Ranking the Best Resident Evil 4 Remake Enemies

The Resident Evil franchise is well-known for its monsters. From the humble T-Virus-infected zombie to the hulking Mr X, all the way up to Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters, every game in the series has had its share of nightmare-inducing horrors. And while every enemy in the series has done its best to leave a permanent mark on players’ fractured psyches, Resident Evil is at its best when it dives deepest into body horror. And, in my opinion, no game does that better than Resident Evil 4 or its Remake.

Survival Horror is making a resurgence thanks to the success of Resident Evil 4 Remake, and while the hectic gunfights, tense resource management, and overbearing atmosphere certainly help to ratchet up the scares, it’s the game’s horrific creature design that pushes it all up to eleven. Villagers that may start out as unassuming quickly fall apart to reveal the horrors lurking just below their writhing skin. Bodies stretch and mutate, thin worm-like tendrils sprout from faces and eyes, and soon enough, players find themselves swarmed by monsters that would put the creature from The Thing to shame.

They were terrifying in the original, but with the graphical leaps of the past couple of decades and even more disturbed minds behind the project, Resident Evil 4 Remake’s monsters take on a whole new level of horror. And these are the most terrifying of them all.

10. Las Plagas Variants

The Ganado may be the most common enemies in the game, but that doesn’t stop them from being scary. It’s one thing to be swarmed by mindless, weapon-wielding zombified villagers, but it becomes something else entirely when those villagers start sprouting scythe-tipped tentacles and a vicious set of mandibles.

The original game kept players in suspense, only unveiling the horrors that had secretly taken over the bodies of these poor souls after a few hours of play, Resident Evil 4 Remake doesn’t waste any time with the scares – the very first Ganado Leon takes down rises back up as a broken-necked revenant sprouting grotesque flailing tendrils, and is more than happy to get up close and personal.

But he’s only the beginning. As the player progresses, the mutations caused by the Las Plagas infection become more and more pronounced.  From the unpredictable flailing of the Guadaña’s scythes, to the crushing, tooth-lined jaws of the Mandibula, the parasite continues to grow, until finally, at the araña stage, it bursts out of its host as a mass of spider’s legs and tentacles, fully taking control. It’s horrible to think about, and even worse to fight.

9. Del Lago

Those who suffer from thalassophobia may have wanted to put Del Lago further up on this list. Deep water can be terrifying enough as it is, but when you know something is lurking down in those inky depths, it’s enough to turn your blood to ice. And those who have played the original, or tempted fate by shooting at the fish, know there’s something down there.

Too large to ever fully fit on screen, this colossal salamander cuts through the lake’s dark waters like Jaws on steroids. And when all you have to face this creature down is a small motorboat and a handful of harpoons, you’re going to wish you had a bigger boat. While players can’t be knocked out of the motorboat as they could in the original, Del Lago still makes himself known as an imposing threat. This, coupled with the fact that the player’s only means of defending themselves against this monstrosity are the previously mentioned and infuriatingly cumbersome to wield harpoons, means players won’t soon forget their trip across the lake.

8. Brute

One of the few new enemies introduced in RE4 Remake, the Brute certainly makes an impact. This is both figuratively and literally, as it happens, because this imposing fellow is armed with a beast of a sledgehammer capable of one-shotting any player whose attention isn’t 100% focused on their own survival. He may not be too dissimilar from the regular Ganado villagers Leon must face, but he’s as strong as a dozen or more of them put together.

But it’s the Brute’s choice of attire that really helps him stick out from the crowd. This bloodthirsty maniac aims for shock over substance by tearing around wearing a freshly killed bull’s head as a mask. And if that wasn’t unsettling enough, the Brute’s classification as an elite enemy means he can soak up plenty of damage before finally going down. As a result, players will have to spend a lot of time looking at that awful bull’s head and hearing the Brute’s disconcertingly animalistic grunts as he hunts them down. The only plus side is that mask severely impairs his vision, meaning, with a little baiting, he can take out plenty of other enemies for you.

7. Novistador

Insects are creepy. Flying insects are creepier. Flying insects the size of a large dog are downright terrifying. The Novistadors are encountered later on in the game, when things have already gone from bad to worse for Leon and Ashley, and the monsters they face become even more twisted and horrific. By this point, players should have significantly upgraded enough guns to off them with only a few hits, but even so, their twitching design sends shivers down the spine.

What really separates them from the pack, however, is their disturbing ability to turn invisible. With a name that literally translates to “no-sighter” or “unseen”, these insectoid monsters can perfectly camouflage with their environments, the only thing giving them away being the glow of their unsettling green eyes and the constant, deeply unnerving buzzing of their wings. The fact that they typically attack in swarms and tend to lurk in dark, enclosed spaces, only compounds the icky feeling one gets when confronting these oversized bugs.

6. Armadura

Playing as Ashley in RE4 Remake is already tense enough, with the lack of weapons and abyssally dark castle hallways to navigate alone, but it gets all the worse when the seemingly benign ornate suits of armour start coming to life. These are the Armadura, suits of armour animated, via the use of disturbingly flexible tentacles, by fully grown Las Plagas parasites.

In the original game, these enemies merely resembled the suits of armour they possessed and could easily be mistaken for defensive automatons. Not so in the Remake. Now, their horrific nature is on full display, with grotesque tentacles slithering and worming their way out of joints in the suit and bursting forth from the neck, as well as the horrible jerking movements they make as they stumble after Ashley.

Leon may be able to take them out with a few well-placed shots, but not so Ashley. With no way to fight back and only a dim lantern to guide her way, being chased by a whole host of these things in the pitch dark of the castle walls is an intensely stressful and frightening experience. With one hit spelling death, even players who know their way back to Leon’s side will feel the hairs on the back of their necks prick up at the sound of their squeaking joints.

5. Bitores Mendez

Looking like a more human Mr X with his long leather trench coat and hat, Bitores Mendez certainly strikes an imposing figure. And, fantastically, the Remake finally gives him the chance to play as a Tyrant-esque stalker in a climactic chase sequence that never appeared in the original. But while he’s a man no one in their right mind would ever wish to cross, he’s not that terrifying to behold. Not terrifying, that is, until it comes time to face him in a boss fight.

While facing off against him in a steadily burning barn, Bitores Mendez finally unveils the true horror the Las Plagas infection has wrought on his once-human body. Fleshy, spider-leg-like spikes erupt from his back as his spine elongates to sickening proportions. This mutated form is terrifying enough, but when the player inflicts enough damage on him, his spine breaks, his legs detach, and Bitores Mendez starts scuttling around the burning rafters like some twisted spider-human hybrid. Even when the player finally puts him down for good, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that he just might come back for round three.

4. Dr Salvador

Nothing gets the pulse pounding like the sound of a rusty chainsaw.  Leon’s first encounter with this chainsaw-wielding maniac while trying to survive the onslaught in the village has been forever etched into the minds of those who played the original game. The desperation of trying to survive against already overwhelming odds increases a thousand-fold when players catch a glimpse of this bag-headed lunatic, coupled with his nigh unkillable nature and the fact that he can kill Leon in a single, bloody hit, this introduction has solidified Dr Salvador as a true icon of horror.

While always a creepy design, Dr Salvador is somehow even more terrifying in the Remake. Those wild yellow eyes are distinctly non-human and are so much more unsettling than the very human eyes of the original. As are the significantly more blood-splattered clothes and chainsaw. His movements, too, are far wilder and more unpredictable, prompting the question: what is hiding under that hood?

The double chainsaw trouble of the Bella Sisters, who appear a little later in the story, may be just as frenzied and ferocious, but you never forget your first.

3. Garrador

With a name that translates to “clawing” or “the clawer”, Spanish-speaking players should know they are in for a bad time with enemy. These hulking brutes – once human hosts who underwent tremendous alterations by the Las Plagas parasite to become exceptionally strong and resilient – are completely blind. According the in-game lore, this is because they were so violent that they would attack anything that moved, and so their captors had to sew their eye shut.

In terms of gameplay, this means the player has to sneak around the around the castle prison cells, praying they don’t accidentally make enough noise to bring the Garrador running. Even the slightest misstep can see Leon impaled on the end of their diabolically long and sharp wrist-mounted claws. But, this blindness can come in handy. If the player can redirect the Garrador with some trickery, they can sneak right past them without ever firing a shot.

Players who chose to take them on, however, will see why they are considered one of the scariest enemies in the game. The cat-and-mouse tension of avoiding making a sound until the moment they are ready to fire can make even the most experienced players sweat. And the fact that a Garrador’s only real weakness is the exposed Las Plagas on its back means players need to accomplish some clever manoeuvring and pray their aim is true if they ever wish to emerge from their encounter in one piece.

2. Verdugo

If looks could kill, both Leon and the player would expire the moment they laid eyes on this Xenomorph-inspired nightmare. Unfortunately, the Verdugo doesn’t need such a power in order to slay its prey. With a name meaning “executioner” and a penchant for getting up close and personal, this distinctly alien monster can make mincemeat out of even the hardiest of players.

A horrific amalgamation of human and insect DNA completely controlled by a Plaga, Verdugo was designed to be the perfect killing machine and act as bodyguard to Ramon Salazar. And with its superior speed, extreme resistance to all forms of damage, and knife-like prehensile tail, it certainly lives up to its promise.

The boss fight against Verdugo is a harrowing experience, made all the worse by its set-up. As Leon escapes through the tunnels, the camera swiftly cuts away to a very Predator-esque POV of something hunting the player down. Something that sees in an eerie blood-red tint. While the original game’s boss fight felt like an homage to Alien, the Remake takes things to the next level. Verdugo now stalks the player through a dank and dimly lit series of metal corridors that wouldn’t look too out of place in the bowels of the Nostromo, where each turn could bring the player face to face with certain death.

The player is given the choice: fight or run. With the only way to damage this nightmare being to freeze it with liquid nitrogen, neither choice will end well for those who aren’t prepared.

1. Regenerador

The sickening wheezing breath of a Regenerador may not be its most horrific quality, but it’s certainly up there. Normally, the sound of a monster struggling to breathe wouldn’t be so frightening, but when players see what exactly is producing those sounds, it will haunt their nightmares forever more.

Regeneradors are vile shambling sacks of grey flesh with beady eyes and a rictus grin of vicious teeth. Their bloated form in the Remake (along with the writhing, erratic nature of their movements) is somehow infinitely more terrifying than the sickly grey corpses they were in the original. The way they flail and grab the player, desperately trying to tear out their throat, as they explore the dark corridors of the lab is downright terrifying.

These lab-grown bioweapons play host to a number of Las Plagas parasites, which, as the creature’s name suggests, keep it from dying by regenerating lost limbs and even heads. These take time to regrow, so if the player shoots off one’s legs, it will start slithering along the ground after them. The only way to put them down for good is use and infrared scope to blast away each of the parasites living inside it.

And the only thing worse than a lumbering Regenerador is its gruesomely spikey cousin, the Iron Maiden.