Capcom's recent lineup of remakes started with Resident Evil 2, throwing us back into the chaos of a Raccoon City under siege by zombies, tyrants, lickers, and even alligators. It might seem like a weird place to start, rather than the inciting incident where Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield skulked through Spencer Mansion, but longtime series producer Jun Takeuchi has revealed that the team worried it would alienate modern audiences.
"The reason we didn't choose Resident Evil 1 as the first remake is because it's such a stoic game," Takeuchi said in Nikkei Entertainment!'s celebration of the series' 30th anniversary (translated by Fandom). "Because it focuses so heavily on the horror derived from its stoicism, we were concerned that it might not resonate with today's game fans.
"Furthermore, the Raccoon City incident is essentially the starting point of the Resident Evil saga, so we felt that experiencing that was the best way to introduce the origins."
Of course, there was a remake of Resident Evil in 2002 for the GameCube, which was remastered for PS4, PC, and Xbox One in 2015—but it remains dutiful to the fixed camera angles and tank controls of the original, unlike the newer remakes,...
