Resident Evil 4 received an HD remaster for PS3 and Xbox 360 almost a decade ago, which was ported to PC, PS4, and Xbox One. However, it was a fairly lackluster attempt, and the graphics haven’t aged well. Fortunately, after eight years of work, the Resident Evil 4 HD Project mod has finally hit 1.0 and is available for download. This mod overhauls every aspect of RE4’s visuals and makes it much easier on the eyes.
What does the Resident Evil 4 HD Project mod do?
The RE4 HD Project mod is a fan-created remaster of Resident Evil 4 that touches on every graphical asset. Textures, models, menus, cutscenes, lighting, effects, and FMVs have all been enhanced and tweaked to give the best visual experience possible. The project also includes many bug fixes and restores broken and missing effects that Capcom never addressed.
The mod is compatible with Resident Evil 4 on PC and has been tested on versions 1.0.6 and 1.1.0. Basically, just install the latest version on Steam, and you’re good to go. One thing to note is that it’s a pretty hefty download compared to the base game. It comes in at 35.66 GB, which makes sense because it’s replacing every visual asset in the game. Fortunately, even with the higher-res assets, the system requirements are still around the same as the original game, which means it’s playable on pretty much any computer made in the last eight years or so that has a dedicated GPU with 2 GB or more of VRAM. More recent iGPUs also shouldn’t have a problem running it.
It’s great to see the community come together and produce a project like this. It’s been in the works for such a long time, and the wait was worth it for such an impressive visual upgrade. It should more than tide us over as we wait for the rumored Resident Evil 4 remake.
Opinion: Studios should be putting this much love into their remasters
Capcom obviously has access to exponentially more money and staffing than the RE4 HD Project does, but its remaster of the game was far less impressive. We really want to see studios put more work into remasters, especially since AI upscalers have made it a lot easier to automate a lot of the work needed to enhance textures. Fan projects continue to put professional efforts to shame, and it doesn’t have to be that way. Resident Evil 4 continues to be one of Capcom’s prestige titles, and the company’s lack of initiative concerning it is disappointing. We hope that studios will see how much passion these fans have and hire them to make sure that iconic titles like RE4 are visually the best they can be without compromising the original art direction.
