The One Thing Resident Evil 3 Remake Can't Get Wrong

We are getting closer and closer to the release of the Resident Evil 3 remake. Last year's remake of Resident Evil 2 proved that it's possible to breathe new life into an older game and make it feel both fresh and familiar at the same time. While the Resident Evil 3 remake had been in the pipeline for a bit, the massive success of RE 2 basically ensured that we'd be returning to Raccoon City sooner rather than later.

Since the new game's official announcement, many of our major worries regarding the RE 3 remake have been addressed. However, there's one thing that still seems to be a little bit up in the air with RE 3, and it's a doozy: how exactly will the unstoppable bioweapon known as Nemesis be portrayed in the game?

Considering Nemesis was literally the title character of the original version of the game, there's a lot riding on getting this character exactly right. We've recently seen some concept art that shows us a bit of Nemesis' backstory. Whether or not that means Nemesis will have more of a character arc in the remake is unclear, but we still have questions about how exactly the monster will function as a threat in-game. It also remains to be seen just how similar the remake's Nemesis will feel when compared to Resident Evil 2's Mr. X.

One of the most memorable aspects of the Resident Evil 2 remake was the choice to make the Tyrant known as Mr. X into an even greater threat than he was in the original game. As you progressed through certain parts of the game, Mr. X would stalk you in real time. You could tell that he was coming because his unmistakable theme music would start up, sometimes mere moments before he brought one of his massive fists right into the back of your cranium. 

The only options for surviving Mr. X were to run or hope that you had enough ammunition to temporarily stagger him. Even when he couldn't be seen, Mr. X would actively listen for and hunt the player in the Resident Evil 2 remake. This addition added a new layer of fear to the proceedings, simply because he couldn't be stopped. 

However, this also had the trade off of being extremely annoying in some cases. In certain cramped areas of the game, the cat and mouse chase could become more of a nuisance than a genuine scare. In fact, a mod was even created to remove Mr. X from the game entirely. While that may be something of an overreaction, it just goes to prove that not every gamer was as keen on Mr. X as most Resident Evil fans. 

So how does the Resident Evil 3 remake address these concerns when the original game was built so heavily on encounters with an unstoppable force? Apparently, the answer was to make Nemesis even more imposing. 

PC Gamer's Andy Kelly recently had the opportunity to sit down and play through a demo of Resident Evil 3, with the biggest takeaway being what we already suspected: Nemesis is not screwing around.

As Kelly explains, Nemesis moves at a speed that is "incredibly unnerving," managing to catch up to the player even when they're at a full sprint. Also, unlike Mr. X — who had a habit of smashing through walls but otherwise stuck to the ground — Nemesis will sometimes drop from overhead, landing with a shockwave attack. It appears as though Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 has been purposefully designed to make Mr. X seem like a chump in comparison, but is that enough to keep things fresh?

Though Kelly had a good time playing through to the first boss battle against Nemesis, he admitted that there seemed to be a bit of novelty missing. As he explained, "Resident Evil 3 doesn't feel as excitingly fresh as the Resident Evil 2 remake did when it was first released." While it doesn't have to feel like a night and day difference (after all, the games take place within roughly the same period of time), this could present a problem for gamers who are hoping for something other than the same old thing. 

According to Resident Evil 3 producer Peter Fabiano, "There was some overlap with the development of Resi 2 and Resi 3. And when the director of Resident Evil 3 saw what they were doing with [Mr. X] he was like 'Wait a minute, you guys are making him into Nemesis!' But that added a fire to him, and he wanted to outdo that."

In other words, it's clear that separating Nemesis from Mr. X was a priority for the Resident Evil 3 team. Hopefully the results will feel different enough to keep us scared for the entire run of the game.