The hidden difficulty modes in the Resident Evil 3 remake do more than just make the game harder: They make it a better survival horror game. Nightmare and Inferno mode up the damage dealt and taken by Resident Evil 3's enemies, but they also change up certain enemy encounters, making Raccoon City a more intimidating environment and making careful resource management more crucial.
Resident Evil 3 remake includes three difficulties to start: Assisted, Standard, and Hardcore. Assisted grants aim assist, extra inventory space, an Assault Rifle, and other bonuses that make the game much easier, while Hardcore makes enemies stronger and items more scarce. Beating the game on Hardcore mode unlocks RE3's Nightmare difficulty, which in turn unlocks Inferno once completed. These both make enemies tougher and more dangerous, and they also include a few meaningful surprises.
The Resident Evil 3 remake drew criticism for its short length and linearity, so anything that adds replay value is welcome, and these extra difficulties do just that. Here's why playing Resident Evil 3 on Nightmare difficulty makes it feel truly scarier.
Nightmare mode's in-game description says enemies behave more aggressively, have stronger attacks, and appear in alternate locations. This amounts to a playthrough that's significantly different from previous ones. Normal zombies present much more danger than in other modes, rushing to grapple protagonists Jill and Carlos and dealing more damage per bite. Players need to be more strategic about how they approach every situation and carefully use anything at their disposal to gain an advantage. An encounter with just two zombies, for example, can quickly turn deadly, as they give the player less time to take them down before they're on top of Jill. Enemies take more damage to defeat, too, which makes these moments even more nerve-wracking, since it means using ammo that could be useful on later enemies.
But what really makes Nightmare mode - and, by extension, Inferno mode - special is the rearranged enemy and item locations. By the time players try Nightmare, they've likely already replayed Resident Evil 3's story at least twice. Secondary playthroughs on the base difficulties allow players to feel like they've mastered the game's environments, which leads to a sense of comfort and a lack of fear. Nightmare mode ensures players no longer feel comfortable, as they have to search different areas for useful items and don't know exactly what's waiting behind any given doorway. For example, a quick fight through the first room in RE3's Carlos hospital section now includes an unexpected and dangerous Licker enemy, complicating the encounter.
The Resident Evil 3 remake changed many elements of the original, removing certain areas and the "live selections" feature that enabled players to change story events in each playthrough. This hampered replayability, since every remake playthrough is mostly the same, but Nightmare mode introduces a bit of mystery back into secondary runs. Unfortunately, players will still have to take on same boss fights each time, so only the open sections of the game feel meaningfully changed. The final boss fight does feature a new attack pattern that requires skilled dodging to avoid certain death, but this difficulty spike feels more unfair than anything, since the other bosses don't have any big changes. Still, overall, Nightmare mode adds needed replay value to the remake, especially when combined with Resident Evil 3's awesome Item Shop bonuses. But more importantly, Nightmare's more creative encounters, challenging enemies, and emphasized inventory management add new tension to RE3's action-y gameplay, making it feel more faithful to Resident Evil's survival horror roots.
Resident Evil 3 released for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on April 3, 2020.
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