A worthy indie tribute to the original Resident Evil 2, Daymare 1998 excellently recaptures the atmosphere that made Raccoon City so unsettling.
Much as its name suggests, Daymare 1998 is a love letter to the golden age of the survival horror genre, blending retro gameplay and plot elements with modern design sensibilities and a few clever twists. Though it was made on an indie budget by a handful of developers at Invader Studios, this game is entirely comparable in terms of content and atmosphere to its greatest source of inspiration, the original release of Resident Evil 2, all while blowing its antecedent’s visuals and clunky controls out of the water. It does stumble in places where it tries to strike out on its own and leaves something to be desired in terms of polish, but it’s hard to not enjoy Daymare 1998 for its shameless camp and back-to-basics approach to horror, which contribute more to its nostalgic tone more than any era-appropriate reference ever could.
Some players would be surprised to learn that Daymare 1998 is Invader Studios’ first indie effort, and a greater number would be even more taken aback to learn that the title originally began life in 2015 as the fan remake of Resident Evil 2 - the project that spurred Capcom to begin development on its own AAA remake of the original, which released this year to critical acclaim. This did result in Invader giving up on its more direct recreation of Resident Evil 2, but it also gave the small studio the opportunity to travel to Capcom’s Japan headquarters and consult with veteran series developers. When looking at the finished state of each game, it’s hard to argue that both products didn’t come out stronger on the other end for it.
Despite this change, there’s no mistaking that Daymare 1998 leans heavily into its root inspiration, almost playing like a Resident Evil 1.5 complement to this year’s Resident Evil 2. Riffing on Resident Evil 2’s dual protagonists of rookie cop Leon Kennedy and civilian Claire Redfield, this new take on the genre sees players control three characters across the course of the plot. Liev and Raven, operatives of the nefarious Hexacore company’s H.A.D.E.S. paramilitary outfit (the game’s answers to Resident Evil’s Umbrella Corporation and S.T.A.R.S. task force), are a stone-cold killer and deeply scarred pilot, respectively. Samuel, on the other hand, is a mentally tortured park ranger caught in the crossfire of a massive conspiracy that’s brought chaos and countless undead to his doorstep. Plot-wise, Daymare 1998 plays out in a fairly straightforward manner, but it has an uncanny ability to surprise players just when they begin to think that it’s conforming to their expectations.
While Daymare 1998’s story fares best when it subverts long-held genre tropes, that approach is hit-and-miss for its characters. At the outset, players begin their journey through a zombie outbreak as Liev. The exact opposite of the usual survival horror game star, Liev is the type of cold, wise-cracking mercenary who would normally play a villain, and his often vulgar lines are delivered with a Solid Snake-like gruff confidence. Where Liev breaks the mold in interesting ways, Samuel is just… weird. His wife is killed at the outset of the incident that infests the small Pacific Northwest town of Keen Sight with zombies, and he’s hellbent on exacting revenge on the man responsible. Unfortunately, the poor quality of his lines and his voice actor’s incredibly underwhelming performance undermine the seriousness of everything he says and does. Meanwhile, Raven is more of the semi-blank slate to which players will be more accustomed, and his wet blanket personality adds little besides an excuse to explore additional locales.
Luckily, setting and atmosphere are consistently Daymare 1998’s strong suit, doing most of the legwork to build the game’s tension and identity. At first glance, it’s got drop-dead gorgeous visuals for an indie of its scale, with labyrinthine hospitals, sewers, suburbs, and secret laboratories all excellently realized in Unreal Engine 4. Although the primary setting of Keen Sight never quite comes together to feel like a real town, each individual location has a way of unsettling players even as they tread through their believable corridors for the third or fourth time, with unpredictable encounters and a truly terrifying soundtrack always keeping them on their toes. There are small nods to late ’90s culture and outright references to Resident Evil here and there, but it’s the largely bygone sense of environmental unfamiliarity and Lynchian dread that will make even seasoned players realize that they’re on the edge of their seats from time to time.
As for gameplay, there’s not a whole lot to say; Daymare 1998 plays much like this year’s revisitation of Resident Evil 2, dropping the tank controls and fixed camera angles in favor of a tight third-person perspective and streamlined gameplay across the board. After a few potentially frustrating opening hours featuring some highly unreliable autosaves, a save system resembling early Resident Evil’s comes into play, complete with a store of sorts and item storage system. This is joined by a serviceable inventory management and crafting system, which follow players wherever they go in the form of their wrist-mounted D.I.D., a fairly immersive, low-tech menu that also houses important player status information and files. Aside from a few annoying bugs related to collisions and some localization errors, Daymare 1998’s greatest flaw is by far its gunplay, with aiming and shooting at enemies feeling horrendously inconsistent and unfair.
All things considered, Daymare 1998 is at once a breath of fresh air and a spiritually genuine revisitation of survival horror’s heyday, so it’s no stretch to say that players new and old will find something to enjoy here. It’s certainly not perfect and there’s no denying that the official Resident Evil 2 remake blows it out of the water in almost every conceivable way, but Daymare 1998 provides a cheaper, alternate take on what it really felt like to sit down and explore an unsettling slice of a zombie outbreak for the first time back in the PSX era, all while wrapping that experience up in a more easily digestible package for the modern gamer.
Next: Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered Review
Daymare 1998 is now available on PC, and it will release on PS4 and Xbox One in 2019. Screen Rant was provided a PC code for this review.
