Official ‘Resident Evil 2’ Remake Kills This Amazing Fan Project

Last week Capcom finally announced that it's remaking the PlayStation classic horror game Resident Evil 2. It's great news fans of the series have been waiting to hear for years, but there is a downside: an impressive, unofficial remake of Resident Evil 2 that a group of fans were putting together is now canceled.

The group of amatuer developers who go by the name Invader Games has been working on Resident Evil 2 Reborn since last year. Much like the official Capcom remake, it aimed to recreate the original game with improved graphics and gameplay by using the modern Unreal Engine 4. It looked pretty damn great.

"After the official announcement of the Resident Evil 2 remake by Capcom, we officialise [sic] the end of the work on Resident Evil 2 Reborn," the developer said in a post to its Facebook page. "Contrary to what might be thought, this is wonderful news for us and, as fans, we're so happy that Capcom has decided to take the lead of the project and to develop the remake awaited for years by everybody (nobody could bring back to life the masterpiece of 1998 better than the creators themselves)."

This kind of thing happens a lot. Fans try to remake their favorite games with modern technology, until the owner of the intellectual property comes along and shuts them down, just in case they'd like to make a similar remake in the future. Chrono Resurrection, a remake of the classic Japanese role-playing game Chrono Trigger, is the most tragic example that comes to mind.

It's a little less depressing in this instance first because Capcom is actually remaking Resident Evil 2, not just protecting the option to do so in the future. It also it sounds like Invader Games hasn't been completely sidelined.

"Capcom called us up in advance of the announcement and asked us if we would mind stopping the project as they had longer term plans for a Resident Evil 2 remake," Invader Games said. "They have invited us to a meeting to discuss further ideas."

It's not clear if this means Invader Games will be advising Capcom at any official capacity, but at least it sounds like all that good work won't go to waste.