Editorials
How ‘Resident Evil 2’ Could Help Shape a ‘Resident Evil 3: Nemesis’ Remake
STARS…..STARS……
People have their own favorites, whether it’s a certain Time Lord, a particular Call of Duty, or a special Friday the 13th entry.
Personally, I’ve always loved Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; it’s what made me discover the survival horror series properly. I had seen the original entry being played on my friend’s Sega Saturn, and I had a demo for Resident Evil 2 from a magazine, but it was Nemesis that really reeled me in. Before people were clamoring for a remake of Resident Evil 2, I was hoping for a remake of Resident Evil 3, and I still am. This is why.
The main appeal to the game was the ‘Nemesis’ creature. It moved like The Terminator, slow like a tank but had the strength to show a ‘You Died’ screen in only three hits. It would appear at seemingly random moments, just when you thought you’d escaped its clutches, you’d see it running towards you.
Sometimes you’d even be given a choice; Would you run away, or fight it? If you were in ‘Hard Mode’, you could collect parts of a new gun if you subdued Nemesis, alongside first aid kits from time to time. But of course, this would be to the detriment of the ammo you’ve saved up and grown an unhealthy attachment to. Throughout the game the creature would mutate, making you wonder just how many incarnations you’d be facing.
I also think of the Nemesis creature much like ‘The Others’ from the TV Show LOST, a favorite series of mine. To quote a character from the show, Ana Lucia:
’They’re smart, and they can be anywhere at any time, and if you think that one gun and one bullet will stop them, think again.’
When the game was being developed soon after the release of Resident Evil 2, it was first envisaged as a spin-off to 2, codenamed ‘BIOHAZARD 1.9’ and for a time, ‘BIOHAZARD: GAIDEN’. Being developed concurrent to Dreamcast’s Code Veronica (the true Resident Evil 3), upper-management renamed it to be the third entry just after E3 1999, as they wanted the numbered entries to remain on the PlayStation platform.
The game that came out in September of that same year turned out to be a more than worthy sequel to the previous game. Critics praised it for its focus on the original game’s protagonist Jill Valentine, and the terror of an enemy always waiting in the shadows. Many appreciated the story being set before, during, and after the events of Resident Evil 2, with revisited locations to boot, but not so much of it as to feel like it was retreading the same ground from the year before. It opened up Racoon City even more, and you felt like you really were alone in an evacuated city, looking for an escape.
Survival Horror is a line that’s used throughout the series to described its blend of terror, but I like to call this particular entry ‘Paranoia Horror’. The persistent thought of something being nearby, constantly on your tail. In Resident Evil 3, you almost felt like you were in a panicked hurry at times, especially when you hadn’t run into the creature for a while.
The game, in my opinion, had just the right amount of length. There are no extra scenarios with another character, it’s only Jill Valentine and then a small section where you play as Carlos; a mercenary who aides Jill as she recovers from illness. It felt tightly-structured and you’re challenged by the puzzles and the areas without feeling like it was dragging.
There’s now rumors abound that a remake is indeed happening, and after the success of Resident Evil 2 last month, fans are starting to think of how that style could be applied with Resi 3. Here’s how I can see it.
I mentioned earlier of how paranoia is the main theme of this entry, and after playing Resident Evil 2 Remake, I can’t help but feel that the new and improved Mr. X is only a hint towards this.
Even though he only appeared in Claire’s second scenario in the original Resident Evil 2, the remake features him in every scenario. It’s turned out to be a masterstroke, as he’s now a meme on social media, and whatever you read related to the remake, Mr. X will very likely be mentioned.
I can’t help but feel that the more frequent appearance of Mr. X was a test to see how modern audiences would react with someone following them throughout a large portion of the game, and social media has proved that it is indeed the case; people love it.
So with this in mind, let us have Nemesis used more frequently this time. The rocket launcher he uses like a shotgun, for instance, make it cause some damage across the Police Department in that encounter. Have its voice heard across many locations in the game? On the tannoy somehow in the tram. Or as an echo across City Hall. Or whispers throughout the streets of Racoon City.
Perhaps not in disguise as a chef when Jill arrives at the restaurant, but when the choices arrive this time, I’d love for a take similar to Bandersnatch, Charlie Brooker’s Netflix series (not the Code Veronica baddie). Have an extra choice now and again, and it may cause a scene that could result in a game over. Or more branching paths which could result in multiple endings and different outcomes throughout the game.
The story can allow for Jill to meet certain characters before Leon and Claire do, and also opens up the City, the story, and RE2: Remake itself, even more, as there’s also an opportunity of having Resident Evil 3 as DLC content for Resident Evil 2. It’s set just around the events of that game after all, and to have it as an ‘event series’ across October, for instance, could be a great effect, especially as that will be twenty years since its original release on PlayStation.
The game also had its own mini-game just like 4th Survivor, a little thing called Mercenaries. You could play as a multitude of characters, and you could rack up cash to buy new weapons and unlimited ammo, dependant on the amount of time you spent and your rank. This was also retooled for a 3DS game as a Resident Evil 5 spinoff, but to have this remade as well would be incredible fun.
It’d be nice to have other characters playable, beyond Jill and the costumes that were unlock-able, such as Regina’s from Dino Crisis. To see that remade would be a great touch, and to give fans a taste of what a Dino Crisis remake could look like.
I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘if’ anymore, but ‘when’. The acclaim and success that the Resident Evil 2 Remake has shown that when done right, you can cater to old and new fans with a game that can work in the modern age, and with the third game the only one from the original trilogy left without a remaster, it surely won’t be long until Capcom returns to Raccoon City and unleash Nemesis in a new and terrifying way.
Steven Spielberg has always been conversant in the cinematic language of the horror genre, despite relatively few credits in the genre. His contributions as a writer and producer on things like Poltergeist are legendary, and films like Duel and Jaws certainly wield the horror genre in remarkable, often chilling ways. He may not be a horror filmmaker, but he knows when he needs to scare us, and he has the tools to make that happen.
I didn’t go into Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s alien epic, expecting outright horror, and indeed the film leans much more into thrilling than frightening. This is not a horror film, but for a few minutes in the middle, much to my surprise, it became one.
Spielberg has filmed more than his fair share of scary scenes over the years, but with Disclosure Day, he directed a new contender for the scariest scene of his entire career.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Disclosure Day!
Josh O’Connor in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Among the various alien secrets laced throughout Disclosure Day are a trio of palm-sized rods, the color of pencil graphite. These rods, originating from another planet, can be used for a number of things, but for the purposes of this scene, the most important is “diving,” gripping the rod in one bare hand and using its power to “dive” into the mind of another person.
The person holding the rod in this scene is Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), head of shadowy cybersecurity firm Wordex, who is hellbent on keeping human knowledge of extraterrestrials secret from the general public. Scanlon’s trying to find whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), who’s got all of those alien secrets tucked in a backpack while he’s on the run, and while Daniel’s more experienced mind is protected from diving, his girlfriend Jane’s (Eve Hewson) is not. So, monitored by medical personnel at Wordex headquarters (diving is dangerous), Scanlon pushes his way into Jane’s mind to find the location of Daniel’s safe house.
A telepathic invasion is scary enough on its own, but Spielberg doesn’t stop there. When Scanlon dives into Eve’s mind, he appears to her to be sitting across the kitchen table, like he’s in the room. Her bright blue eyes turn Scanlon’s dark brown, and she loses much of her control over her own body, not to mention her mind. Moments before, Daniel finally shared with her the secrets in his backpack, so Jane is shocked, conflicted, deeply vulnerable when Scanlon slips inside her head. This is not just telepathy. This is possession.
Spielberg underscores this not just through the visual language of the scene, as Jane breaks out in a sweat and struggles to sit upright as Scanlon invades her mind, but through Jane’s background. As she revealed to Daniel earlier in the film, Jane is a former novitiate nun who left her convent when she began to question her calling. She still believes firmly in God and, more importantly, believes that perhaps proof of alien life should be kept secret from the public because, in her eyes, it would upset the entire balance of faith in the world. God is a defining factor for humankind, Jane argues, and showing humanity proof of creatures from the stars would undercut that in dangerous ways.
This context, combined with the crucifix necklace Jane’s holding in her hand at the time of the dive, makes this scene the closest thing Spielberg will ever shoot to something out of The Exorcist. It’s not just a battle of wills, but a battle of faith. As an amoral technocrat worms his way into her memories, her beliefs, her faith, Jane turns the crucifix into a weapon, squeezing it until her hand bleeds when she discovers that a pain response can momentarily push Scanlon out of her head.
Of course, when you put a crucifix and a bloody hand together, it conjures images of stigmata. Screenwriter David Koepp pushes the allusion further by having Scanlon quote Christ on the cross to Jane by way of convincing her that she must be the one to stop Daniel by any means necessary.
It’s easy to see why this is scary, right?
On a very basic level, you have a powerful, wealthy man subduing and assaulting an innocent young woman, which is frightening enough. Then, the layers of the scene kick in. Scanlon doesn’t just assault Jane, but possesses her, seizes her memories, her knowledge, and finally her own free will, all while Jane literally clings to her faith in an effort to fight back. Disclosure Day is, among other things, a story about who has a right to the truth, and Scanlon believes that he should be the arbiter of that truth. Not just the truth as he sees it, but the truth as Jane sees it as well. If they don’t see eye to eye, he’ll make her.
But the possession, as it turns out, cuts both ways. Using the rod to dive is, for a normal human being, an intensely strenuous process. Scanlon admits that previous attempts almost killed him, and for some members of his time, so much as touching the rod results in a near-death experience. Even accessing an unprepared mind like Jane’s takes a lot of Scanlon, and when she kicks him out by squeezing the crucifix – again, so much meaning embedded in the details here – his team holds him back and tries to offer medical intervention. But Scanlon persists, pushing them away, and keeps diving back in.
This means that Jane can’t escape him because he just won’t stop pushing back through her defenses, but it also means that each time Scanlon enters her mind, and thus the safe house, he looks more monstrous. By the end, through a combination of lighting and makeup, Firth barely looks human, conjuring up images of the possessed Father Karras at the end of The Exorcist.
Colin Firth (center, standing) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
On a pure, visceral craft level, all of this is quite frightening, but the real trick to making this scene into Spielberg’s most terrifying lies in the more existential horror surrounding all of this. Disclosure Day is a film about the battle for the truth over extraterrestrials, but it’s also about a fight against an impossibly powerful surveillance state, the devaluing of human and alien lives in favor of some nebulous collection of assets, and the value of the individual in a world that increasingly lumps people into demographic boxes and writes them off.
In this scene, the surveillance state becomes supernatural, a human life is worth less than a piece of information, and an extragovernmental technocrat would rather sacrifice his own humanity than see reason. In 2026, few things could be more terrifying than that. Spielberg knows this and wields it mightily, proving once again that, while he’s not a strictly horror filmmaker, he can direct horror with the best of them.
Disclosure Day is in theaters now.
Eve Hewson (second from left) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
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