Resident Evil 4’s Separate Ways campaign, featuring Ada Wong, is finally on its way to the remake. With it, we’ll finally get the missing campaign that showed Ada’s journey through Las Plagas-infested Spanish backwoods parallel to Leon’s mission to save Ashley Graham. We’ll also see core elements of the original bonus campaign take on a much more expanded role, such as Ada’s grappling gun. In a recent preview, we got to see Ada utilize it to get to unreachable places, but we also saw it used in both offensive and defensive situations.
Moves that would make Batman blush
During our short look at the upcoming Separate Ways DLC, Ada found herself needing to escape Salazar’s castle to rendezvous with Luis Serra. Her mission? Grab the Las Plagas amber and escape back to Umbrella HQ and Albert Wesker with it at all costs. With the mission established, we got to see Ada bust out her gadgetry in some fun and exciting ways. In the original Resident Evil 4, Ada had the grappling gun, but it was very confined to mostly contextual moments, with her relying much more on her Blacktail pistol, sniper rifle, and TMP machinegun. She still has those weapons, and perhaps even more, but it’s the grappling gun that takes on a much bigger role this time.
During the sneak peek, we got to see Ada use the grappling gun as it was used in the past, spotting ledges she can fire it at and zip to in order to gain elevation on her foes or move forward in the campaign. However, our expectations were flipped on their head when Ada kneecapped a monk with her pistol and was then presented with a prompt to melee them from a distance of about 15 feet. When used, she fired her grappling gun at the stunned foe and zipped to them to deliver a devastating flying roundhouse kick.
This looks like it will change combat for Ada substantially. Being able to zip to a stunned opponent and unleash big melee damage on them seems like a huge advantage over Leon, who must be in arm's reach to do the same. We didn’t see any gauges or ammo that looked like it would put the grappling gun out of action once used, but it will be interesting to see if there are limits to this otherwise strong-looking form of offense.
Of course, the ability to zip to ledges also looks like it will have some defensive applications. There’s a section of the sneak peek that shows Ada squaring off against the ogrish El Gigante. During the fight, Ada dodges the creature's big attacks by jumping between rooftops of cottages in the area where she fights it, allowing her to fire off shots from safe vantage points until its Las Plagas comes out of its back. She’ll even be able to use the grappling gun in special cinematic attacks, such as with the El Gigante. Additionally, when on the ground and being swarmed by regular Los Illuminados enemies, Ada uses the grappling gun to yank herself out of danger by getting to building tops. This could occasionally be done in the original RE4 as well, but it seems there will be far more available opportunities for it in the remake.
One of the last notable things we spotted was that Ada will be packing some heat not found in the base Resident Evil 4 remake. During the El Gigante segment, we got to see Ada bust out an explosive crossbow, different from the Bolt Thrower. It looked like an actual crossbow with explosive bolts built in. Ada didn’t do any special setups to make it explosive the way that Leon has to do with the Bolt Thrower mines, but when she fired it at El Gigante, the explosion hit hard enough to stun the creature and set up for the aforementioned cinematic grappling gun attack.
Our favorite femme fatale is as spicy as ever
Separate Ways looks like it’s going to answer a lot of questions we had about the original Resident Evil 4 remake. Not only did we get to see some obvious things like Ada ringing the church bell to save Leon’s bacon in the village, but we also got to see some interesting teases of things to come. After all, what did happen to Ramon Salazar’s second monstrous henchman? Whatever we see in Separate Ways, it looks like Ada will be uniquely equipped to handle it in both combat and traversal. Simply put, that grappling gun is looking more fun and stronger than ever.
This preview is based on a hands-off demo of gameplay presented by the publisher. Separate Ways comes to Resident Evil 4 as paid DLC on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on September 21, 2023.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways DLC will heavily expand the use of Ada's grappling gun
