Ever since Capcom announced plans to remaster Resident Evil Zero, fans have been slowly creating their wish list for future RE titles that are also deserving of the upgrade. And just this week, in fact, producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi dusted off an old Resident Evil 2 HD remake pitch and brought it back to the heads of Capcom.

But even though the prospect of a Resident Evil 2 remake is exciting, there’s the understanding that these things take time. So by the time Capcom starts making its way through the RE series, chances are more than 10 years will have passed before games like Resident Evil 4 have a new coat of paint.

The good news, though, is while fans wait for Capcom to give the RE franchise a remaster once-over, some gamers are already taking the matter into their own hands with Resident Evil 4. These skilled modders are taking the less-than-ideal Resident Evil 4 HD PC release and making it that much better through skilled texture work and the like.

The mod’s creators are calling it the "RE4 HD Project," and so far they have given Capcom’s Gamecube classic quite the makeover. While the HD re-release of Resident Evil 4 did have some improved visuals, it didn’t pack quite the punch that fans were hoping for. The RE4 HD Project, on the other hand, has already impressed with some early screenshots and a texture pack for the ‘Village’ section of the game. Interested Resident Evil fans can download that texture pack here.

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It’s actually quite surprising how much detail these modders are able to get out of the PC port, which presumably took the Gamecube textures and pushed them to their limits. It just goes to show gamers how an HD remaster or port can be done well - by taking care with each detail - and how it can come across as a quick cash grab.

However, Resident Evil fans that may be concerned that future HD remasters and remakes may be less-than-ideal can breathe easy knowing Resident Evil Zero HD is the real deal. After having played the game at Comic-Con this year, we were not only impressed with how faithful the controls could be to the original (there are some options to deploy modern schemes) but how much better the game looks on new systems. This is the type of treatment we hope every Capcom re-release – and it sounds like there are going to be a lot of them – gets, starting with Zero and continuing on with (hopefully) Resident Evil 2.

What do you think of the Resident Evil 4 HD Project? Is this the type of HD remake treatment you hoped to see the first time around?

Source: Kotaku