Resident Evil 4 Nearly Included The Iconic Tyrant Villain
Although any year of gaming is packed with hotly anticipated releases, 2023 is looking like it'll offer a bumper crop. Alongside The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom, we've got the likes of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and the Resident Evil 4 remake.
Horror hounds rejoice, as we'll revisit rural Spain and take on the Las Plagas with a spruced-up Leon S. Kennedy. Now though, gaming purists have found a cut Resident Evil plotline that never came to be.
Was The Tyrant Supposed To Be In Resident Evil 4?
There are some truly iconic Resident Evil enemies from over the years, and even if Albert Wesker, Nemesis, and (now) Lady Dimitrescu stand out more than most, let's spare a thought for the standard Tyrant.
Debuting in 1996's Resident Evil and returning for a much larger role in Resident Evil 2, the various Tyrant Series monsters are remembered best for the T-00 (Mr. X) that stalked Claire Redfield and Leon around the Racoon City Police Department.
Over on Twitter, user @emoose claims leftover data from the HD version of 2002's GameCube REmake means the OG Tyrant was supposed to appear in Resident Evil 4's own HD version that came to PC in 2014. Better yet, there are animations and even AI.
Things get a little complicated because the code being referred to is from 2014, while the REmake's HD version landed in 2015. If you want to put the Tyrant back in your RE4, emoose has a guide on how to do it, here.
Will The Tyrant Appear In 2023's Resident Evil 4?
It's unclear what all of this means, but there's every chance Capcom planned to have a special mode where enemies were replaced with souped-up Tyrants for a post-credit challenge if you wanted to jump back in.
The Tyrant code has been known about for a while, we just didn't realise it was advanced as it is. Following these latest revelations, fans are obviously going to be asking whether the upcoming RE4 remake will add the Tyrant.
Much like the RE2 and RE3 remakes, we're told Capcom's latest refresh will do much more than just upgrade some graphics. Even if we're not expecting the Tyrant to suddenly become a big part of the story, we could finally learn why it was here in the first place.
At least we know the RE4 remake will be scarier and include more Ada Wong, which sounds like a win to us. If some sort of Tyrant wants to muscle into the story, we wouldn't complain, either.