Capcom just released the demo for its Resident Evil 4 remake, after promising it was coming back in February. It's called the Chainsaw Demo, which is a great name for a demo, and is presumably named in honour of the burlap bag-wearing baddie who attacks ol' mate Leon with a chainsaw.
As it should, the Chainsaw Demo has that infamous early encounter as its centrepiece. The roughly one hour demo starts at the game's very beginning and runs until that village hoedown with all the ganados out to get Leon on a pithcfork. I played for a bit, got absolutely ripped up by the aforementioned burlap boy, and closed the game.
I can confirm that it definitely looks the part, and that these very early hours of the game offer no huge deviations from the original as far as moment-to-moment occurrences go. Our preview treads the same ground and has a lot more to say in that regard. I'm among the seemingly very few with no great affection for Resident Evil 4; it's been over 10 years since I last played it, but it feels like a modern horror game now, just like the Resident Evil 2 and 3's remakes did.
Graphics options are abundant, and I experienced no hiccups playing the demo. Here are the noteworthy options:
- 120fps is supported
- FSR is supported
- Mesh, rain, shadow quality can be toggled
- Graphic dismemberment can be turned off and on
- The amount of persistent corpses can be adjusted
- Motion blur can be turned off
- Lens flare can be turned off
The demo is available forever, so there's no rush to play it before Resident Evil 4 releases (again) on March 24. It also notably has no time limit: it's only a tiny slice of the game, but you can play it as much as you want.
