Resident Evil 2 Reborn was a highly unusual fan effort – an Unreal 4 remake not pieced together via VOIP, but worked on by a professional Italian software house around their paying projects. When we talked to InvaderGames, the prospect of a Capcom remake loomed over Reborn – and has now culminated in a polite request from the Japanese publishers to stop working on it, pretty please.
Oddly, however, Invader consider this a “very special day”.
“Contrary to what might be thought, this is wonderful news for us and, as fans, we’re so happy that Capcom has decided to take the lead of the project and to develop the remake awaited for years by everybody,” they wrote. “Meanwhile as developers, we’re honoured to announce that we’ve been officially invited to meet Capcom.”
Capcom called InvaderGames ahead of the Resident Evil 2 remake announcement – asking them to halt development, and arranging a meeting to “discuss further ideas”.
“Even though we cannot complete the project of Resident Evil 2 Reborn, we’re happy that what we’ve shown has achieved consents from worldwide fans and especially has been noticed [by] Capcom itself,” said the Invader team in a statement. “We promise that the work done until now will be useful for future projects, we won’t disappoint your and our expectations.”
There are no details yet on what those future projects might be, but Invader plan to knuckle down on what they call “the biggest professional chance that we could get”.
“It’s very rare to find such a leader company in the industry so much open minded and sensitive to the work of a growing studio like ours, guided by passion and competence,” they said.
With no hope of recouping the costs of development, the aim of Reborn was always to gather goodwill and introduce InvaderGames to an international audience. In that sense, you could argue it’s already been a success.
Reborn would have ditched Resident Evil 2’s restrictive camera for a more contemporary equivalent. What tack would you like to see the official remake take?