Gore has been a key component of adult-oriented video games since the early 1990s, with Doom and Mortal Kombat setting the standard for over-the-top pixilated violence. As gaming technology has advanced over the years, as has the ability to create more realistic-looking gore, leading to some truly heinous on-screen acts of violence. But while some games use gore to elicit feelings of fear and sorrow, Resident Evil 4 Remake uses it to demonstrate the player's power.
The Resident Evil franchise has always put blood and gore front and center. Even in the original Resident Evil, when the PS1 could only render chunky polygons, flecks of blood-like pixels would fly from monsters' corpses upon shooting them. And now, almost 30 years later, Resident Evil's gore is horrifyingly realistic, with players being able to shoot different layers of flesh off a zombie. But when it comes to dismemberment specifically, Dead Space has always taken the crown, though Resident Evil 4 Remake definitely gives it a run for its money.
Resident Evil 4 Remake's Dismemberment Seems Inspired By Dead Space
Back in 2005, Resident Evil 4 essentially pioneered the third-person action-horror genre, at least those that keep the camera firmly behind the protagonist's shoulder. The original Resident Evil 4 is home to an abundance of influential concepts and mechanics, but one of the biggest innovations when it comes to gameplay is the game's targeting system. Rather than restrict the player to just auto-aimed body shots, Resident Evil 4 gives players free rein over where they aim, and they quickly learn that shooting a specific body part will cause the enemy to react in a unique way. Shooting an enemy's feet will leave them staggered on the ground, while shooting their hand will disarm them, and shooting their head will stop them for good, at least some of the time.
This mechanic hadn't really been seen all that much in gaming, at least not in the third-person horror scene, and the rest of the industry soon started taking notes. Before Resident Evil 4 hit store shelves in 2005, Visceral Games, under the banner of EA Redwood Shores, was just about to start development on a third installment in the System Shock franchise, but when the team got its hands on Resident Evil 4, plans soon changed. Instead of a first-person Sci-Fi horror sequel, EA greenlit an original third-person Sci-Fi horror game from the team, a title which would go on to become Dead Space.
When looking at Dead Space now, it's easy to see its Resident Evil 4 inspirations, but by far the clearest influence can be found in the game's core dismemberment mechanic. Visceral took Resident Evil 4's body targeting system and ran with it, making it the focal point of the game. Rather than just slow an enemy down by targeting their different body parts, Dead Space wants players to blow its enemies' limbs clean-off. This dismemberment mechanic quickly became one of Dead Space's defining features, and thanks to the recent remake, it's even more gory and satisfying than ever before, with players needing to blast through several layers of skin, muscle, and bone before the limb tears off.
The recent Resident Evil 4 Remake has brought things full circle, with Dead Space now being a clear inspiration for the remake's own improved dismemberment system. While the original 2005 version of Resident Evil 4 let players blow enemies' heads off, Resident Evil 4 Remake turns things up a notch, letting players obliterate their foes by ripping them in half, tearing holes in their sides, and much more.
Resident Evil 4 is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.