RE2 Remake: Two Scenarios and No Zapping System but Deeper Story

During an interview we conducted with RE2 Remake‘s Producers, we learned a couple of cool things, but nothing was more interesting to me as their comments on RE2‘s “zapping” system. When asked if the system would be returning, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi said:

One of the great things about the original was this sort of two character system where you could get a different perspective on events. Either as Leon the rookie cop, or Claire as a student—the ‘zapping’ system as it was known where there was A parts and B parts to each character. We still want to replicate that feeling of seeing two sides to the same story through both character’s perspective in their own way. So for that reason we have a Leon campaign and a Claire campaign, they’re separate and you can choose which one you want to play first. We did simplify it a bit and make it more elegant by eliminating the A/B distinction and sort of meshing together what happens to the character’s A and B scenarios into one story. I think players today, they want these sort of deep/intense experiences with the story, and by stretching it across 4 scenarios the story gets spread a little thin and create a sense of repetition by going through the game multiple times to see everything. So for that reason we went with two campaigns that still show all the events of each character’s story rather than have it all split up.

In case you’re unfamiliar, how it used to work, in the original RE2 they tried to to create a more diverse game experience by making the decision to play as Leon or Claire result in actually different campaigns, that had more differences and reasons to go back. Along with all the same mechanics of the previous game (Claire has a lockpick and a grenade launcher, different partner characters, etc), Leon and Claire had vastly different takes on the story, that lead them to entirely unique areas for both of them with events that weren’t repeated in the other’s campaign. Even more than that there was in fact an entirely different scenario for the character you chose to play as second, which even had its own unique boss monsters, puzzles, and story events. This effectively resulted in four separate playthroughs of content, called Leon A/Claire B or Claire A/Leon B (depending on who you played as first). On top of this, there was also a handful of instances where small choices made in the ‘A’ scenario would have effects on the ‘B’ scenario. For instance, there’s a moment where you can take either an automatic weapon or a pouch that gives you two extra inventory slots. Whichever item you took would leave the other item for the B scenario, or you could take both and totally screw yourself over in the future.

This said, after completing one A/B playthrough, going back and playing the opposite A/B scenarios was… kinda dull. They did still have unique content from the first A/B scenario (reverses some events, flops the boss monster that stalks you, etc), but it did start to lose some cohesion. Not only that, it’s resulted in fan confusion as to which is the “true” version of events, leading most to just assume it’s some sort of mix of both.

Well, looks like that’s been the answer all along, as the two campaigns will be a mix of both now in the RE2 Remake, and will probably give us more unique content for both as Capcom has already commented on how elements that used to be smaller have been expanded. We’ve already seen how RE2 Remake is expanding on just Leon’s meeting with Marvin Branagh, and it makes me excited to see what else will be modified. Claire’s shocking encounter with the chief of police, Leon’s struggle to get information out of tight-lipped reported Ben Bertolucci, or which one of the two (or will they both be encountering) Dr. Annette Birkin or potentially getting talked down to by Robert Kendo? Gah! I just can’t wait, friends. I just can’t wait.