Enter the Central Public Hall, which was built in 1918
and is an important cultural centre for the city, and you’ll
find polished floors, towering pillars, ornate detailing, and
a vast church-like ceiling – the same kind of grand
architecture Leon and Claire see when they escape the
zombie-ravaged streets of Raccoon City and enter the
RPD’s impressive main hall. All that’s missing are the
blood splatters and groans of distant zombies.
Capcom’s long-awaited Resident Evil 2 remake is a
masterclass in updating an old game for a new audience.
It retains the spirit of the PlayStation original, released in
1998, but uses modern technology to make it feel
genuinely new and exciting. An important part of the
remake’ssuccessisthenewlyrealisedRPDbuilding–
asettingthat’sjustrecognisableenoughtofeellikegovernment building police departments usually operate
out of – it might not have been quite so idiosyncratic
and memorable. I mean, how many police stations do
you know with a giant marble statue of a goddess behind
the reception desk?
This statue is something Kadoi felt was important to
bring back, as well as the eerie stuffed animals found in
the office of the corrupt Chief Irons. The statue is
noticeably bigger in the remake, dramatically lit by
moonlight streaming through glass windows in the
ceiling. “I wanted to carry the statue and the taxidermy
animals over to the new police station,” he says. “But at
the same time I wanted to make changes that would make
thegameplaymorefun,andmake the station feel more
likeabelievablespace.”FAR LEFT: The
flames from the
helicopter block off
part of the station.
LEFT: The light of the
vending machine
makes for an
atmospheric scene.RIGHT: Statues are a
remnant from the
station’s previous life
as a museum.BeFoReanDaFteRHowtheRPD main hall has evolved
19981998199819982019201920192019the same place, but much more
evocative and atmospheric.
“Our goal was retaining the feel of
the original building, but also to
increase the sense of scale and
realism,” says Resident Evil 2 remake
director Kazunori Kadoi. “I was
confident players would respond
well to this, and I didn’t feel any
particular pressure to live up to the
original game.”
Although the original main hall
was a flat pre-rendered image, and
the new one is fully rendered in 3D,
they both create the same feeling of
dread and mystery – that this might
not be the safe haven the characters
were expecting after all.
Kadoi explains that the
architecture of the station, both in
the original and the remake, was
inspired by the Gothic revival style.
Popularised in the west in the 1700s,
this architectural movement was an
attempt to revive medieval Gothic
architecture – particularly in
religious buildings. And there’s a
definite cathedral-like feel to the
RPD main hall, which could easily
double as a place of worship if you
insertedafewrowsofpews.CultureShoCk
There’s also an uncanny quality to
the station that I think comes from
Raccoon City, an American city, being
viewed through a Japanese lens. If
the station had been designed by a
western studio – one that is perhaps
more familiar with the kind of blandRaccoonCityPolice Department
FEaturE