At last Thursday’s PlayStation Showcase, Sony debuted their latest “Play Has No Limits” ad. During the commercial, a city-wide chess match plays out between competing factions clad in white and black. The backdrop for the game is a city littered with allusions to popular game series. While many IPs are represented, fans have taken particular note of a symbol that appears in the ad for a few seconds, speculating that it suggests a likely-in-development remake of Resident Evil 4 is closer to release than thought.
At 1:33, the insignia for RE4’s Los Iluminados, a paramilitary pagan cult, appears on a door frame. The group is the antagonistic force in the original game, which was released on GameCube in 2005. Leon S. Kennedy returns from Resident Evil 2 as a special agent sent to rescue the president’s daughter from the cult’s clutches.
The insignia is mirrored by a skull icon that alludes to…well, probably nothing – there’s a lot of skulls in video games. Other allusions we noticed, however, include a God of War painting at 0:24, iconic silhouettes of Dragon Quest characters at 0:32, an Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves mural at 0:33, graffitied Pac-Man ghosts at 0:40, a Sly Cooper logo at 0:58, and a statue of Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn at 2:21. Others have noticed nods to Final Fantasy 7, Crash Bandicoot, Sonic the Hedgehog, and more.
Active IP and Sony exclusives seem to be featured in the cityscape more than others, but fans suspect that since the logo was pulled specifically from the next game in the series, order that the technically unannounced remake is close at hand.
Capcom’s previous remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 have received critical acclaim and were well received by fans. The latest franchise entry, Resident Evil Village, was released in May. We Got This Covered gave the title 4.5 stars for its solid pacing and rapturous final act.