Good news everyone! Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, the producer behind Resident Evil HD Remaster, has already put together a pitch for a remake of Resident Evil 2 and apparently presented it to his Capcom overlords.
Gematsu reported that Hirabayashi posted a picture of the pitch on Facebook, noting that he started putting the pitch together after the RE HD Remaster was finished. He also says that he cleaned it up and showed it to his bosses. And then ... he doesn’t say what happened. Stop teasing us!
But at least it does seem like there’s suddenly a bunch of interest in maybe possibly potentially finally putting together a re-release of Resident Evil 2 at Capcom. The likely culprit spurring on the discussion is this slick-looking Unreal Engine 4 remake of the game, called Resident Evil Rebirth, which is supposed to be coming out later this summer. It got a lot of press recently, and apparently made Capcom go, “Oh hey people like that game?” or something.
In fact, just a few days ago, Capcom’s “R&D Division 1” went to Facebook to basically ask Resident Evil fans if they really, truly want a Resident Evil 2 remake. And then thousands of them said, “Yes, oh my god, why haven’t you done this already.”
Hopefully an overwhelmingly positive response will have Capcom realizing we RE fans are madly waving our hands with sweaty dollars at the ready for more Resident Evil 2. I’d buy that game again in a heartbeat: it was the game that convinced me to buy a Playstation, the game that engendered in me a longtime love of the zombie genre, and the game that introduced me to my very favorite variety of video game, survival horror. I can’t think of a more formative title from my youth that I’d love to revisit. Plus, I want another crack at that giant alligator.
Phil Hornshaw is a freelance journalist and co-author of So You Created a Wormhole: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Time Travel and The Space Hero’s Guide to Glory. You can follow him on Twitter at @philhornshaw or contact him at philhornshaw@gmail.com.