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Mr. X removal mod makes Resident Evil 2 a little bit lonelier

Mr. X givin' it to ya a little too much? Modders have you covered

Mr. X is the best part of Resident Evil 2, but he’s so thoroughly captured the imagination of players that we can’t help but want to make changes. Like replacing his spooky musical cue with X Gon’ Give it to Ya, or turning him into Thomas the Tank Engine, or pulling that trenchcoat off to reveal a tiny thong underneath. The latest option is, perhaps, too extreme. We can now get rid of Mr. X entirely.

‘X no more,’ available at Nexus Mods (and noted by DSOGaming), does exactly what the name suggests. Mr. X is gone, no longer able to hurt you, and left as just a fleeting memory hovering in the dark trenchcoats of your mind. All the scripted sequences affected by his absence are still fine, so presumably that helicopter in the hallway shoves itself out of the way.

You might be wondering why anyone would want to get rid of Mr. X – after all, he serves as fantastic game mechanic which forces you to constantly alter your routes through Resident Evil 2’s locales and ratchets up the challenge without forcing the cheap tricks of overwhelming you with enemies. (Plus, he makes an RE3 remake basically superfluous.)

The proper answer is this: just let people play games however they want. Mr. X is a wonderful tension-builder, but if the anxiety induced by an unstoppable foe is too much for some players who’d otherwise enjoy RE2, this mod is a fantastic option.

It’s pretty reminiscent of the safe mode in SOMA, which started life as a mod before it became an officially supported option in the game.

Read more: Get spooked in the best horror games on PC

Another Resident Evil 2 mod has returned fixed-camera perspectives to the game, so if you’re looking for old-fashioned challenges the mod community has you taken care of. And this remake is certainly worth returning to in order to see what can be added – or subtracted – from the experience.