Resident Evil 4 Remake is best played in ‘easy mode’

OPINION: There’s a headline I never thought I’d write. I’ve been playing Resident Evil 4 Remake for about a week now and there’s one thing that I’ve already come to recognise – the whole experience is so much more enjoyable if you play on the easier ‘Assisted’ mode.

Before the ‘Git gud scrub’ crew come out in their droves to shoot me down, I want to caveat that I completely understand how my point initially sounds. After all, under the right circumstances, I absolutely love games that can give me a run for my money.

Even though it took me an absurdly long time to take down the first major boss in Elden Ring, I appreciated that the whole thing felt like a complex puzzle that could be overcome when tackled from the right angle. Through sheer determination (and a bit of level grinding), any task in Elden Ring can be overcome and when you finally conquer the next big bad, there are few feelings in gaming quite like it.

With Resident Evil 4 however, I’d argue that the game is already difficult enough thanks to its horror setting. At any point during the game’s many hectic fight scenes, you can get surrounded pretty quickly if you’re not paying close attention to what’s going on around you.

The game is designed to keep you on edge at all times, which in turn affects your ability to fight back as it becomes harder to line up your shots correctly, particularly when you know that one missed bullet could lead you to being backed into a wall with no means of escape.

I ran into this exact issue when starting the game on ‘Standard’ mode, eventually being overwhelmed at the first village fight as I tried to avoid getting boxed in whilst also keeping an eye out for resources and any axes being thrown at my head. It was all just too much.

After that experience, I had the option to change the difficulty setting to ‘Assisted’ and immediately, everything felt far more enjoyable. The horror of the scene was still intact but this time there wasn’t an added layer of frustration with failing to keep up with the game.

Even now, multiple hours into my ‘Assisted’ run, the game’s horror hasn’t let up and even when set at this mode, it’s still possible to get blindsided by an enemy who’s lurking in the shadows, but this way it feels like you actually have a chance to fight back, and when you only have a limited amount of time in the working day to actually play the latest video games, that feeling of progression is invaluable.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me on this point, but it’s been interesting to see how in easing up on my own stigmas about playing a game in ‘easy mode’, I’ve actually found a far more enjoyable experience overall – and shouldn’t that be the point?