After the entertaining but ultimately boring and disappointing Village last year, Capcom has announced that the updated rendering features from that game would be coming to Resident Evil 7, new RE2 from 2019 and RE3 2020. As new versions for the consoles and a free patch for PC owners. And that got me excited, because I was expecting that Capcom would finally address some of the issues that those games had on PC and in general for years and would breathe new life into these titles. Sadly, I was hopelessly optimistic and Capcom took an incredibly lazy route. But at least I had a reason to revisit two fantastic games. And also RE3 2020.
I want to get the technical stuff out of the way first, as you might be most interested in it. Digital Foundry, as expected, already analyzed the updates and came to a conclusion that it’s an overall improvement on consoles and not a great update on PCs. So I’ll quickly go over the games and my own experience with the versions. Oh right, and the funniest thing about all of these games now is that on launch they still have the nVidia Gameworks logo, even though all of the Gameworks features were removed entirely – so, for example, without the ray tracing enabled you no longer have a good looking HBAO+ option for Ambient Occlusion. Anyways, on to the games.
RE7 does not get the extremely needed cutscene skip option, does not fix the issue of starting in HDR mode without asking (something the two other games do), do not fix the problem with controls in certain DLCs (like the mouse not working in menus of End of Zoe the same as in the rest of the game). The framerate shenanigans are not fixed, so if you play at framerates higher than 30, all enemies (as they do melee attacks) do more damage. And there’s an infamous instant attack that enemies can do as they spawn that can kill you from full health even on Normal difficulty if you play at higher framerates. Ray Tracing provides rather low res and unstable in motion reflections on some materials and surfaces (mirrors are still not reflective, though, btw) and also gives a far nicer global illumination look, with better overall ambient occlusion and nicer looking coloured light bounce. Some, and it seems completely random, materials have higher resolution textures on them, but a lot of the game is still rather blurry and muddy in a way that can be occasionally distracting. Though more often than not it at least fits the style. Oh and the VR support never arrived to PC as well, which is especially sad now that PSVR2 isn’t backwards compatible with PSVR. So, overall the experience with RE7 on PC is mostly unchanged, but it does look a tiny bit nicer.
New RE2 (2019) is now DX12 only, which was previously an option, and none of the issues of the DX12 were fixed. It still performs worse, can crash or suddenly stutter in certain scenes with certain options enabled for no apparent reason other than poor implementation of the mode on Capcom’s part. Other than the performance woes, the TAA option seems to work slightly worse this time around (though it is still nicer looking than SMAA that looks so sharp you can cut your eyes on the highlights) and seems to just stop working during full screen effects, like explosions or large amounts of fire on screen. Apart from that, though, this version does look substantially nicer than the original release if you have RT on, because the game had a lot of reflective surfaces and the Screen Space Reflections RE Engine used were distractingly terrible. I’m not one to care that much about this in most games, because usually you just get disappearing reflections and stuff that isn’t that distracting, but the way reflections looked in the original version was just horrendous. That said, RT reflections are still not particularly stable, mirror-like reflections are still done differently (and the famous one-way mirror room still looks better in the 98 original, than in this version from 2022, which is hilarious) and glass materials are not reflective at all, so it’s far from perfect, but at least somewhat better. Oh and the animation for enemies and decal detail still changes just a few meters away from the player so it’s very noticeable. Not a great update, but rooms with reflective surfaces (like most of the lab) do look much better.
RE3 2020 is probably the best overall update, as far as these RT updates are concerned. It is also now DX12 only, but unlike new RE2 this mode worked fine in this game and didn’t have any noticeable performance issues in comparison to DX11 mode. It already had few overall technical issues, apart from TAA working in a weird way (still, far better than how horribly sharp SMAA looks), so the addition of RT is beneficial. Plus, unlike the two other titles, this game actually utilizes the RT reflections quite freely and a lot of surfaces are now properly reflective and looking nice. Including proper reflection of the characters, enemies and most of the objects, unlike with the other two games that often exclude non-static elements from the scene in their RT reflections. So, overall, RE3 2020 is more or less a clear winner from this patch.
Of course, any sort of “win” must also be contrasted to the fact that with this being a patch, the minimum system requirements for these games changed. And people who could run the games before might not be able to anymore. After an outcry from the users, Capcom, thankfully, added the original versions of the game as an available “beta” option in the Steam, so at least that is still available. And in case of new RE2 (2019) that might be a good option even for those who can run the game in its updated form, just because the old version is more stable and runs better.
But what about the games themselves? Have revisiting them changed anything about what I think of them? Not much, really. I’d say, if anything I started liking RE7 even more, especially after how quickly bored I got with the Village.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was such a great and lovingly made experiment. It’s not without flaws – I still don’t particularly like the block as a defense move and most of the bosses, for how novel and varied they are, are more annoying to fight than fun. But it’s so inventive, so smart, so different yet so familiar. It was a wonderful attempt to recapture what made Resident Evil 2002 (aka REmake) beloved, but with a twist with the first person perspective, the VR, the insanely varied DLCs that go into bizarre directions. And sure, most of those DLCs were arguably “wrong” directions, but it was fun to see them try. Plus, Not a Hero actually made the block fun due to the addition of a perfect block and a counter attack. It’s still a fantastic game that is absolutely worth playing and I feel that if not for the fact that it still has the goddamn unskippable cutscenes, people would love replaying it far more than the boring Village.
Resident Evil 2 (2019) is still just astonishingly great… Despite sadly failing to really deliver the new take on Scenario A/Scenario B, due to the botched and clearly cut down take on the lab, it’s so fun to play. Despite the almost non-existent soundtrack that is only partially fixed by the DLC that enables classic RE2 music (partially, because some of the tracks in the new RE2 are fantastic, but you can’t have both). It’s exciting, it’s fun, it can be tough, it can be tense and playing it with or without new game plus unlocks, trying to go for challenges or just exploring – it’s pure joy. And given how Capcom didn’t give this game time to properly flash out the lab and what the next games turned out to be, I’m afraid that the studio doesn’t fully understand how and why RE2 2019 is so great.
Resident Evil 3 (2020) is still disappointing. And I have to say, that I have grown to like it even less upon this replay. I still love the dodge as a mechanic and a few sections of the game are genuinely good. And I would argue that this might be the strongest script and characters in the entire franchise, with genuinely likeable characters and charismatically unlikable villain. And only the Bakers from RE7 can truly compete with how memorable the characters are. Especially if they’d try to swear a bit less. But going through the game feels like going through the motions. The exploration, in extremely few locations where you can even do it, feels unexciting. The events are so over the top and explosive that they feel way too compressed… because they are, as the game is trying to tell the stories of the original RE3, some of Outbreak and something entirely new in far less time than that required or that the actual RE3 or Outbreak took to tell the same. And if we add the fact that the enemies and some boss fights are just straight up unfair and can combo you to death from full health (something that RE3 specifically prevented from happening as part of its design) the game becomes just outright unpleasant. And to paraphrase Moira Burton, the last boss fight can go jump on a dildo too.
So, is it a good time to revisit these games? Well, apart from RE3 2020, unless you want to just rewatch the cutscenes and listen to characters talk. On consoles – most definitely. You’ll have a great time with RE7 and new RE2, and if you haven’t played them already absolutely do that. On PC? This patch isn’t much of an excuse, if you don’t want to play these games anyway. And with new RE2 you might even get a worse experience. That said, if you were feeling drained on Resident Evil as a fan after RE3 2020 and Village, playing RE7 and new RE2 is a great way to rekindle the love for the series and remember what is so exciting about them in the first place.