One Avocadoan’s journey delving into the realm of survival horror.
In general I try to avoid including spoilers in these write-ups as much as possible. This is something of a unique case, however, as it is my first time covering a remake of a game I had already reviewed for this column. In order to fully discuss my feelings on how the original and the remake compare, I will be including more spoilers than usual for both games, so be warned…
I’ve already talked about the development of the original Resident Evil 3 at some length, so let’s jump ahead to April 2020, the month that the remake was released. Contrary to popular belief, the Resident Evil 3 Remake (RE3make) was not slapped together in the fourteen months since the launch of the lauded Resident Evil 2 Remake (RE2make), nor did it start life as a planned DLC of RE2make. Rather, it actually began development under a completely separate team than the one that built RE2make, with significant overlap between the two games’ development cycles, some shared assets, and of course the same engine (the acclaimed RE Engine). The lead programmer of the original game, Kiyohiko Sakata, was brought on as the remake’s director, and he believed changes needed to be made to improve the pacing of the original.1 This would, unfortunately, end up being a very contentious decision. While the remake received mostly positive reviews from critics and sold more than 13 million copies as of May 2026,2,3 it proved deeply polarizing among series fans due to the perceived short length and removed areas, among other criticisms.4 (Which is what led to some of the claims about it being rushed together or intended as DLC.) This brings me to the question: Just how much do the changes made in the course of remaking RE3 impact the experience of playing said remake? It’s time for me to find out.
RE3make’s plot is, at least in broad strokes, largely very similar to RE3: Nemesis. The game puts players in the shoes of Resident Evil regular Jill Valentine near the very start of the T-Virus outbreak that had already swept through Raccoon City by the time of RE2/RE2make. Witnessing the devastation rapidly spreading throughout the city, while also being hunted by a relentless new Tyrant unleashed by the Umbrella Corporation, Jill must make her escape. Unfortunately, that means making an uneasy alliance with a group of beleaguered Umbrella mercenaries, who may or may not be aware of the horrible things their employers are up to.
One of the biggest complaints lodged at RE3make is that it cuts out a lot of content from the original, particularly three of the original’s major locations – the clock tower, the park, and the disposal plant. We do technically get to see the exterior of the clock tower in the remake, as there is a boss fight in the square right outside, but we never set foot in the building. The park and the facility, on the other hand, are entirely absent and never even mentioned. It really was a disappointment to learn that these three places don’t show up, as they were a fairly important part of what made the original RE3 feel unique. The park wasn’t my favorite area in the original, but it was a cool looking environment of a kind that we really don’t see much of in other Resident Evil games. The disposal plant similarly hadn’t blown me away, but its grimy and industrial feel set it apart from the sterile labs that typically serve as the final locations in Resident Evil games. The clock tower, though, had been a definite highlight of the original, a sort of mini Spencer Mansion with elegant architecture, interesting puzzles, and the stress of being hunted by Nemesis. While these three areas could be cut without completely changing the trajectory of the story, as evidenced by RE3make doing just that, I still feel the loss of them. Especially as RE3 was already known as being the shortest of the original three Resident Evil games.
Even Raccoon City’s streets, while not being cut, are significantly pared down in the remake. By my estimate, such exploration of Raccoon City’s downtown probably took up around 40% (or more) of the original’s run time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it only made up a quarter of the remake at most (and very likely less). Exploring the city and all of its various nooks and crannies was one of my favorite parts of the original game and probably one of its most iconic elements, outside of Nemesis himself. The labyrinthine alleys and pre-rendered storefronts and apartment buildings granted Raccoon City such a lived-in and unique feel in the original RE3, while the Raccoon City of RE3make felt more conventional and generic by comparison. Yet despite all of that I actually quite enjoyed the street sections of RE3make. Their relative compactness lent itself well toward scratching that usual ‘find a key item here, bring it elsewhere’ survival horror itch without feeling dragged out, and the design of their layout really helps to facilitate that style of gameplay. On top of that, the street areas look quite stunning visually with the contrast between the darkness of the night sky and the various sources of light (fires, neon signs, etc.) scattered about.
While there were multiple locations from the original that were either dropped or noticeably narrowed in scope, there are other existing settings that were actually expanded and new ones that were added. The hospital in particular grew from essentially a short detour in the original RE3 to a full-fledged area in its own right and was one of my favorite parts of the remake. It doesn’t quite match the chronic care center from Resident Evil Requiem, but it still feels more fleshed out and ripe for exploration than before. The RPD headquarters has also been expanded compared to the original RE3, with more areas of the building available to investigate and more puzzles to solve. The developers do more as well to connect events in the RPD to what occurs in RE2make, explaining both the hole blown in the wall of the shower room and the cause of Marvin’s infection. (Additionally, the original RE3 reused assets from RE2’s RPD headquarters in order to save time, so it is kind of fun to see RE3make do the same with RE2make.) The power substation is notably larger, too, although I’m less of a fan of the new version than I am of the hospital and RPD. The substation in the original was pretty much just a couple of rooms containing a puzzle and a zombie ambush. In RE3make, it is turned into a labyrinth crawling with the large flea-like Drain Deimos, and I found it more of a chore to traverse than an improvement.
I wasn’t a huge fan of one of the new areas, the NEST 2, either. This was meant as a new final area for the game, a replacement for the cut disposal plant. While it wasn’t terrible – in fact, it was quite fun at times – it is yet another high-tech laboratory in a series that seems to end so often in a high-tech laboratory. Which is a shame, given that the original RE3 had at least tried to do something different with its final area. Not only that, but the NEST 2 is aesthetically very similar to the NEST, the lab that served as the endpoint for the immediately preceding game, RE2make (to the point that it was likely created as a means to reuse assets), while also being significantly shorter. I’m a bit more positive about the added sewer section. The sewers in RE2make were my least favorite area of that game by a large margin, so I was pleased to find that the new sewer area in RE3make is significantly less of a slog. It isn’t really anything to write home about, but it had a creepy enough atmosphere to keep me engaged. There are a few other smaller areas that are new, like Jill’s apartment and the Kite Bros railway offices, and I quite like how they help enhance the city’s character.
So, yes, there is a lot of content from the original RE3 that is missing from RE3make. Some of that is counteracted by the addition of new areas and the expansion of some of the remaining existing ones, but not quite enough to overcome this issue. At least the areas on the whole do tend to be fun and look great too.
The game’s characters are something more of a bright spot. I do think Jill’s new look is a bit more generic than before, but her outfit is at least more practical and I like her redesign overall. She does come across as more snarky than in the original game, which took me a while to come around on, and her now frequent swearing got old quite quick (a problem with most characters in the remake), but on the whole they do a pretty good job of making her likeable and believable as a seasoned zombie fighter. I especially like how the remake starts the player off in Jill’s apartment, giving us a better glimpse into her normal life as well as setting up a subplot based around her PTSD from the Spencer Mansion incident. Unfortunately that subplot doesn’t really end up going anywhere, but it does at least acknowledge how going through something like that would mess a person up.
Meanwhile, RE3make’s Carlos is an improvement over the original in almost every way. Gone is the exaggerated and inconsistent accent, here to stay is a glorious new hairstyle. Visually he is a lot more distinctive and recognizable than before. By toning down his arrogance and flirtatiousness a tad the developers were able to make him feel more grounded and yet he still retains his charisma and charm. Because of this, he and Jill end up having surprisingly strong chemistry throughout the game and I fully believe in the trust they have in each other by the end. I also appreciated the way his screen time was expanded in the remake, giving him Jill’s RPD section from the original while significantly expanding the hospital sequence. It does wonders for giving his arc – coming to realize just how horrible his employers truly are – space to breathe and to feel natural. Honestly, I love this version of Carlos and would like to see him show up again in a future game.
The supporting cast fare quite well in the remake as well. Mikhail is as great as always, maybe even more so as he has a little more screen time to make his sacrifice have more of an impact. Nikolai is still as slimy and reprehensible as ever, and he also benefits from showing up in more scenes than he did in the original game to drive home his selfish motivations. I’m a little more conflicted about Brad. I get the impulse to make him less fearful and give him more of a heroic end to counteract the perception from both RE1/REmake and the original RE3 that he is a coward, but changing it such that he is killed by a random zombie rather than Nemesis hurts the latter. (More on that later.) Overall, though, RE3make actually feels to me like it does a better job with its characters than the original RE3 did, something that I wasn’t expecting.
Something I’m similarly positive about is the gameplay. RE3make naturally draws heavily from RE2make when it comes to the game’s basic mechanics; the over-the-shoulder camera, the aiming and firing controls, the inventory design, much of it feels nearly identical to RE2make in that regard. As I mentioned in my review of the original RE3, that game was known for being more action-oriented than its two predecessors. Enemies were more numerous, environmental hazards could be used to Jill’s advantage in combat, and Jill was even given a rudimentary dodge mechanic. Much to my surprise, given its mixed reputation, RE3make manages to parallel this shift very well without going too far in the action direction. Enemy encounters do feel noticeably more frequent than in RE2make, and some of the environmental hazards (like electric generators that can be shot to stun enemies) return. Most impressive, however, is the new dodge mechanic. The dodge in the original RE3 was incredibly clunky and difficult to use, both because of the movement pattern (which would often put Jill in more danger than she was in initially) and because of the unusual decision to have it be activated using the firing button (which would quite frequently result in the dodge being initiated against the player’s will). RE3make’s dodge is comparatively simple, a quick juke in Jill’s direction of movement, but it feels so much better to use and is made significantly more useful by having its own dedicated button. The combination of this dodge with RE2make’s general mechanics creates an incredibly satisfying and addicting gameplay loop that made it hard to put down. I will still bemoan the loss of the ‘live selection’ choice mechanic, though, as it was one of the things that helped give RE3 its unique identity.
The strength of RE3make’s gameplay is further enhanced by a solid selection of enemies to fight. The most common type, of course, is the standard zombie. They are more aggressive than they were in RE2make (likely to account for Jill’s ability to dodge their lunges now) but otherwise are largely the same as they were in that game. I say ‘largely’ because they do sometimes feel a bit…off, somehow. Part of it is the reduction of RE2make’s gore system, which makes hitting the zombies in RE3make somewhat less satisfying, but they also kind of feel less lifelike at times. (If that makes sense for undead creatures.) I’m also a little disappointed about how frequently they reuse the exact same zombie models from RE2make. Still, though, the zombies serve their purpose well and even have two entirely new and much more challenging variants. The first of those variants are the NE-alpha parasite zombies, zombies whose heads have been encased in an armored parasite by Nemesis. The parasite can lash out with a ranged tentacle attack, resulting in combat with them becoming quite hazardous even if you keep your distance, while also protecting its weak point on the zombie’s head with its remaining stubby limbs. While not necessarily revolutionary, these creatures do provide a good mid-game challenge and are creepy to boot. Even more disturbing, though, are the second zombie variant introduced by the game – Pale Heads. Covered from head to toe in thick white skin, these unsettling monsters are able to regenerate their bodies and health if not damaged fast enough (like a weaker version of the Regeneradores from RE4). I found them to be the most terrifying enemies in the game, even if I did one-shot every single one of them with the copious amount of magnum ammo that I had by the time I arrived at the NEST 2.
As in the original RE3, Hunter Betas (first introduced in the second half of RE1) make a return appearance in the hospital area of the game. I had found these lizard-like monsters to be kind of goofy-looking and out of place in both REmake and the original RE3, but I really like their visual overhaul in RE3make. Especially with regards to their more alien-looking armored heads, which make them feel more like actual Umbrella experiments rather than lizard men that stumbled in from some other sci fi property. The Hunter Betas are definitely the most difficult non-boss enemies in the remake. Fighting them can be incredibly frustrating due to their speed and the reappearance of their one-hit kill attack from REmake; I frequently found myself cheesing their encounters by using grenades to kill them instantly, although even then I still had some troublesome confrontations with them. Hunter Gammas make a return appearance as well, although they look very different from before. They had shown up in the hospital in the original RE3, like their Hunter Beta brethren, but in the remake they appear almost exclusively in the sewers. They are much larger this time around, with a bulbous body shape more akin to a chicken and pale, glistening skin. I didn’t find them particularly difficult to deal with (a few shotgun shots when they open their mouths does the trick), but their gargantuan size and the narrow confines of the sewer corridors make them very intimidating.
While most enemies from the original RE3 ended up returning, there is one notable one that did not – the Gravedigger. I’ve heard many complaints about this, particularly as an example of all the content that was cut in the remake, but I was never a big fan of the Gravedigger in the first place so I didn’t really miss it.
Of course, the most iconic monster from both versions of RE3 is Nemesis himself. The remake gives the aggressive Tyrant a slight visual redesign, and I’m somewhat mixed on the results. The addition of a squashed nose looks kind of goofy, for one thing, and his new outfit appears to me like it consists of strips of garbage bags stapled together. I much prefer his coat from the original, although I don’t think these changes are too detrimental on their own and he otherwise is similar enough to the original version that I don’t care about it too much. There are ultimately bigger and more substantive issues with RE3make’s treatment of Nemesis, to the point where he ended up unfortunately being my biggest disappointment of the game.
The remake really struggles to portray Nemesis as the relentless and terrifying killing machine we are told he is supposed to be. In the original game, this was achieved in several ways. Nemesis doesn’t actually show up until probably around half an hour in, but we hear before that about some strange creature hunting STARS members. This delay in his appearance is great at ratcheting up tension and anticipation in the player, tension that comes to a head when he suddenly shows up outside the RPD and swiftly dispatches Brad. Brad’s death scene in the original RE3 serves as a fantastic introduction to Nemesis and ably illustrates for the player just what monstrous things he is capable of. Furthermore, outside of that moment (and a few key sequences in the clock tower and disposal facility) Nemesis’s appearances manage to largely feel unscripted. Whether they actually are unscripted or not – there seems to be conflicting information about that – doesn’t ultimately even matter, as the game is able to at the very least maintain the illusion that they are. While Nemesis is hunting Jill through the city, he doesn’t trigger a cutscene every time he catches sight of her. You’ll just hear a door slam open behind you, or you’ll turn a corner and he’ll be right there and immediately charge. Sometimes you’ll walk through an area and he won’t be around, and then you come back a few minutes later and he’s waiting for you. Or sometimes you’ll rush through a door into a building and lose him, while other times he’ll follow in after you. He feels so unpredictable, as though he could show up anywhere at any time. It doesn’t hurt either that he is incredibly hard to knock down, making the question of whether to engage him (and potentially get a cool item out of the deal) or flee a weighty decision.
RE3make’s Nemesis, on the other hand, takes pretty much the opposite tack on most of these points. His first appearance, smashing through the wall of Jill’s apartment in the intro sequence, is certainly a shocking and cool moment, but there is little build-up to it. Now, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing in its own right if the game was able to find other methods to make him feel like an actual threat. It fails to really do that, however. So many of his appearances throughout the rest of the game fall into one of three categories – on-rails chase sequences through narrow passageways, button-mashing QTE events, or standard boss fights. He just feels so disappointingly scripted and underutilized compared to his original counterpart (and, for that matter, Mr. X from the immediately preceding remake). And beyond that, there are just so many ways the game undermines his scare factor. There are multiple cutscenes where he catches Jill…and then just doesn’t kill her and gives her a clear opening to escape. In fact, he doesn’t even kill a named character until near the very end of the game, and that person was already badly injured. For a monster whose sole purpose is to hunt and kill people who are a threat to Umbrella, that’s kind of odd. Practically every sequence with Nemesis ends with him getting blown up, and everyone who meets him seems to shout expletives in his face. Even during the one segment where he doesn’t appear overly scripted – the sequence where he hunts Jill on her way back through the city toward the subway, one of the only Nemesis segments I unambiguously loved in the remake – he can be quickly knocked out for several minutes with a single grenade.
And then, of course, there’s his dog form. One of the cool things about how Nemesis was used in the original is the way he progressively deteriorates over the course of the game while still retaining his iconic humanoid form, making his final transformation into a hideous blob right before the final boss fight a bit of a shocking moment. The remake accelerates things too fast, choosing to have Nemesis lose his humanoid form roughly halfway through the campaign and spend most of the second half in a vaguely dog-like shape. In addition to this form feeling a lot more generic to me, its more animalistic behavior robs Nemesis of one of the defining traits that set him apart from the series’ other bioweapons up to that point – his intelligence. It reduces the impact of the character just when it should be ramping him up for the climax. It doesn’t help that the two boss fights against his dog form are slogs that seem to eat up an absurd amount of ammo. (I will say, though, that I was fine with Nemesis’s final form in the remake and enjoyed the final boss fight.)
Despite all the negative reviews I’d seen for Resident Evil 3 Remake before jumping in, I was ultimately pleasantly surprised. On its own, it’s a genuinely fun game with addicting gameplay, cool and challenging enemies, and great characters (especially Carlos). Unfortunately, as a remake of a game I played only months ago and had fallen in love with, it fell flat in a few key aspects. The cut content issue is somewhat overblown, as the remake does add new areas and expands others, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed by the lack of the clock tower and park. Meanwhile, Nemesis – the monster the original game was named after – is an underused shadow of his former self, stuck in highly scripted sequences and losing his iconic look only a few hours into the experience. The bones of the original game are there, and had I played the remake first I might not have had as many issues with it. As I cannot easily separate my feelings on the remake as a game vs. the remake as a remake, however, this game ends up falling in the lower tier of Resident Evil for me. That said, though, even ‘lower tier’ Resident Evil is frequently a very fun time, and I would definitely not say ‘no’ to replaying this one in the future.
Survival horror and adjacent games I hope to cover (in no particular order) – Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil (OG), Resident Evil 2 (OG), Resident Evil 4 Remake, Resident Evil Revelations, Resident Evil Revelations 2, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Resident Evil: Village, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Amnesia: Rebirth, Amnesia: The Bunker, Tormented Souls, Alien Isolation, Yomawari: Midnight Shadows, The Evil Within, The Evil Within 2, Alisa, Dead Space 2, Alone in the Dark 2, Alone in the Dark 3, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, Alone in the Dark (2024), Curse: Eye of Isis, Dino Crisis, Dino Crisis 2, Darkwood, ObsCure, Cold Fear, Lempo, Stasis, Stasis Bone Totem, System Shock 1 and 2, Metro 2033, Look Outside, Fear the Spotlight, Heartworm, Little Goody Two-Shoes, SOMA, Empty Shell, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Clock Tower: Rewind, White Day: A Labyrinth Called School, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Sorry We’re Closed, Fragile Reflection, Bioshock 1, Bioshock 2, You Will Die Here Tonight, My Friendly Neighborhood, Conscript, The Callisto Protocol, Penumbra: Overture, Penumbra: Black Plague, Penumbra: Requiem, Lamentum, Outlast, Outlast 2, Carnival Massacre, Late Homework, Routine, Alan Wake 2, White Night, Onimusha, Onimusha 2, Heavy Metal Death Can, Remothered: Tormented Fathers, Remothered: Broken Porcelain
My Current Survival Horror Ranking:
- Resident Evil Remake (9.5/10)
- Silent Hill 2 Remake (9.5/10)
- Signalis (9/10)
- Dead Space (2008) (9/10)
- Resident Evil Requiem (9/10)
- Cronos: The New Dawn (9/10)
- Resident Evil 2 Remake (9/10)
- Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (8.5/10)
- Crow Country (8.5/10)
- Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake (8.5/10)
- Subversive Memories (8/10)
- Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (8/10)
- Silent Hill 4: The Room (8/10)
- Silent Hill f (8/10)
- Resident Evil 3 Remake (7.5/10)
- Resident Evil 4 (7/10)
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent (7/10)
- Alone in the Dark (1992) (7/10)
Up Next: Resident Evil 7
Header image courtesy of Video Games Chronicle.
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