Resident Evil 4 might be the best video game remake ever made. It completely overhauls the graphics and sound, fine-tunes the gameplay, adds a ton of awesome little quality of life features, and reworks entire chunks of the 2005 game with brand new environments, items, and bosses. But it also loses a couple of set pieces and conflicts from the original game along the way. Here are six big scenes that got cut from Resident Evil 4. If you’re loving the remake but still nostalgic for some classic that got the axe, “I got somethin' that might interest ya'!”
This tense, terrifying, dual-phased boss fight against a bald monster who looks like Frieza f*cked a scorpion is no longer in the game, and neither is the falling shipping container storage unit that you battle him in. Nor is the second section afterwards where he chases you around a large figure eight-shaped area, smashing through doors and exploding oil drums like a Looney Tunes character. It’s kind of a bummer he’s gone because I would have loved to see how this awful creature looked in the gorgeous modern RE engine, but it seems that when U-3 died in 2005, he died for good.
In 2023’s Resident Evil 4, you still go searching for stone animal body parts to open a door in the castle section, but the way you collect them has been reworked entirely from the original. The 2005 version had you enter a long, lava-filled hall called the Dragon Room where huge fire-breathing dragon statues attempted to burn you to death while you tried to reach a treasure chest on the other side. This was one of the most visually distinct areas in the entire game so it’s definitely kind of a bummer that it’s gone.
Salazar is a funny little villain with a Napoleon complex. And a Napoleon hat. So to compensate for his lack of loftiness, he built a gigantic stone mech version of himself who chases you full speed over crumbling bridges while trying to stomp you to death. In RE4 Remake, his big stone mech is still there, but he’s just stuck in one place and won’t run after you because he’s surrounded by scaffolding, although he will try to kill you with fire unless you shoot the back of his neck and blow up his big stupid little head.
Bitores Mendez is a tall, annoying man who is a frequent pain in the ass to Leon, so it’s only natural that the only way to get to his house is by riding a ski lift while a dozen of his grandfatherly henchmen try to shoot you to death. This whole section is gone in Resident Evil 4 Remake, although there is a derelict, nonfunctional ski-lift behind the house where you hole up with Luis to fend off waves of other grandfatherly henchmen.
Through most of Resident Evil 4, kidnapped president’s daughter and recent flip phone demolisher Ashley Graham requires constant protection from rescuer Leon S Kennedy. That is at least until she gets her hands on the steering wheel of a large bulldozer and starts tearing ass through a remote island off the coast of Spain. Throughout this demolition derby, Leon rides flatbed, gunning down murderous attackers and fending off grabby psychopaths while Ashley smashes through walls and hitchhikers. This whole sequence not making the road trip to 2023 kind of sucks a bit because big trucks wrecking shop in video games are always a good time.
And finally, for a game where you kill a guy who wears a burlap sack, get stabbed with pitchforks, and punch open poorly constructed crates full of snakes behind an abandoned barn, there’s a lot of surprisingly high-tech stuff that also tries to kill you in Resident Evil 4. The best example of that is the laser room that mostly protects Osmund Sadler’s cool gamer chair. This room was directly inspired by the first Resident Evil movie that came out three years before Resident Evil 4 where Colin Salmon - an actor who was also killed in the other not great Paul W.S. Anderson movie Alien vs. Predator - gets cleanly sliced to pieces by lasers. Leon is too cool for that shit, obviously, so he effortlessly backflips over them in the classic RE4, but in the remake, those lasers were left on the cutting room floor.
So there you have it. Resident Evil 4 Remake is a hell of a ride but it did dump some precious cargo along the way. Either way, now we have two awesome versions of Resident Evil 4 to play whenever we want, not to mention the countless other ports, HD remasters, and VR versions of Resident Evil 4.
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The U-3 Boss Fight
This tense, terrifying, dual-phased boss fight against a bald monster who looks like Frieza f*cked a scorpion is no longer in the game, and neither is the falling shipping container storage unit that you battle him in. Nor is the second section afterwards where he chases you around a large figure eight-shaped area, smashing through doors and exploding oil drums like a Looney Tunes character. It’s kind of a bummer he’s gone because I would have loved to see how this awful creature looked in the gorgeous modern RE engine, but it seems that when U-3 died in 2005, he died for good.
The Castle Dragon Room
In 2023’s Resident Evil 4, you still go searching for stone animal body parts to open a door in the castle section, but the way you collect them has been reworked entirely from the original. The 2005 version had you enter a long, lava-filled hall called the Dragon Room where huge fire-breathing dragon statues attempted to burn you to death while you tried to reach a treasure chest on the other side. This was one of the most visually distinct areas in the entire game so it’s definitely kind of a bummer that it’s gone.
Tiny Salazar’s Huge Stone Mech Chase
Salazar is a funny little villain with a Napoleon complex. And a Napoleon hat. So to compensate for his lack of loftiness, he built a gigantic stone mech version of himself who chases you full speed over crumbling bridges while trying to stomp you to death. In RE4 Remake, his big stone mech is still there, but he’s just stuck in one place and won’t run after you because he’s surrounded by scaffolding, although he will try to kill you with fire unless you shoot the back of his neck and blow up his big stupid little head.
The Ski-Lift Sequence
Bitores Mendez is a tall, annoying man who is a frequent pain in the ass to Leon, so it’s only natural that the only way to get to his house is by riding a ski lift while a dozen of his grandfatherly henchmen try to shoot you to death. This whole section is gone in Resident Evil 4 Remake, although there is a derelict, nonfunctional ski-lift behind the house where you hole up with Luis to fend off waves of other grandfatherly henchmen.
Ashley Graham Bulldozer Simulator 2005
Through most of Resident Evil 4, kidnapped president’s daughter and recent flip phone demolisher Ashley Graham requires constant protection from rescuer Leon S Kennedy. That is at least until she gets her hands on the steering wheel of a large bulldozer and starts tearing ass through a remote island off the coast of Spain. Throughout this demolition derby, Leon rides flatbed, gunning down murderous attackers and fending off grabby psychopaths while Ashley smashes through walls and hitchhikers. This whole sequence not making the road trip to 2023 kind of sucks a bit because big trucks wrecking shop in video games are always a good time.
Room of 100 Lasers
And finally, for a game where you kill a guy who wears a burlap sack, get stabbed with pitchforks, and punch open poorly constructed crates full of snakes behind an abandoned barn, there’s a lot of surprisingly high-tech stuff that also tries to kill you in Resident Evil 4. The best example of that is the laser room that mostly protects Osmund Sadler’s cool gamer chair. This room was directly inspired by the first Resident Evil movie that came out three years before Resident Evil 4 where Colin Salmon - an actor who was also killed in the other not great Paul W.S. Anderson movie Alien vs. Predator - gets cleanly sliced to pieces by lasers. Leon is too cool for that shit, obviously, so he effortlessly backflips over them in the classic RE4, but in the remake, those lasers were left on the cutting room floor.
So there you have it. Resident Evil 4 Remake is a hell of a ride but it did dump some precious cargo along the way. Either way, now we have two awesome versions of Resident Evil 4 to play whenever we want, not to mention the countless other ports, HD remasters, and VR versions of Resident Evil 4.
Continue reading...
