March 2023

Capcom’s remake of Resident Evil 4 is finally out, and it’s fantastic (read about why in our review here). It features some interesting changes and new additions, sure to keep Resident Evil 4 fans on their toes, and plenty of returning things. Whether you’re new to this game or someone that’s played it a dozen times, here are 13 tips and tricks we think every Resident Evil 4 player should know heading into this remake.

Shoot Projectiles

Throughout your journey through the quaint and totally not dangerous at all Spanish country, you’ll encounter hundreds of enemies. Many will utilize standard melee attacks and grabs to stop you, but almost just as many will have projectiles. Enemies can throw axes, torches that light you on fire, Molotov cocktails, dynamite, and more. You’ll want to avoid getting hit by these projectiles (you can parry the axes!), and one way to do that is to kill the enemy before they throw them.

However, that requires some speed, and if you don’t have time to do that, shoot the projectile. In the case of Molotov cocktails and dynamite, doing this can cause an instant explosion, damaging the projectile thrower and potentially other enemies around them. 

Gathering is one of the most important and fundamental actions in Atelier games. With Atelier Ryza 3, her staff isn’t enough, and you’ll need to make things like a Woodcutter’s Axe to get different items. Fortunately, it’s one of the easiest gathering tools to make and you’ll probably have everything you need after a quick trip into the Pixie Forest.

While you’d think an axe would need something for the blade, that’s not so with the Atelier Ryza 3 Woodcutter’s Axe! All you need to make one is Eiche. It’s the most basic kind of wood you can get from large logs laying on the ground in Pixie Forest. Hit it with Ryza’s staff, and you’ll get some chunks. 

Once you have two pieces of Eiche, head back to Ryza’s workshop to start making a Woodcutter’s Axe in Atelier Ryza 3. You put one piece in the Effect 1 slot, and the other in Effect 2. This is all you need to finish one. Add it to your on-hand equipment by going to Items in the main game menu, and you’re all set. Make sure you experiment when you’re in the actual field, as sometimes items you wouldn’t expect could be hit with an axe, like a big rock, can be and will yield items.

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.

More handgun ammo, resources, and red herbs

Continue reading…

Before you head into the remake, a note for nervous dog lovers

Continue reading…

Plus, here’s how to open locked drawers

Continue reading…

Stay one step ahead of every tripwire

Continue reading…

Defeat the Village Chief in the Slaughterhouse during Chapter 6

Continue reading…

Take down the Giant in the Quarry during Chapter 4

Continue reading…

Nail the combo to open the Crystal Marble lock

Continue reading…

Fight a bunch of arbalists (and learn what the hell an “arbalist” even is)

Continue reading…

Rotate the Hexagon Pieces to solve the Lake puzzle

Continue reading…

Leon learned quite a few new moves

Continue reading…

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

At GDC 2023 this morning, New York Times executive producer Zoe Bell detailed the company's journey since acquiring hit word game Wordle in January 2022, and how it transformed its games business.

The success of Wordle drove engagement across the NYT's entire games portfolio, Bell explained, shedding light on what the company is looking for in its titles. She highlighted that Wordle ranked higher in search results in 2022 than Ukraine or the Queen.

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Update, March 24, 2023: Microsoft issued a statement claiming it has not removed any games by Xbox-owned studios from PlayStation platforms.

"We haven't pulled any games from PlayStation," a spokesperson told Eurogamer. "In fact, we've expanded our footprint of games that we've shipped on Sony's PlayStation since our acquisition of ZeniMax, and the first two games we shipped after closing were PlayStation 5 exclusives. We did the same thing since our closing of Minecraft as we extended the reach of that franchise.

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Wichita has settled for $5 million in a federal lawsuit against police detective Justin Rapp for the killing of Andrew Finch.

The settlement will be paid to the Kansas resident's family.

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Domestic violence charges against Justin Roiland have been dropped.

As reported by Polygon, the case dismissal was attributed to "insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt."

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Playtika's negotiations to purchase Rovio have come to an end.

As reported by MobileGamer.Biz, the news comes two months after the mobile firm attempted to acquire the Angry Birds maker.

Read more

Jason Mai landed a job as VP of creative with Big Fish about six months ago, and while his history in casual and mobile games is extensive, he had never actually made a merge game along the lines of his new employer's hit EverMerge.

In a 'Game Designer's Notebook' session at the Game Developers Conference Tuesday, Mai acknowledged he landed the job without actually knowing much about the genre specifically.

"Once I got the job, I had to dive in and do what you always do: dig in, deconstruct the game, build some spreadsheets, read all the studies, the player surveys, talk to the designers and talk to the players," Mai said.

Read more

The Lego Group and 2K Games have today announced their long-rumoured multi-title partnership – and both firms tells GamesIndustry.biz that debut title Lego 2K Drive not only represents what to expect from this deal, but also the true potential for Lego in the realm of video games.

Reports that the two companies have been working together first emerged February last year, with leaks in recent weeks of Lego 2K Drive – which has officially been unveiled today – giving the industry and consumers alike a taste of what's to come.

We sat down with Lego Games' head of licensing Kate Bryant and 2K's vice president of global marketing Alison Bakunowich to find out more about how this partnership came to be.

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Developers gathered in San Francisco last night to celebrate the best in games design and more, with Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarök taking home the most prizes at the Game Developers Choice Awards.

FromSoftware's Elden Ring won three awards, including the top accolade of Game of the Year, as well as Best Design and Best Visual Art.

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

At a glance

Atari has entered into an agreement to acquire Nightdive Studios, the developer behind recent remasters of classic games such as Quake, Shadowman and System Shock.

Read more

Epic Games showcased its vision for a metaverse at today’s State of Unreal, during which it unveiled more details about the economy around its Unreal Editor for Fortnite, a new unified marketplace, Fab, which offers assets across several game engines, new Metahumans animation tools, and more.

Talking to GamesIndustry.biz at GDC 2023, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney further clarified his vision for an open ecosystem across the games industry.

During the presentation, Sweeney had described the company's various announcements as a milestone for Epic's "unified" vision of the metaverse, adding that "the metaverse has to be open, it can't be another walled garden."

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Meta has unveiled Oculus Publishing as the official name for its virtual reality publishing program.

The division will partner with studios to provide funding, production, and promotion services.

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Video game retailer GameStop has seen a 1.4% dip for the fiscal year 2022 as it amassed $5.93 billion in net sales. Meanwhile, the company reported that net sales hit $2.2 billion during its fourth quarter, a decrease of 1.2% year-over-year.

The company released its financial results for the 12-month period that ended on January 28, 2023. Here's what you need to know:

Read more

At GDC 2023 today, Epic Games unveiled details about its Unreal Editor for Fortnite, Unreal Engine 5.2 procedural tools, and more.

During the State of Unreal event at the Blue Shield of California Theater, executive vice president Saxs Persson announced that Epic's Unreal Editor for Fortnite will be launching in public beta today, with the aim to combine the power of Unreal Engine to "the scale of the Fortnite audience."

Persson described it as being "one step closer to a connected metaverse" with the aim to "move the industry forward."

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Nexon has revealed that MapleStory Universe will allow users to create and manage non-fungible tokens.

As reported by VentureBeat, the news was announced at GDC by the title's project head Sunyoung Hwang.

Read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Microsoft has unveiled the Xbox Developer Sustainability ToolKit.

The kit aims to help creators reduce energy consumption and measure carbon emissions during game development.

Read more

This year's Game Developers Choice and IGF Award ceremonies were really heartening stuff. Getting to see so many great developers have their games celebrated by their peers will always warm the old cockles, especially when we celebrated so many of them in our own RPS Advent Calendar at the end of last year. Well, I say 'see'. In truth, I was tucked away backstage at this year's IGF and GDC Awards, clutching my dictaphone with a single question in mind: if each winner had to give away their award to another game in their category, who would it be and why?

It's an idea Brendan (RPS in peace) came up with back in the primordial mists of 2018, and it was so good I just had to knick it and do it again. It might be cruel to wrench these awards away so soon after receiving them, but it's all in the name of spreading good vibes and extra shoutouts, I promise. So here are the games of the year 2022, according to the people who just won awards for games of the year 2022.

Read more

To mix things up, Capcom added a few extra gameplay mechanics and gimmicks to Residenh Evil 4 in 2023. This includes the inclusion of Attache Case charms in the Resident Evil 4 remake. While not necessary to obtain, they do provide some interesting bonuses and benefits when attached to your case. The option to attach Attache Case charms appears in the early hours of the game, and this can be done at any save point. However, the opportunity to obtain them happens a little further on into the game.

The first time you will be able to obtain Attache Case charms in the Resident Evil 4 remake is when you get access to the shooting gallery. Progressing through the game will have you stumbling upon one of these shooting ranges sooner, rather than later. The shooting gallery is an optional series of challenges players can participate in that will test your accuracy and reflexes. Each challenge will have a specific weapon assigned to it. The higher you score, the more Silver or Gold Coins you are given. Additional challenges will be unlocked as you get through Resident Evil 4 remake. You can see an example of some of the challenges and rewards below.

The formidable Garrador makes a return in Resident Evil 4 remake. Just like in the original, this enemy will pursue the player based on sound cues. However, there is one very simple way to defeat this dangerous enemy. This guide will break down one of the more efficient strategies on how to defeat the Garrador in Resident Evil 4 remake.

The first time the player will encounter the Garrador, chains will be hanging from the ceiling. These can be avoided, and it's highly suggested that the player crouch to avoid making too much noise. You can, of course, strafe the enemy by running around and shooting at it once its claws get stuck in the wall. Both strategies are totally viable and work just fine. I happened to do the second one, since it took the least amount of time.

However, the most important thing in this fight is using a Flash Grenade once the parasite on the Garrador's back becomes exposed. Flash Grenades will instantly kill any exposed parasite on an enemy, which will kill them in a flash. This is the best strategy to kill this enemy quickly, and efficiently.

If you can't manage to find a Flash Grenade in any boxes, you can always craft one after you've bought the recipe from the Merchant. Flash Grenades are invaluable tools in disposing of enemies in the mid to late game, so it's advised you always have a few on hand.

Like all Resident Evil games, the Resident Evil 4 remake will allow for players to put together combinations of herbs to heal their wounds. However, a few adjustments have been made to this system, which may come as a surprise to some series veterans. While First Aid Sprays will always 100% heal your health bar, the standard Green and Red Herb combination will no longer fully top you up. There are also a total of three different types of herbs you can obtain in the game. These are the Green, Red, and Yellow types.

Green and Red can be combined to heal you with varying effectiveness. Whereas combining a Yellow herb in it will increase Leon's total health pool. This will be vital in making certain combat encounters more manageable. It isn't necessary, and you can absolutely play the game without upgrading your health at all. Thankfully, in the remake you can actually combine a both Red and Yellow without need a Green in order to use the mixture. This will up Leon's health, but won't heal him. So it's best to conserve the use of Yellow Herbs for when you can either combine it with a Green and Red or two Greens.

You can find all of the herb combinations in Resident Evil 4 Remake below.

The original Resident Evil 4 was more or less fairly linear in its design, which leant itself well to the title. However, the Resident Evil 4 remake deviates from this truly linear style of gameplay and provides players a lot of options to retrace their steps to engage in "extra" activities and beat it. For this reason, the time you spend in the remake may be longer than you initially expect or anticipate.

How Long Does It Take to Beat Resident Evil 4 Remake?

The Resident Evil 4 remake spans a total of 16 chapters and naturally, each player's mileage will vary concerning how long the amount of time is that they will spend in the game. This is due to the additional side quests you can choose to tackle for Spinels to get upgrades for your arsenal, treasure maps, and more. You can also backtrack during certain segments of the game to pick up treasure that may have not initially been obtainable when you first crossed them. This is due to needing keys to unlock specific chests, often located at very visibly distinct shrines.

That said, having played through the game twice, the average length of Resident Evil 4 remake without incorporating more efficient movement or combat strategy will run you roughly 15-20 hours. This includes completing some side quests to obtain the mentioned weapon upgrades and other such items, like Attache Case charms. Excluding side activities, your playthrough could potentially be less than 10 hours once you memorize map layouts and optimize movement and weapon choice. This can be shaved down even further when the New Game+ option becomes available after beating the game.

Parrying in Resident Evil 4 is an entirely new gameplay mechanic, and an essential one. Knowing how to parry in Resident Evil 4 remake will not only make your time in the game significantly easier, but also help you conserve ammunition and health. While the game does explain how to parry through a tutorial within the first hour of the game, there are a few important things that should be mentioned. Specifically, how to change the button to parry.

While parrying in Resident Evil 4 remake is relegated to pressing the L1 button, players can also assign it to R2. This can be done through the options menu. After opening the options menu, navigate down through the controls tab to the "Parry with R2" selection. From there, you can turn the option to parry with R2 on or off. I suggest playing around with these settings and seeing what feels more comfortable to you.

Also note that turning it on does not mean that players can no longer parry with L1. You will still be able to perform parries with L1, but you can also do them with R2 once this is selected. You can see where you can change the control scheme for parrying below. Please note that button names may vary depending on what platform you are playing Resident Evil 4 remake on.

Resident Evil 4 remake's The Mercenaries mode launches 7th April, Capcom has announced.

The release date for the free DLC was revealed as part of the Resident Evil 4 remake launch trailer, below.

The Mercenaries is a long-running Resident Evil challenge mode that sees players attempt to defeat as many enemies as they can before the timer runs out - or you die. In the original Resident Evil 4, Mercenaries mode was unlocked upon completing the main game.

Read more

The Resident Evil 4 remake is a mostly cool runner on desktops, and good news if you’re recently picked up a certain handheld PC in the sales: its Steam Deck performance is alright too. Maybe not to the battery-sipping, framerate-abundant extent of the very best Steam Deck games, but with the right settings, nu-Resi 4 can keep its burlap sacked head well above 30fps even in its most visually demanding scenes.

Read more

Unlike Liam, I started on the Resident Evil 4 remake without the roundhousing know-how of someone that repeatedly beat the 2005 original. Still, twelve maulings, three beheadings, and one chainsaw disembowelment later, I’ve got enough of a handle on Leon S. Kennedy’s disappointing Spanish holiday to help you get the most out of the new model’s PC performance. Including a guide to its best settings, which can especially help on lower-end rigs.

Read more

An exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the serialization of the Fist of the North Star manga will be held in Japan sometime in Fall 2023. The venue is located at the Mori Arts Center Gallery located in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo. More than 400 original artworks, including new drawings created by Fist of the North Star Artist Tetsuo Hara, will be available to the public. [Thanks, Game Watch!]

The new Fist of the North Star exhibition recounts the story of conflict and love between the inhabitants of a turbulent post-apocalyptic world set in the late 19th century. The structure of the exhibition will highlight the most popular episodes of the series. Taking pictures of the exhibition and the original artwork will be allowed. Additionally, the venue will offer many photo spots specially designed to share on social media.

You can check out the key visual promoting the exhibition in the following tweet:

https://twitter.com/40thHokutoNoTen/status/1638709269049806850

In more Fist of the North Star news, Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star is available North America and Europe as of March 2023 exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. A demo of the game is available now as well.

With a new patch appearing for Resident Evil 5 on Steam, Capcom made it significantly easier to play the multiplayer part of the game in online co-op on Steam with friends. This is due to the removal of the Games for Windows Live service. Previously, joining a co-op game with Steam friends was a bit of a headache. The most reliable way before this patch was to search for your friend's session through the "Join Game" menu and by inputting the right parameters for their game.

However, with the new patch it is as simple as navigating to your Steam friends list and right clicking your friend's user name to jump into their game. Players will no longer have to navigate through the in-game menus in Resident Evil 5 in order to play online co-op with their Steam friends. That said, you will need to make sure that your game is at that the very least on the start screen before you attempt to join them.

From there, once your friend has accepted your request you can pop into their game. For the person hosting the game, if you are in the middle of a chapter you will need to navigate to the pause menu and select "Restart" in order for your friend to jump in. You will have to restart that chapter from your most recent checkpoint, but you'll have your friend with you at the very least!

Resident Evil 5 is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and on PC through Steam.