Resident Evil 2

About Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 2 rebuilds the 1998 PlayStation game from the ground up in Capcom's RE Engine, with an over-the-shoulder camera in place of the old fixed angles. It came out in January 2019 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, later reached PS5, Xbox Series X|S, iPhone, iPad and Mac, and plays on Switch as a cloud version.

You choose Leon, a police officer on his first day, or Claire, who is looking for her brother. Each has a separate campaign, and a second run with the other character changes the route and some of the story. Most of the game is spent in the Raccoon City Police Department, a converted museum full of locked doors, keys, crests and puzzles, before it moves down into the sewers and a secret laboratory.

The zombies are slow but tough: a head shot does not always finish one, they break limbs off and keep crawling, and they come back through boarded windows you did not fix. You never carry enough to kill everything, so a big part of play is deciding what to fight, what to run past, and what to keep in a cramped inventory. Then Mr. X arrives, a towering figure in a coat who walks the halls after you, his footsteps getting louder through the walls, and turns a building you thought you had mapped into a place you have to sneak through again.

It is the clearest modern example of classic survival horror: tension from scarcity and backtracking more than constant action. Newcomers can start on the assisted difficulty, and anyone who likes it should go on to the Resident Evil 3 and 4 remakes.

How to play Resident Evil 2

1. Choose Leon or Claire and a difficulty; Assisted gives more ammunition and auto-aim help.
2. Explore the police station, picking up keys, items and ammunition, and read the map to see which rooms still hold something.
3. Save at typewriters and store spare items in the item boxes to keep your inventory free.
4. Shoot zombies in the legs or head only when you must; often it is better to walk around them.
5. When Mr. X appears, keep moving, break line of sight and use a different route back to where you need to go.
6. Play the second scenario with the other character to see the rest of the story.

Tips

• Use wooden boards on windows to stop zombies climbing back in along your usual routes.
• Combine green and red herbs before healing; mixed herbs heal far more.
• Knock zombies down and walk past rather than emptying a magazine into each.
• Mr. X cannot enter save rooms; use them to let him wander off.

Questions