Things are different right from the start, as Leon’s introductory monologue not only details the fall of Raccoon City and Umbrella, but also his military training, which it seems wasn’t necessarily voluntary. In the years since the Raccoon City incident and his introduction in Resident Evil 2, Leon has become a hardened badass, and we even get a glimpse of him practicing his knife-fighting skills against a familiar sparring partner.

A minor change can make a big difference. A tree blocking the path early on acts as a crouching tutorial, and this can also be used when encountering foes. If you haven’t been noticed, crouching allows you to move silently, sneaking straight up to foes, and there’s only one thing to do from there…

Yes, you can sneak up on foes and end them quickly and silently, preventing you from being noticed by the rest of the crowd. In practice this is a nice addition, but is unlikely to make a huge impact on how you generally play Resident Evil 4 – this is still more of an action game, after all. Crouching to walk makes you move incredibly slowly, and it’s only really practical for scavenging for supplies before a battle, or for a few quick stealth kills. Not too many, though, because…

Leon’s knife was indestructible in the original game, but in this new remake your knife can break, meaning you’ll need to put materials together to make an entirely new one. But it’s not all bad, in exchange for that durability you not only get access to cheeky stealth kills, but also new parry mechanics. You can even catch Dr. Salvador’s chainsaw with your knife at the cost of durability, in order to kick him back and avoid a gruesome death. Luckily, you can now perform a simple melee attack on breakable boxes and barrels 

Of course, putting materials together for a new knife means there is a crafting system present. This is basically the exact same system present in other modern Resident Evil games, with you gluing pieces of scrap and gunpowder together in order to make more ammo. This means you can expect plenty of ammo drops around the game to have changed drastically, with many of them being replaced with materials to forge your own, or repair your knife, depending on which you use more.

The very first house you enter is very different. Instead of being made of two rooms and a staircase, it’s now much larger. Your first encounter with a Ganado plays out in much the same way, save for Leon’s new Spanish language skills, but once they’re down they drop a key, allowing you to open up new rooms, find new enemies, and some gruesome things that justify you being a bit trigger-happy with these villagers.

Resident Evil 4 die-hards will remember the dog stuck in the bear trap at the beginning of the game. Freeing it will give you some assistance in a later boss battle, but here you won’t get the opportunity – instead, you’ve arrived too late, and the pup is already gone by the time you arrive. It’s sad by itself, but when you consider what usually comes later, it opens up some interesting new possibilities.

There has always been a cow standing idly in an open barn in the village area, but things are different now. An oil lamp is now hanging from the roof of the barn, and as with oil lamps in the original, you can shoot it out to cause an explosion of flames. Not only will the barn itself now set alight in a manner similar to a certain boss fight, but the cow will go up in flames too. Resident Evil 4 isn’t too kind to animals at the best of times, often reducing them to mere item crates (those poor, fragile crows), but this cow manages to get some revenge, and will bulldoze through Ganados while on fire, essentially assisting you. Just make sure you don’t get in the way of those horns.

The village’s tower is iconic, but while it basically acts as a safe space in the original village siege, in this version of the game it’s not safe at all. After climbing the ladder to resupply and survey the surroundings, I had the entire floor ripped out from under me, seemingly thanks to Dr. Salvador’s chainsaw cutting up the support beams below. I crashed down to the floor, and the good doctor quickly ended me while revving up his favorite surgical instrument.

The village is very familiar, but things have changed. Sure, you’ll know exactly where to find a shotgun, but there are new windows, new ladders, new items, and new paths to navigate. The previously locked shed even has a window that can be climbed through with some assistance, and a locked drawer that requires a key. All of this hints that a future visit to the village might have more to find than ever before, and the rest of the game is likely revamped in much the same way, with new things both major and minor to find around every corner, and we can’t wait to see all of them.

Written by Dave Aubrey on behalf of GLHF.