sisslethecat
I uh… wait what?
Okay, so buckle up boys and girls. From basically the word go, Capcom has confirmed that RE2 Remake would not be using the LA/CB, CA/LB “scenario” story structure of the original Resident Evil 2. No “zapping” system as it was called back in the day, which was a way of extending your playtime by having the story itself change significantly based entirely around who (between Leon or Claire) you chose to play first. They’ve confirmed that the remake would be sticking with just a Leon and a Claire campaign and that it wouldn’t matter who we started as. The story had been re-written into one scenario, with either character being their own, mostly self-contained perspective on the story. While I was honestly fine with this — the changes, while cool for 1998, mostly just involved alternative cutscenes, different ways for Ada to die, etc. If they decided to go in with just one, straightforward, focused scenario? Cool.
Except it looks like they may have lied.
So for a few weeks now, Capcom has been putting out these weird little teasers on their Japanese social media accounts. Honestly, they aren’t anything worth writing about most of the time, with literal seconds of new footage spread out across multiple seconds long videos. An extra line here, a shot of someone’s face there. Meh. This week though has proven to be… most interesting. Okay, 4/5 of the clips are stuff we’ve already seen before, but this clip just called “G-First Form”…
This footage shouldn’t exist. It simply shouldn’t. What we’re seeing here is a few seconds of Leon facing off against William Birkin in his first G malformation, in the underground power area beneath the RPD building. You know. The boss fight we’ve already seen Claire fight about a dozen times through a bunch of different demos. And yes, in case you’re wondering, I did my homework. Outside of some extra steam being added in the four months since originally seeing the demo, this isn’t “Leon fighting Birkin on the level below, after he falls”. Leon is fighting Birkin in the exact same place as Claire.
And yes, even though you can’t see it in that screenshot, the yellow railing to Leon’s right is still there in Claire’s footage, just out of frame of my screenshot.
Unless what Capcom has actually revealed here is that both Leon and Claire’s campaigns will be super lame and share boss fights repeated, the scenarios are back in some form. What supports the latter being the case even more so is that we’ve already seen footage that’s arguably contradictory to each other already. While I brushed it off at the time, the last real trailer we got showcased Claire meeting RPD lieutenant Marvin Branagh, now feels like not just a weird coincidence that Leon and Claire would both run into Marvin separately, but another instance of seeing an A/B scenario difference in action. RE super fan Where’s Barry even made a really great observation that I hadn’t picked up on, that Marvin is holding Elliot’s notebook in the cutscene with Claire – something that Leon picks up, hands to Marvin, and then takes back from Marvin. How the hell would Marvin still be holding it if Claire meets up with him later? For even better proof, YouTuber The CaLiban even noticed that not only is Marvin in the same pose, with the same book, but the combat knife he gives Leon is even this there. There’s even a brief shot of Leon fighting Birkin in that trailer, but (like with Marvin) I had brushed it off at the time. Maybe they were fighting on the lower platform after G fell? Nope, G is attacking Leon on the same balcony he attacks Claire on, just now with no Sherry, you can even see Sherry’s hiding spot behind G at the last second.
I mean, aside from alternative scenarios, or the game being super lame and recycling boss fights for both campaigns (something even the 1998 original did not do — while Leon and Claire would both run into Birkin at some point no matter what scenario you were playing, they were different fights in different locations), what the hell else could this be? A few months back, Capcom teased an unlockable “bigger than Tofu and Fourth Survivor”, that would “tremendously increase replay value” that they weren’t announcing at the time (and still have yet to announce). Could the scenario and zapping system, which would quite literally create an entire second set of campaigns to play through, be that feature? In all honesty, this footage calls into question everything Capcom have unequivocally said no to. Fixed camera angles as an unlockable, for one (which keeps being teased in marketing and was the first thing I jumped to when discussing the secret mode, despite them denying its existence outright to us when we interviewed them), is something that jumps immediately to mind.
There are only weeks left before release, so we’ll just have to wait and see, honestly. But holy jumping Jehosaphat, how am I supposed to hold all this hype!? HOW CAPCOM, HOW?
[Source]
Update: Post title tweaked to clarify this is speculation.
