As per a Gamingbolt sit-down interview with Mike Lunn, Brand Manager for Capcom, the upcoming remake of Resident Evil 2 isn't going to be a remake. I don't know what to make of that, and apparently no one else did either, so listen up and I'll try to explain.
According to Lunn, “It won’t be faithful one to one. For someone that’s played the game, some people played it once and some people played it a thousand times because it’s their favorite game. For the people that have even played it a thousand times, we wanted it to feel fresh. That’s why we don’t call it Resident Evil 2 Remake. It’s a new game built on top of the foundation.”
I think this is a smart move. There are players who will be all pissy about things not happening exactly how they happened the first time, puzzles that solve differently and further, what's the point of a remake that doesn't add anything? For a game like Dark Souls it makes a little more sense to me; the story is a big part, but it's also completely dependent on how much effort the player wants to put into it. A game like Resident Evil 2 is going to need a bit more in terms of new stuff, since it's a linear, A to B type affair. A coat of graphical polish wouldn't excite me, even though I loved RE2. With the changes, gore effects, over the shoulder camera angle and more, I'm pretty pumped.
Lunn offered some specfics on how things will be different from a gameplay standpoint, saying: "...for example, there is a part where you’re walking through the police station, and a lurker walks by the window. In the original game that happens every single time. We don’t include that because of the jumpscares, the puzzles, and because we want you to be challenged by that stuff. We want you to be scared by that stuff, not just repositioned to a new part of the building, but sort of reimagined. Because we don’t want you to know exactly how the puzzles are solved, we don’t want you to know exactly where the enemies are going to be. We want to surprise you. So, we have changed things a bit. But on the whole, the main idea, the main arcs of the story are very similar. But there are going to be some new surprises in there as well.”
Resident Evil 2 is still a long ways off, but I am pumped. It sounds like our beloved property is in good hands.
gracias