We’re finally getting a Resident Evil 2 Remake!

‘Tis the season for remake announcements!

Not to be outdone by Square’s monumental Final Fantasy 7 remake announcement from E3 this year, Capcom has finally caved to fan pressure and announced that it’s working on a remake of Resident Evil 2.

The message was delivered via special video announcement by Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, who will be serving as project leader on the remake. Revealing a “We Do It!” shirt as confirmation, Yoshiaki went on to say that this game is being developed purely because of the fans. “You’ve been telling us for years that you want Resident Evil 2 to be remade, and we haven’t been able to make it happen…until now!” He went on to add, however, that we won’t be hearing more about it for some time, indicating that a release date is considerably far off.

Long considered to be a favourite amongst fans of the series, 1998’s Resident Evil 2 introduces us to pivotal characters in the series, such as Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, and Sherry Birkin, who all went on to star in their own proper games later on in the franchise. Expanding beyond the tried-and-true formula of “zombie infested mansion” that the first game introduced us to, Resident Evil 2 showed the spread of the plague throughout the sleepy town of Raccoon City. The expansion on plot, enemies and gameplay is what arguably cemented the future success of Resident Evil as a franchise.

Capcom started the trend of remaking classic games in the series back in 2002, when they released Resident Evil for the Nintendo Gamecube (or colloquially referred to as the REmake). The graphics and mechanics were all considered cutting edge by comparison to the 1996 version, yet despite the overwhelming praise the game received, fans immediately began to request the same treatment for its popular sequel. Earlier this year, Capcom announced that an HD remake of Resident Evil 0 would be released for all next-generation consoles, though also teased that an RE2 remake might actually be in the cards after all these years.

The announcement video made no mention of possible platforms or when we can expect more news, but in the meantime, we’ll be getting our hands on the Resident Evil 0 Remastered Version sometime in 2016.