While the Resident Evil series tends to focus more on shock body horror than creeping dread, that doesn’t make its monsters any less terrifying!Resident Evil 4 Remakeis no exception, with both new and classic foes given a gloriously gory makeover. The cultists of Los Illuminados and their parasite-powered pawns are some of the scariest in the series.
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We’ve chosen the most horrifying of all the many enemies you’ll encounter throughout the game. From the initial scare of their appearance to the gut-churning tension you feel when fighting them, these are the most monstrous minions of Las Plagas.
This list contains spoilers.
10Novistador
The product of mixing human and Plaga DNA, the Novistadors aregiant flying insects that appear in swarms. They can attack from any angle, and where there’s one there are at least half a dozen. Worst of all, by remaining still they canchange their color to match their surroundings, making it easy to walk into an ambush.
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While the Novistadors are one of the few enemies that were actuallyscarier in the original game(owing primarily to the fact that they inflicted the game’s most gruesome death animation on Leon), they’re still plenty terrifying in the remake. That goes double for players who are creeped out by bugs!
9Del Lago
Lakes are supposed to be safe. They’re not oceans - too small and too shallow to support the kind of abyssal terrors that can swallow a person whole. Despite that, Del Lago lurks in the lake under Castle Salazar, surviving on a steady diet of human sacrifices.
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The battle with Del Lago is as stressful in the remake as it was in the original. Without full control of your movement and armed only with slow, awkward harpoons, you’re constantly in danger of getting snapped up in the eyeless abomination’s jaws.
8Brute
The Brute is a new elite enemy that players have to contend with throughout the game. Armed with a sledgehammer and moves that wouldn’t be out of place in a WWE match, the Brute requires your full attention whenever he’s onscreen. A single strike is enough to put Leon’s health in the danger zone.
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What really makes the Brute scary is his choice of wardrobe. He wears afresh bull’s headas a mask, which hits players with maximum shock value while simultaneously letting you know that this guy is not messing around.
7Plaga Mandibula
When you think of scary Resident Evil 4 monsters,the Plagas themselvesare usually the first that come to mind. Every single enemy in the game is infested with thesemutating, mind-controlling parasites, and the bugs can emerge from defeated foes at any time.
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The Plagas are bad enough simply bursting forth from the head of a dead Ganado, but the Plaga Mandibula gets extra points for being able tochomp Leon’s head offwith a single attack. Any enemy with a one-shot kill is cause for alarm, and if you don’t have any Flash Grenades you’ll have to time your shots perfectly - a Plaga Mandibula can only be killed byfiring into its open mouth.
6Bitores Mendez
As Village Chief, Mendez leads the Ganados who live outside the castle and acts as Saddler’s representative. He’s an imposing figure, towering over Leon and shrugging off bullets effortlessly. He even gets a chase sequence in the remake, where he gives off the same vibes as Leon’s old nemesis, Mr. X.
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Mendez is chilling in his human form, but when he mutates into his Plaga form he’s one of the game’s scariest bosses. He keeps his inhuman strength whileextending his spine into a centipede-like appendage.Losing his legs doesn’t even seem to phase him as he becomes a crawling, swinging horror before finally being eliminated for good.
5Ganado Desnucado
We all knew going in that Resident Evil 4 Remake was going to throw some curveballs at longtime fans. The Ganado Desnucado is the first (and, arguably, best-executed) of these. In the original game, Ganados didn’t start reanimating until you’d gotten a few fights under your belt, saving the terror of the first Plaga head-burst until players were in the thick of things. The remake reanimates the very first cultist that Leon encounters, all without giving away the parasitic secret to new players.
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As it turns out, less is more when it comes to making classic Resident Evil monsters like the Plagas new again. The Ganado Desnucado’s neck is clearly broken - his head is barely hanging on - but he’s still lurching toward Leon with murderous intent. If you don’t know about the Plagas, then the chittering sound coming from the cultist’s body is just another spine-tingling mystery that will be solved as the game goes on.
4Doctor Salvador
The chainsaw-wielding Doctor Salvador is Resident Evil 4’s most iconic enemy. Longtime players have fought him, defeated him, and died to his roaring blade hundreds of times. For first-timers, he’s anigh-unkillable juggernautwho brings instant death if he gets within arm’s reach, and taking him down for the first time is one of the best feelings of accomplishment that the game has to offer.
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Salvador doesn’t appear as often in the remake as he did in the original, and that’s a good thing. There are plenty of other elite foes to challenge players, but when you hear his chainsaw revving in the distance, you know there’s anall-or-nothing battle for survivaljust around the corner.
3Regenerador
The Regenerador is the last creature you’d want to meet in a dark alley. Unfortunately, cramped, ill-lit corridors are where these lab-grown monstrosities usually hide. The Regenerador is terrifying based on its appearance alone; its toothy smile and jerky movements are fully repulsive, and it only gets worse when the creatures startsslithering on the ground.
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True to its name, a Regenerador will heal even the most grievous wounds in an instant - the only way to kill one is todestroy the Plagas infesting its bodywith precise shots. The remake version of the monster has an extra surprise, however - upon death, it regenerates one last time and transforms into a spiky Iron Maiden, with an extra-resilient Plaga in its mouth!
2Verdugo
Ramon Salazar’s biologist, Isidro Uriarte Talavera, was responsible for the creation of the Novistadors. Eventually, he used a similar process to transform himself into Verdugo, the Castellan’s insectoid executioner. Verdugo hunts Leon in the dungeons below Castle Salazar, skittering through the ceilings and attacking from every possible angle.
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Not only is Verdugo terrifying to behold, but he’s also the game’smost resilient and persistent enemy. While it’s technically possible to kill him, it takes a lot of effort - most players will behard-pressed just to survivelong enough to escape on the elevator! For five frightful minutes, the game’s tone shifts from Resident Evil to Alien, making one of themost thrilling sequences of any playthrough.
1Garrador
The Garrador is the game’s masterpiece of horror. These blind, disfigured berserkers were present in the original game, but now they’re scarier than they’ve ever been. There are only three of them in the entire game, and each fight is a tense, heart-pounding game of cat-and-mouse.
Garradors hunt by sound, so any noise you make will send them charging in that direction, wildly swinging the razor-sharp blades bolted to their arms. There’s more tension in a single Garrador fight than there is in entire chapters, even for experienced players. The fact that a Garrador is enough to make pro players sweat is a testament to its place as the scariest monster in Resident Evil 4 Remake.
Next:Resident Evil 4 Remake: Complete Guide And Walkthrough
