The Resident Evil 2 remake has no shortage of hidden secrets and surprises. There’s the more obvious inclusions like the Hunk/Tofu bonus modes along with more interesting finds like the weekly challenges system. However, there’s also one hidden element which developer Capcom likely didn’t count on being discovered.
It turns out Chris Redfield is present in Resident Evil 2, though not in the way you might expect.
Resident Evil 2 Chris Redfield “Cameo”
The Resident Evil modding community recently discovered a Chris Redfield model present in Resident Evil 2’s PC game files. The good news is that, with a little finagling, the Chris Redfield model is fully playable. The bad (for some) news is that the model is based off Chris’s most recent appearance in Resident Evil 7.
For those who don’t know (spoiler warning), Chris Redfield made a brief cameo at the end of Resident Evil 7. Longtime fans were confused not only by his visual redesign but also by his apparent Umbrella Corp. affiliation. In previous games, Chris staunchly opposed Umbrella and its nefarious schemes, making his new affiliation all the more confusing.
Resident Evil 7’s free ‘Not a Hero’ DLC then allowed players to control Chris in his own side adventure. Not a Hero extrapolated a bit more on Chris’s change of heart, but it still left more questions than answers. Resident Evil 7’s Chris appearing in Resident Evil 2 is all the more confusing when you consider the series’ timeline. Canonically, Resident Evil 2 takes place way, way before the events of Resident Evil 7. So why, then is Chris sporting his more updated look?
One theory is that Capcom used the Chris model for testing purposes and just didn’t remove him from the game. This actually makes sense if you enable the Resident Evil 2 Chris model yourself. Rather than have his own dedicated character slot, Chris instead replaces Leon’s Noir costume slot. This leads us to think Capcom didn’t intend to include Chris as a fully fledged character.
Still, if you want to give Chris a whirl yourself, the instructions for enabling him can be found here.