The long-awaited, fan-made Resident Evil 4 HD Project has put out a new trailer and announced that it will be launching worldwide early next month.
Resident Evil 4 marked a turning point for the survival horror franchise that brought in a greater emphasis on action. Although a planned remake was reportedly delayed over a year ago, a Meta Quest 2-exclusive VR version turned out to be a pretty solid adaptation and ended up becoming the fast-selling app for the Quest 2 in only a week.
While the launch of an official remake is uncertain, a fan project has been underway to improve the game's looks on PC. That project is nearing completion and it looks pretty darn good -- check out the recently-released trailer for the Resident Evil 4 HD Project (via Reddit):
The Resident Evil 4 HD Project aims to scale up textures 8-16 times beyond their original resolution. The creators are "two guys who love Resident Evil 4" named Cris and Albert, and they've certainly gone to great lengths to make this game look even better.
Capcom did a lot of photography work in various areas of Spain and Wales for this game (and others), and they also leveraged existing texture libraries. So for us, it's a combination of the following:
* Going to and photographing those same locations
* Finding hi-res images online of those locations
* Simply finding the original texture images used
Gorgeous graphics aside, one might be concerned about whether or not this project will see the light of day. After all, fan projects get canceled left and right, often due to legal threats from the original IP holder. In this case, however, the creators say in an F.A.Q. page that Capcom is aware of the project and has stickied the discussion thread for it on the game's Steam Community forums.
When is the Resident Evil 4 HD Project Release Date?
The Resident Evil 4 HD Project release date is February 2, 2022. This fan project will require the Steam version of Resident Evil 4 version 1.0.6 or version 1.1.0.
You'll be able to download this project on re4hd.com, although you might have to wait a bit to get it; the mere announcement of this project's release date has absolutely slammed the site's servers. Of course, you'll also need the base game to play it -- you can buy Resident Evil 4 for PC via Steam at the price of $19.99 or your regional equivalent.
What do you think of the fan-made Resident Evil 4 HD Project? What's your favorite fan-made graphics makeover for a game? Let us know in the comments below!