Resident Evil 4 was perhaps the most anticipated part of the Resident Evil franchise. It expanded upon the concepts that were introduced in its predecessors, while weaving together the plot and content of other spinoff games. However, for such monumental work, Resident Evil 4 is known to be the longest (so far) in terms of development. It started in 1999 and went through a total of 4 iterations, before its release in 2005.
The series begins with Leon Kennedy (one of the survivors of the Racoon City incident and one of the main protagonists of Resident Evil 2), who is now a member of the United States Secret Service. Leon is assigned, upon taking office, the not so enviable task of recovering the President’s Daughter, who has disappeared.
León ends up in Spain, where he discovers “Los Plagas”, a viral disease that is turning the inhabitants of a small remote agricultural town into slaves of an unknown will. They seek to kill him and prevent him from recovering the president’s daughter. Their ultimate goal, since they are controlled by an organization known as ‘Los Illuminados’, is to infect it with ‘Plagas’ and return it to the United States to treat the infection of government officials, and thus obtain an unstoppable power base in the State.
However, Leon ends up rescuing her and manages to eliminate the disease from her bloodstream. The series ends on a good note as they return to the US intact.
The game was hailed as a great cross-genre piece that attracted many new fans to the genre. It was a commercial success and well worth the time to develop.