Resident Evil 4 Remake's co-directors, Kazunori Kadoi and Yasuhiro Ampo, have admitted that they originally didn't want to remake the game as they saw the original as a "masterpiece".
After how successful the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 (mostly) were, it didn't come as too much of a surprise when Capcom announced that it was also remaking Resident Evil 4. As beloved as the second and third games are, however, Resident Evil 4 is on another level and generally considered a masterpiece, which made some apprehensive about it being remade. As it turns out, the remake's directors were just as worried.
During a recent interview with Game Informer, Kadoi and Ampo discuss their approach to remaking Resident Evil 4, which is an interesting proposition considering both Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 were remade to fit Resident Evil 4's style. Before even discussing Resident Evil 4 Remake's development, Kadoi and Ampo admit that Resident Evil 4's status as a "masterpiece" made it tough to remake.
Ampo said, "Honestly speaking, I didn't want to do it. Among the RE series and even games in general, the original RE4 has become a legend. I knew that it would be difficult to successfully remake it, and if we made one mistake with any updates we made, we would anger its fans."
Kadoi echoed those thoughts, saying, "When I first heard about remaking RE4, my first impression was that since the original is a masterpiece, a remake would be difficult. So I didn't want to do it."
Thankfully, both directors decided to get on board with remaking Resident Evil 4, and decided to approach it a little differently to what they did with the last few remakes. For starters, the team decided not to "recapture lightning in a bottle", noting that the original had such a massive impact and that the best thing to do was stay faithful to the original and try and evolve it in smaller ways.
To do this, the team replayed Resident Evil 4 to see what they could change or evolve, which resulted in the removal of quick-time events, alongside other gameplay changes to Ashley like her being able to climb ladders and generally get in the way less.