Gore has been a key component of adult-oriented video games since the early 1990s, withDoomandMortal Kombatsetting the standard for over-the-top pixilated violence. As gaming technology has advanced over the years, as has the ability to create morerealistic-looking gore, leading to some truly heinous on-screen acts of violence. But while some games use gore to elicit feelings of fear and sorrow,Resident Evil 4 Remakeuses it to demonstrate the player’s power.
TheResident Evilfranchise has always put blood and gore front and center. Even inthe originalResident Evil, when the PS1 could only render chunky polygons, flecks of blood-like pixels would fly from monsters' corpses upon shooting them. And now, almost 30 years later,Resident Evil’s gore is horrifyingly realistic, with players being able to shoot different layers of flesh off a zombie. But when it comes to dismemberment specifically,Dead Spacehas always taken the crown, thoughResident Evil 4 Remakedefinitely gives it a run for its money.
RELATED:How Resident Evil 4 Remake’s Varied Enemy Design Breeds New Horror
Back in 2005,Resident Evil 4essentially pioneered the third-person action-horror genre, at least those that keep the camera firmly behind the protagonist’s shoulder. TheoriginalResident Evil 4is home to an abundance of influential concepts and mechanics, but one of the biggest innovations when it comes to gameplay is the game’s targeting system. Rather than restrict the player to just auto-aimed body shots,Resident Evil 4gives players free rein over where they aim, and they quickly learn that shooting a specific body part will cause the enemy to react in a unique way. Shooting an enemy’s feet will leave them staggered on the ground, while shooting their hand will disarm them, and shooting their head will stop them for good, at least some of the time.
This mechanic hadn’t really been seen all that much in gaming, at least not in the third-person horror scene, and the rest of the industry soon started taking notes. BeforeResident Evil 4hit store shelves in 2005, Visceral Games, under the banner of EA Redwood Shores, was just about to start development on a third installment intheSystem Shockfranchise, but when the team got its hands onResident Evil 4, plans soon changed. Instead of a first-person Sci-Fi horror sequel, EA greenlit an original third-person Sci-Fi horror game from the team, a title which would go on to becomeDead Space.
When looking atDead Spacenow, it’s easy to see itsResident Evil 4inspirations, but by far the clearest influence can be found in the game’s core dismemberment mechanic. Visceral tookResident Evil 4’s body targeting systemand ran with it, making it the focal point of the game. Rather than just slow an enemy down by targeting their different body parts,Dead Spacewants players to blow its enemies' limbs clean-off. This dismemberment mechanic quickly became one ofDead Space’s defining features, and thanks to the recent remake, it’s even more gory and satisfying than ever before, with players needing to blast through several layers of skin, muscle, and bone before the limb tears off.
The recentResident Evil 4 Remakehas brought things full circle, withDead Spacenow being a clear inspiration for the remake’s own improved dismemberment system. While the original 2005 version ofResident Evil 4let players blow enemies' heads off,Resident Evil 4 Remaketurns things up a notch, letting players obliterate their foes by ripping them in half, tearing holes in their sides, and much more.
Resident Evil 4is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
MORE:How Resident Evil 4 Remake’s Audio Design Serves More Than Its Original Purpose
