Resident Evil 2 is a 2019 survival horror game developed and published by Capcom. A remake of the 1998 game Resident Evil 2, it was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in January 2019 and for Amazon Luna, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S in June 2022, with a cloud version for Nintendo Switch released the following November. Versions for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS were released in December 2024, and a version for Nintendo Switch 2 is set to be released in October 2026. The player controls rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy and college student Claire Redfield as they attempt to escape Raccoon City during a viral outbreak that turns ordinary citizens into zombies and other monsters.
Capcom considered remaking Resident Evil 2 following the release of the remake of the first Resident Evil in 2002, but the producer, Shinji Mikami, did not want to divert development from Resident Evil 4 (2005). Capcom announced the Resident Evil 2 remake in 2015 and released the first trailer and gameplay footage at E3 2018. It was built on the RE Engine, which was also used for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
Resident Evil 2 received acclaim for its presentation, gameplay and faithfulness to the original. It won the Golden Joystick Award for Game of the Year and was nominated for the Game Award for Game of the Year. It is the highest-selling Resident Evil game, having sold more than 20 million copies as of September 2026. It was followed by remakes of Resident Evil 3 in 2020 and Resident Evil 4 in 2023.
Gameplay Resident Evil 2 is a survival horror third person shooter game – unlike the remake of the first game, which sought to update and improve the original experience, this remake reimagines the gameplay and story for modern audiences. The game is set in Raccoon City, a fictional mountain city in the Midwest, during a zombie apocalypse. Players choose from one of two characters, Leon S. Kennedy or Claire Redfield. Their choice affects the weapons, areas, items, subplot, supporting characters (Leon has Ada Wong, a mysterious federal agent investigating the Umbrella Corporation, and Claire has Sherry Birkin, the young daughter of an Umbrella executive being pursued by a monster) and the final boss. The player is able to freely explore the environment around them while scavenging for resources such as healing items, ammunition, and key items used to solve puzzles and advance the story. Due to the technical and graphical upgrades offered by the RE Engine, the environment is rendered in full 3D using photorealism, improving its appearance and allowing for the tank controls of the original version to be replaced with a more flexible control scheme similar to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. The player can move in any direction, rotate the camera around their character, alternate between walking and sprinting, and move around while shooting (however, standing still while aiming will tighten the crosshair, improving the accuracy and power of gunshots). Many areas are dark, requiring use of a flashlight to see in and adding an element of horror.
As the player explores, they encounter zombies and other hostile creatures that attack and attempt to kill them. The player is armed with various weapons – both Leon and Claire have their own handguns, their other weapons differ (Leon has a shotgun, magnum, and flamethrower, while Claire has a grenade launcher, submachine gun, and the "Spark Shot" stun gun). Knives and grenades, both regular and stun grenades can be found and used as sub-weapons – if an enemy pins the player, they can use a sub-weapon to push them off and save themselves from taking damage, albeit at the cost of decreased effectiveness. Zombies are much stronger than in the original, able to take more bullets before going down, get back up after being knocked down unless their head was blown off, and chase the player into different rooms. The damage model has been greatly improved, with enemies reacting to damage from gunshots in real-time and capable of having limbs blown off. Taking damage decreases the player's health, shown by a heart rate monitor in the inventory menu. If the player takes too much damage, they will die, forcing the player to restart from their last save point. Health items such as herbs and first aid spray cans can be used to heal.
The player has an inventory with eight slots which they can use to store their items and equipment. The space available can be expanded by finding hip pouches. Items in the inventory can be examined in a 3D model viewer, often used to reveal the purpose of key items, combined with others to produce beneficial items, such as combining gunpowder to create ammunition or herbs to create stronger herbal blends, or discarded if they have served their purpose. Safe rooms cannot be entered by enemies and contain item boxes, which can store spare items to be retrieved later. Safe rooms also contain typewriters, which can be used to save the player's progress – unless playing on Hardcore difficulty, the ink ribbons have been removed, allowing the player to save as much as they want (though the number of saves is still tracked).
The player frequently encounters the Tyrant, a mysterious B.O.W. developed to hunt down and kill survivors. The Tyrant cannot be killed, only momentarily brought down or stunned, and will follow the player throughout the environment except into safe rooms. This forces the player to incorporate stealth tactics to evade him as they search for puzzles and items required to progress. Both protagonists have a section where their supporting partner briefly becomes playable – Ada can use an EMF gun to hack and overload electronic devices, while Sherry can crouch to fit through small gaps and focuses more on stealth. Beating the game unlocks the "2nd Run" for the other protagonist, which remixes item locations and contains the true final boss and ending to the story. The remake adds difficulty modes - Assisted, Standard, and Hardcore - which determine the abundance of items, strength of enemies, and whether the game autosaves or requires ink ribbons to use typewriters.
Both of the bonus modes, "The 4th Survivor" and "The Tofu Survivor", return – the former is unlocked after beating the 2nd Run and follows an Umbrella Security Service mercenary codenamed Hunk as he attempts to go from the lower waterway of the sewers to a rescue helicopter outside the police station while battling through a large gauntlet of enemies. Beating it unlocks "The Tofu Survivor", which replaces Hunk with a block of tofu that only has knives – however, the remake adds characters to this mode, who have a unique item loadout. Completing specific in-game objectives, or "Records", will reward the player with concept art, 3D models of characters and items, or in some cases, special weapons with unlimited ammunition or durability.
The Ghost Survivors "The Ghost Survivors" is a free bonus mode that is available from the beginning, and focuses on a series of "what-if" scenarios – each scenario depicts an alternate timeline where a side character who dies in the main story survives, and the player can control them as they attempt to reach a specific area in a manner similar to "The 4th Survivor" – unlike that mode, however, "The Ghost Survivors" contains special zombie types, zombies with backpacks that can be looted after killing them, and resupply machines from which the player can choose one of three items to take. The modes contain a "Training" difficulty, which gives the player an increased starting inventory and the benefits of Assisted difficulty but does not track the player's completion time.
"No Time to Mourn" features gun shop owner Robert Kendo, who must get from the gun shop to the proposed water purification room in the sewers to reach a rescue helicopter. His mode features poison zombies, who can poison the player with their bite and release a cloud of poison after dying, and zombies wearing propane tanks that can be shot to cause a damaging explosion. "Runaway" features Katherine Warren, the mayor's daughter, who must get from the director's room of the orphanage to the jail in the police station to save her boyfriend Ben, another side character who dies in the main story. Her mode features "Pale Heads", which are faster than regular zombies and have regenerative abilities. "Forgotten Soldier" features Ghost, a special ops agent like Hunk, who must get to the cable car of the laboratory to escape before the self-destruct sequence activates. His mode features the Tyrant and zombies wearing bulletproof armor. "No Way Out", unlocked by clearing the main story, features Sheriff Daniel Cortini. Cortini is the only character who has different gameplay from the others – here, he must hold out in the gas station against waves of zombies breaking in and kill 100 (70 in Training) to be rescued by Leon and complete the scenario. His mode features every special zombie type seen in the previous modes.
"The Ghost Survivors" has its own set of Records separate from the main story, which unlock cosmetic hats the player can wear. While these have no effect on gameplay, one, the cat ears, grants infinite ammo.
Synopsis Plot On the night of September 29, 1998 two months after the events of the Spencer Mansion Incident, rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy makes his way toward Raccoon City to start his first shift at the Raccoon City Police Department. At a gas station on the city outskirts, he meets Claire Redfield who is looking for her brother, Chris Redfield. The gas station is suddenly overrun by zombies, as well as the rest of Raccoon City, after a strain of the T-virus contaminated the city's water supply. The two reach the police station but are forced to separate when a truck crashes and explodes, and later discover the station to be swarming with zombies. Leon meets an infected Lieutenant Marvin Branagh, who reveals a secret passage leading out of the station before later succumbing to his bite. The player character eventually reaches the underground passage, where they are attacked by a mutated William Birkin, Umbrella's leading scientist, whom they fight off before escaping.
In the parking garage, Leon is attacked by zombie dogs, but is saved by Ada Wong. Ada claims to be an FBI agent sent to retrieve an incriminating sample of the G-virus, the virus responsible for Birkin's mutation, which he developed with his wife and coworker Annette. Meanwhile, Claire finds paperwork revealing her brother had left Raccoon City weeks prior to investigate Umbrella overseas. She runs into a lost Sherry Birkin, the young daughter of William and Annette, and resolves to protect her.
After investigating Umbrella, journalist Ben Bertolucci is detained in a holding cell by the corrupt police chief and serial killer Brian Irons, who has been covering up Umbrella's activities. Ben tries to convince Leon to release him, but is attacked and killed by the Tyrant, a humanoid bioweapon created and programmed by the Umbrella Corporation to eliminate everyone within the station. Leon and Ada flee and reach Robert Kendo's gun shop, where they find Robert and his infected daughter Emma. Witnessing Robert put down his daughter before committing suicide, Leon decides to help Ada retrieve the G-virus sample to expose Umbrella's corruption. After killing a giant, mutated alligator in the sewers, the two encounter Annette, who shoots Leon in the back before escaping to Umbrella's underground lab, NEST, unwilling to give up the G-virus sample. Leon recovers; he and Ada kiss as they descend into NEST.
Meanwhile, Sherry is abducted by Irons and taken to the Raccoon City Orphanage. William arrives and injects Irons with a "G-embryo", which bursts from Irons' stomach, killing him. He incapacitates Claire and deliberately infects Sherry, confident that her body will accept the G-virus and allow it to replicate.