A fan-made HD remaster of Resident Evil 4 is finally set to release next week on February 2 for Steam after eight years of development.
Simply titled Resident Evil 4 HD Project 1.0, the announcement trailer promises remastered textures (both in-game and for UIs), improved lighting, and thousands of 3D model revisions.
It'll also include the main campaign, the Assignment: Ada, Separate Ways, and Mercenaries minigames to keep it in line with every other version of Resident Evil 4 out there.
You will need to have already purchased Resident Evil 4 on Steam to download and access the mod, but it will be distributed for free.
Guess we better do it ourselves
But doesn't Resident Evil 4 already have an HD remaster on PC? One officially made by Capcom? Yes, yes it does, but many would argue that it was hardly up to snuff.
While it is still the classic game everyone knows and loves, it was criticized upon release in 2014 for not being a 'true' remastering, with textures only made sharper and a lack of basic customization options.
One of the project leads, Albert Marin, spoke with The Verge last year about the remaster and explained that he personally travelled to certain locations that Capcom itself visited during Resident Evil 4's development to take photos to help faithfully improve the textures.
For anyone worried about Capcom's lawyers potentially stepping in to shut down the project, that probably would've happened a long time ago if Capcom was that strongly opposed to it.
Marin even said he spoke to someone at Capcom who expressed an interest in his remaster and sent a planning document. Otherwise, Capcom has had very little involvement with it.
Resident Evil 4 remains the most popular entry in the entire franchise, having been re-released across multiple platforms since 2005. Most recently, it was remade in VR for Oculus headsets.
Following the success of the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes, it's heavily rumored that Resident Evil 4 will follow suit, although there has yet to be any official confirmation from Capcom.
In the meantime, fans have a remake of Resident Evil - Code: Veronica to look forward to, one that is also being spearheaded by fans and looks to be heavily influenced by the modern Capcom remakes.
