Eighteen thousand players are shooting, stabbing, and suplexing their way through rural Spain right now. Resident Evil 4’s 2023 remake has climbed to #1 on Steam’s Specials chart and #8 on Top Sellers, driven by a 60% discount that slashes the price to $15.99 — down from $39.99. The numbers tell a clear story: Capcom’s remake is pulling in players at a rate that rivals brand-new releases, three years after launch.

The player count — 18,153 concurrent as of April 3, 2026 — would be respectable for a game in its first month. For a title released in March 2023, it’s a testament to both the discount’s timing and the game’s durability. The all-time peak of 168,191, set during the original launch window, stood as the franchise record until Resident Evil Requiem shattered it with 344,214 concurrent players in February 2026, according to VGChartz. But Requiem had the advantage of novelty. This remake is proving legs.

85,000 Reviews, Two Camps

The Steam review page reads like a split decision on a scorecard. The overall verdict is overwhelming: 96% positive across 85,273 reviews — 82,140 thumbs up, 3,133 down. Metacritic sits at 91. By any quantitative measure, this is one of the best-regarded games of the decade.

But scan the top-voted reviews and a familiar fault line emerges. Veterans of the 2005 original are pushing back against the hype. One player, with 1.9 hours logged on the remake, cut straight to it: “Play the original. The level design, story, and characters are better in the original. This version feels flat.”

Meanwhile, newcomers are treating it like a revelation. A 10.5-hour player called it “uncharted if it was cool and awesome.” Another, at 12 hours, skipped critical analysis entirely: “I didnt know the president equipped his daughter with ballistics.” The reception depends almost entirely on whether you played the source material.

This is the nostalgia tax in action. The 2005 Resident Evil 4 is one of the most influential games ever made — it practically invented the modern third-person shooter. Anyone who experienced that revolution firsthand is comparing the remake to a memory, not a game. The remake can’t replicate the shock of the new, because the new has been standard for two decades. What it can do — and does exceptionally well — is execute on a proven formula with modern production values.

A Clean Bill of Health

The current version of the game also benefits from a course correction Capcom probably wishes it hadn’t needed. In February 2026, the publisher quietly swapped the game’s existing Denuvo anti-piracy protection for a new system called Enigma DRM. Players immediately noticed performance degradation. Digital Foundry’s testing found a 40% deficit in intro cutscene performance, with more modest but measurable hits during gameplay.

Capcom pulled Enigma from the game on March 3, according to IGN. No public statement, no apology — just a silent reversion. The move was celebrated on Reddit, though fans were blunt about the fact it should never have happened in the first place. As Digital Foundry’s Alex Battaglia put it: “Updating years old software with new DRM is just stupid.”

The result is a game that’s finally running clean, at the lowest price it’s been. That combination —加上 10 million copies already sold worldwide by April 2025, per Wikipedia — explains why the charts look the way they do today.

The Verdict at $15.99

If you’ve never played Resident Evil 4 in any form, the remake at $15.99 is an straightforward recommendation. It’s a polished, gorgeous, mechanically excellent survival horror game that earned its 91 Metacritic through craft, not nostalgia.

If you loved the original? The reviews suggest you’ll find things to admire and things to miss. The parrying system, the crafting, the expanded Ashley characterization — these are genuine improvements. The tighter pacing and camp charm of the 2005 version are harder to replicate in a game taking itself more seriously.

But here’s the thing: at $15.99, the risk is minimal. The worst case is you play for two hours, decide the original was better, and refund it on Steam. The best case is you discover a game that — flat or not — has 18,000 people playing it on a random Thursday.

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