Village. Incorporating that into a remake of RE5, along with a top-to-bottom reconstruction of its environments and particularly its gameplay (again less QTEs) could all help reinvent the game as a whole.

Resurrect the Original Version of Resident Evil 5

While some may not be aware, there was a version of Resident Evil 5 that actually mirrored RE4 a lot more than the final product did. Early concept art and the earliest gameplay (shown above) had Chris Redfield alone in his mission to track down the source of the Oroboros virus, Sheva entirely absent. The tone of the game also gravitated more to its survival horror roots, creating that necessary feeling of unease and tension in the player to survive against the horde no matter the cost.

However, the official version of the game that released to the public was, in comparison, almost entirely different. It shifted to a far more action-based atmosphere, and implanted original character Sheva to incorporate a new co-op mode that essentially took the threat of any dangerous situation down to a minimum. Even Wesker as the looming antagonist, despite his glow up, felt less ominous this time around and instead reminiscent of a campy Bond villain. The soul of the game was left out in favor of an aesthetically bland action adventure, but that could be remedied with a proper remake.

Should Capcom choose to use the elements from that long lost version of RE5 that we should have gotten originally, along with the new engine it could be actually be morphed into something monumentally better.

Make Sheva More Dimensional, Like Ashley

The Resident Evil 4 Remake revamped a variety of aspects from the classic version that breathed new life into the beloved game and made it even better. Among them was an essential overhaul of Ashley’s character. She was long considered the token dead weight of the original game’s story, which in retrospect was quite a detriment considering she was the objective of the entire mission, and the game as a whole. Players couldn’t stand her, from her snarky and otherwise one-dimensional personality to being utterly useless to gameplay besides turning a crank every once in awhile. She was the constant damsel in distress no one wanted but had no choice to protect in order to beat the game.

However, in the remake she was almost an entirely different person, in many better ways. She had her own character development arc within the game alongside Leon that was realistic and sympathetic. At first she was understandably very fearful, but her growing trust in Leon and admiration of his resilience pushed her to be more confident and strong, wanting to help him as much as possible in their escape.

She proved herself useful throughout the game, working well alongside Leon right up to removing his Plagas infection while unconscious near the end of the story. She showed care for Luis who gave his life to help them, and while she clearly developed feelings for Leon she never went so far as to ask for “overtime”. All in all, her character was far more believable and it all made the mission feel far more worth it.

Sheva Alomar isn’t exactly a damsel herself, serving as Chris’ well-equipped partner from the African division of the BSAA. She wields weapons and is proficient in close combat, and helps the player proceed through the game’s challenges.

However, her character otherwise was surface-level at best that felt like little more than a brief coming and going in the entire story. There was little that gave her much of any actual chemistry with Chris, leaving the player unable to feel much emotional impact from her presence. Given that removing her entirely from a potential remake of the game is likely out of the question, even if she wasn’t in the unreleased version, developing her into more than a hired gun would be a justified change.

Make Excella a Worthwhile Sub-Villain

Excella Gionne is an intelligent genetic engineer that headed up Tricell Inc, another pharmaceutical company like Umbrella. Attracted in more ways than one to Albert Wesker and his grand plan to create a new world with the Oroboros virus, she chose to work for him and provide him with the medicine necessary to keep his body and the virus in it stable.

Throughout Resident Evil 5 she acts as his number two, attempting to stop Chris and Sheva from interfering with his plans. She’s also the one responsible for the mental reconditioning of Jill Valentine, who is used as a weapon against Chris. She functions as a sub-villain to Wesker, as well as a token one-sided love interest, but her character serves little other purpose.

Despite her family’s extensive history and helping lead one of the biggest companies in the world, the gravity of her impact to the story ultimately feels like slim to none in Wesker’s shadow. He discards her without much of a second thought near the end of the game and her last function is that of an emotionless boss fight as a massive Oroboros mutation.

Like Ashley, she could certainly use a creative overhaul that would likely help contribute more to the game’s story, add more intriguing layers to her character and her role in the development of Oroboros. It felt like a missed opportunity in the original that could get some redemption in a remake. Perhaps instead a power struggle between them could develop in lieu of shallow flirtation.

Keep the Right Amount of Comedy

Resident Evil, while at its heart a riveting and chilling horror franchise, has also done exceptionally well what few other games in the genre have managed to do or even try: inject comedy into the horror. Some of the most iconic lines in gaming have come from the series’ brief moments of levity that were often the result of localization mishaps when translating the dialogue from Japanese to English, or simply the limitations of voice acting technology during the 90s. As a result, in the very first game we were gifted with quotes like “the master of unlocking”, and Barry rescuing his partner from becoming “a Jill sandwich”.

The peak of horror-comedy in the franchise came with Resident Evil 4, with Leon Kennedy having graduated from the Raccoon City police academy to become both a master of combat and a master of dad jokes. It made his character all the more likable, worked superbly well against the equally campy villains like Salazar, and cemented the game as a cult classic. The recent remake made sure to keep that characteristic intact, bringing back iconic lines like “Where’s everyone going? Bingo?”, and introducing several new ones like “Nighty night, knights”.

Resident Evil 5 noticeably moved away from that as well while focusing entirely on its underwhelming action motif. While Chris Redfield never quite had the inherent funny bone that Leon does, and has spent much of the series being a rigidly serious character, it shouldn’t mean depriving him of humor completely.

He’s still able to work off other more light-hearted characters like Claire and Jill, and should still be given the chance to diversify his personality more. That would help bring back the proper tonal balance that carried the franchise so well up to that point.

There’s plenty of room for moments of humor, even against an intimidating and malicious villain like Wesker; it simply has to be done right.

Change the Narrative and Tie In Later Installments

Among Resident Evil 4 Remake’s many positive changes, one was a careful degree of change in the narrative flow. Moments in the original game that felt too disconnected, or character development that didn’t function well in hindsight was remolded to tell the same story in a new, more realistic way.

While Ada worked at arm’s length for Wesker, Leon’s former comrade-turned-villain Krauser no longer did, his motives focused only on personal vengeance, the Los Illuminados, and his obtained power from the Plagas. Luis also gained far more presence in the story, no longer killed off early and rather randomly by Saddler. Instead he assists Leon at different points throughout, up until he’s killed in a “wrong place at the wrong time” moment by Krauser. All of these changes benefitted the story, and the same could be done for Resident Evil 5.

With Chris’s appearance in the sequel to Ethan Winters’ story, Resident Evil Village, and the staggering impact of of Mother Miranda’s character on the entire Resident Evil universe, there is abundant opportunity to tie in Chris’s story in a fascinating way from RE5 to RE8.

Alongside that, making some justified narrative changes to the story of Resident Evil 5 that give all of the characters more depth and realistic connection to one another, and make the threat of Oroboros all the more horrifying would all help the game thrive in a way it didn’t before.

And those are 6 things we’d like to see in a Resident Evil 5 Remake. We hope you found this insightful and let us know if you agree with our thoughts, and what changes you’d like to see in a remake of the next game.

Be sure to check out all of our other guides for everything Resident Evil 4 Remake, including our review of the game.

I spent my morning trying and failing to rise from the depths of a vast Brutalist tower in Beton Brutal, a new first-person platformer. It’s a challenging climb yet a curiously chill vibe, perhaps because any time I fall all the way down, I’m delighted to be back surrounded by overgrown plants and sculptures rising from a pond. The developer says Beton Brutal “tries to replicate and build upon the parkour mechanics seen in Minecraft,” and I think I have a lot to learn. I didn’t even know Minecraft had parkour.

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After finally getting approval from Nintendo, Matthew Mercer took to Twitter last night to reveal that he’ll be the voice of Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

If I say so myself, I think Nintendo has found one of the best people for the job. After announcing the news, Mercer shared that it is “an immense honor that I have thrown myself into doing justice.”

In a follow-up string of Tweets, Mercer also detailed that, “I have been an immense Legend of Zelda fan since I was a child, and Ganondorf has been one of my favorite antagonists… to the point where I portrayed this green-skinned menace for my web series over a decade ago!”

With the tweet, Mercer attached a photo of his portrayal of Ganondorf, as well as an adorable photo of him dressed as Link as a child. Mercer then thanked the team at Nintendo for having him and stated that he can’t wait to make fans proud.

If you’re unfamiliar with Mercer, he’s perhaps best known to Dungeons and Dragons fans as the chief creative officer and Dungeon Master for web series, Critical Role. Aside from that, he’s got a long and pivotal history in being the voice actor behind some of the best characters out there.

Mercer voiced Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 6, Chrom in Fire Emblem Awakening, Minsc in Baldur’s Gate 3, and Yusuke Kitagawa in Persona 5. That’s just to name the bare minimum, as he has also had roles in the likes of Fallout 4, Overwatch, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Death Stranding, Fire Emblem Engage, and so many more.

Mercer is also set to voice Leon Kennedy in the upcoming Resident Evil: Death Island film, after having also voiced the rookie cop in Resident Evil: Damnation, and Resident Evil: Vendetta.

He’s certainly got the experience to do justice to the Ganondorf character. What do you think of the casting? And while you’re at it, what do you think of the fans thirsting over Ganondorf’s newly-revealed official artwork?

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom launches on May 12 for Nintendo Switch.

Mojang Studios has returned to the crafting table in an attempt to take Minecraft in a bold new direction. Minecraft Legends is an open-world real-time strategy game where you gather resources, build defenses, and summon adorable mercenaries to protect the sanctity of the realm. Instead of the birds-eye perspective often featured in strategy games, Legends opts for a character-focused view, with your hero roaming the landscape on dynamic mounts, sword in hand, using resources and armies to evict factions of evil Piglins, each with combat quirks to overcome. A compelling concept in theory, but this unique take on an iconic franchise can often feel at odds with itself. Minecraft Legends feels caught between the expected complexity of strategy games and the franchise’s approachable brand.

The first few hours of gameplay felt like an awkward first date with someone who is actually really interesting. As I galloped around the gorgeous environments, I was constantly interrupted by the game’s advisors trying to shoehorn me into specific tasks, which took away some of the shine from Legends’ immediately intriguing world. It felt like a series of false starts, but after repeating the same gameplay loop and enduring an epic tutorial phase, Legends finally lets go of your hand, and this is where the fun begins.

Legends’ reasonably sized map is full of iconic Minecraft imagery. From packs of wolves wandering across the plains to turtles splashing in ponds, the overworld feels organic and welcoming. Ambient patches of landscape like the aptly named Bouncecaps invited me to think vertically about exploration as they sent my hero flying into the sky. I felt encouraged to test the limits of fall damage in search of untouched areas, making for some unexpected finds and overt slapstick failures. 

Across the realm, you’ll take down Piglin strongholds with combinations of deadly mobs and defend helpless villages by building walls and towers, all while maintaining your captured bases from random raids. Various defensive and offensive scenarios pushed me to evolve my tactics and choose my upgrades wisely at the Well of Fate, the hero’s home base. The game forces you to choose between having extra mobs on the battlefield, more options for structures, or additional resources, so you fine-tune your play style as you progress.

Traditional Minecraft mobs have had a charming makeover in Legends. Where a Creeper in the wild may have previously sent chills down your spine, here, they are puppy-like underdogs with explosive tempers you can use at your will. This twist also applies to Zombies and Skeletons: earn their trust by defending their homes from Piglin attacks; they’ll aid you against the tyrannical enemies who have usurped their position as the conventional menaces of the domain. 

Minecraft Legends succeeds in engaging players to investigate its world by hiding special mobs and tools throughout its procedural landscape. Still, it can struggle to make you feel present and essential in the adventure, primarily due to the perspective shift. My hero was on the ground, manually summoning troops and fighting baddies, but it was my companion sprites, the Allays, that were getting all the upgrades, gathering resources, and building structures. You may yearn to get your hands dirtier in a world that feels so inviting and interactive.

This disconnect also followed me into battle where, instead of feeling like a captain who was storming castles to free the land, I would mostly watch my army whittle away at structures while wandering the outskirts alone. Minecraft Legends’ most absorbing moments come when you fight side by side with your mobs to destroy a Piglin portal, so it feels particularly deflating when the game forces you to replenish yourself outside of the action as your troops continue without you. However, I can see some benefit in these maverick systems, as Legends succeeds in twisting strategy game traditions in a way that welcomes players new to the genre.

Minecraft Legends battles to blend its open-world adventuring with the intricacies of real-time strategy, a war that sometimes detracts from the overall fun you can have. Even so, its gorgeous environments and clever world-building inspire familiar creativity that makes up for its growing pains. Where other strategy games feature more profound complexity, Minecraft Legends has heart, and it’s hard to resist its charm. Mojang’s first expedition into this genre occasionally holds your hand too tight. But when its grip loosens, there’s a vibrant world of combat challenges to discover, ultimately making it an enticing endeavor. 

Minecraft Legends on PC

The Minecraft IP is so ubiquitous at this point that it almost feels like it’s too big to fail. Originally billed as a sandbox-style game with surprisingly in-depth mining and building mechanics, Minecraft has since expanded its scope to encompass various other genres, deepening its hold on its audience and the gaming world at large. Minecraft Legends is the IP’s latest foray into yet another new genre, an experiment to see how it fares in the RTS space.

While real-time strategy games have never exactly been in my wheelhouse, Minecraft Legends presented itself as a welcoming, accessible entry point into the genre. Framed as a bedtime story about myths and folklore, Minecraft Legends is set in a time before the original game, where the Overworld is much more peaceful than you might remember it. Villagers lived largely in peace, until these adorable little piglet enemies –aptly named Piglins– started showing up and causing all sorts of trouble.

Minecraft Legends features a story campaign that you can enjoy solo or in co-op, as well as a PvP mode where you can engage in 4v4 battles as you try to reinforce your defenses while taking down the enemy base. Most of my time was spent in the campaign during the review period, which did a great job of getting me acquainted with all the core mechanics I needed to learn to succeed.

Your hero can swing a sword to manually attack enemies, but most of your time will be spent spawning various types of golems –wood, stone, moss, just to name a few–and directing them to do most of the heavy-lifting for you. Wood golems are great for engaging in direct combat with enemies, stone golems excel at destroying structures, while the moss golems support your army by providing healing to keep everyone alive. You’ll unlock more golem types as the game progresses and you gain access to even more resources, but for the most part, you’ll always be summoning golems and attempting to direct them to take down enemies efficiently.

Things get a little more complex once you start fortifying your own base defenses as well. Whenever the Piglins attack, you’ll need to reinforce villages by building structures like archery towers, walls, ramps, and other fortifications to keep the enemies out.

I should note that Minecraft Legends is not exactly a game that lends itself well to solo play; during my time with the campaign, I largely played through it alone and quickly found myself getting overwhelmed by just how much there was to micromanage. You only have a limited time to prepare before the Piglins arrive, and I always found myself struggling to get all the walls up, set up towers, get my spawners ready to summon my golem army, and get into position so that I could start picking off the Piglins.

Not only that, but things start to get pretty chaotic once the fighting actually begins. You’re constantly juggling what your golems are doing and keeping an eye on your defenses to make sure the Piglins don’t get through. Things get extra chaotic when the game throws in an extra objective or two for you to accomplish on top of trying to keep your hero and golems alive. It also doesn’t help that the controls aren’t all that smooth even on PC; I’d found it to be a bit of a challenge having to micromanage my golems and slowly send them into different directions to cover more ground, while also ensuring that I had the appropriate golem types for the various goals I wanted to accomplish.

All of this is to say, Minecraft Legends is infinitely better with a friend or two. I’d managed to hop into a handful of multiplayer sessions, and this is where the game truly shines. Being able to split up the workload between a team of four players makes everything feel so much more efficient, and you never feel like you’re overwhelmed with too many things to take care of. The base fortification process also becomes much more intense, as you have more time to properly plan and set your traps, creating even more interesting challenges for your opponents to overcome.

Minecraft Legends also shakes things up with a day/night cycle, where Piglins become even deadlier once the sun goes down. They start appearing in droves, and stronger Piglin types also start spawning, forcing you to rethink your strategy if you’re planning on exploring the Overworld at night. I was initially apprehensive about the Piglins being the only enemies you’d fight in the game, but they’re so varied in type, and the variety in objectives and different structures you have to take down while attacking a base make it so that you’re always encountering fresh challenges.

I suppose I was hoping that the campaign would be better suited to a solitary experience, as I’ve generally gravitated towards strategy games where I was solely responsible for how well or how poorly I did, based on the decisions I was making instead of how well I navigated the game controls.

Overall, Minecraft Legends is a simple, yet effective introduction to the RTS genre for newcomers like myself. While I don’t necessarily see myself sinking a ton of time into the game going forward –primarily because RTS games still aren’t my thing– I do appreciate Mojang’s effort in expanding the Minecraft universe and experimenting with different genres to see how creative they can get with the IP. Slightly janky controls aside, Minecraft Legends is a solid adventure to experience with friends, and it’ll keep you occupied for hours on end. Just don’t go in expecting a ton of single-player content you can enjoy on your own time.

Reviewer: Zhiqing Wan | Copy provided by Publisher.

Pros

• Fun, accessible entry point into the RTS genre.
• Multiplayer is really fun.
• The Piglins make for great foes, and the missions always feel sufficiently fresh.

Cons

• Controls can be a little wonky, especially if you’re playing solo.
• Speaking of “solo”, the game only truly shines if you have three other friends to play it with.

Release Date
April 18, 2023

Developer
Mojang Studios, Blackbird Interactive

Publisher
Xbox Game Studios

Consoles
PS4, PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC