Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 is a survival horror game developed and published by Capcom for the GameCube in 2005. Players control special agent Leon S. Kennedy who is on a mission to rescue the US president's daughter, Ashley Graham, who has been kidnapped by a religious cult in rural Spain. Leon fights hordes of enemies infected by a mind-controlling parasite and reunites with the spy Ada Wong. In a departure from the fixed camera angles and slower gameplay of previous Resident Evil games, Resident Evil 4 features a dynamic camera system and action-oriented gameplay. Development on Resident Evil 4 began for the PlayStation 2 in 1999. Four proposed versions were discarded; the first attempt was directed by Hideki Kamiya, but series creator Shinji Mikami felt it strayed too far from the series roots, so it was spun off as Devil May Cry (2001) at his recommendation. Other versions were scrapped until Mikami took directorial duties for what became the final version. The game was announced as part of the Capcom Five, a collaboration between Capcom and Nintendo to create five GameCube exclusives to boost hardware sales and demonstrate third-party support. Resident Evil 4 garnered acclaim for its story, gameplay, graphics, voice acting, and characters, and is cited as one of the best video games of all time, winning multiple Game of the Year awards in 2005. It was ported to numerous formats, and became a cross-platform hit, selling 12.3 million units by December 2022. It influenced the evolution of the survival horror and third-person genres, popularizing the "over-the-shoulder" third-person view used in games such as Gears of War, Dead Space, and The Last of Us. A remake of Resident Evil 4 was released in 2023. The player controls the protagonist, Leon S. Kennedy, from a third-person perspective. Departing significantly from the series' previous games, the gameplay focuses on action and shootouts with fewer survival horror elements. The camera is placed behind Leon and zooms in for an over-the-shoulder view when aiming a weapon, or a first-person view when aiming with a sniper rifle.