There has been an absolute treasure trove of games coming out non-stop in 2023, but I stand by my opinion that the Resident Evil 4 remake is a crowning achievement among them. However, that crown was missing a jewel - Ada Wong’s Separate Ways side campaign - until now. The only real question that remained was whether this DLC would be a glass fake or a high-value red beryl. Thankfully, after rolling credits on it, it’s certainly the latter, giving us more of what we want and tying a tidy ribbon on the whole package that is Resident Evil 4.
We have a job to do
As in the original Separate Ways, this DLC puts players in the role of Ada Wong, playing out her side of the story simultaneously alongside Leon’s efforts to rescue the US President’s daughter, Ashley Graham. Ada isn’t interested in that. She’s on the hunt for a special sample of the parasitic organism infesting the villagers and cult that took Ashley captive. Ada’s journey through Separate Ways mirrors Leon’s, with her making contact with Luis Serra and trying to use him to get the sample while taking advantage of the chaos Leon is creating in his own mission.
I always liked how the original Separate Ways went out of its way to tie up loose ends not addressed in the main Resident Evil 4 campaign. That continues to be the case in the remade DLC. Nearly every bit of “cut content” players were wondering about is featured here, as well as some twists on familiar elements and outright surprises. I really liked some of the liberties Capcom took in designing this DLC because, much like the base remake, while they don’t always play out one-to-one with the original, I feel the changes nearly always made more sense. By the end of it all, I not only felt like everything was properly wrapped up, but some neat twists not present in the original seem to paint an interesting picture of what’s ahead if Capcom keeps doing Resident Evil remakes.
Gratuitous grappling
Gameplay-wise, Separate Ways does a few things to set itself heavily apart from playing as Leon. Ada has a few different weapons at her disposal, including a couple that aren’t available in Leon’s campaign, but by far, the difference maker is her grappling gun. At numerous parts throughout the game, players will be presented with grapple points that will allow Ada to fire the gun and swing herself to new vantage points. Sometimes it’s just to move forward in the story, but other times you use it to discover secrets or gain an edge on opponents. For instance, there’s a straight-up boss battle in the game where effective use of the grappling gun is key to getting the angles you need to slay your foe.
The grappling gun’s use was also expanded to add to Ada’s combat capabilities. If you stun an enemy up close, you can do a big melee attack on them like always. However, if an enemy is far away, Ada still gets the prompt to melee them. She’ll fire her grappling gun at the stunned foe and yank herself to them with a flying roundhouse kick. It seems a bit weaker than using a close-quarters melee attack, but when you want that follow-up damage on an enemy in the back ranks, it’s highly effective and satisfying. Down the line, you can even collect an Ada-exclusive charm that lets you yank shields away from enemies. It’s just plain awesome how much they expanded what the grappling gun can do inside and outside combat.
If I was going to take anything away from Separate Ways, it’s that the content might be considered same-y despite the story being exciting and filling in the gaps. Outside of having the incredible grappling gun, Ada doesn’t have a lot of Leon’s arsenal. There are a few guns Leon doesn’t get, but most of her arsenal is a pared-down collection of the weapons in the base game. I get the feeling this is because the grappling gun is so strong, but dang if I didn’t miss blowing enemy domes off with a magnum. There’s also a lot of retreading along previously seen paths Leon took, but from a different angle. Even so, there are a few entirely new sights to see and it comes out to about a five to seven-hour campaign depending on how hard you look for secrets.
Femme Fatale Fantastique
Source: Capcom
In the end, Separate Ways was everything I thought it ought to be and a little bit more. Trust me when I say that if you were wondering where something was in the base game that you remember, it’s most likely here, and that’s without leaving out anything of value to Ada’s own adventure. By the end, I was hit with a twist not in the original that left me pondering what Capcom is up to. It feels like a lot of the endings of recent Resident Evil main games and remakes have been leading up to something mysterious and spectacular. But even if you just want good closure on Resident Evil 4, Separate Ways delivers and then some.
These impressions are based on PS5 version of the DLC provided by the publisher. The Resident Evil 4 Separate Ways DLC is available as of September 21, 2023 on PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S for $9.99 USD.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, Resident Evil 4's Separate Ways DLC ties up the loose ends with perfection
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I've been playing through this a bit slowly. It's good. Since some of the gameplay was a bit more quick in terms of movement than the base game, and included some more arcadey sequences like firing cannons, I was reminded of God Hand (using the original RE4 engine) and ended up sending Capcom a request to remake in the RE engine, or at least remaster the game. They said they'd pass it along to the appropriate team, haha.
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Loved it. It's a 9 out of 10 for me. I have only two complaints:
1. Capcom brought back a boss fight, but not the memorable area before the boss fight. I'm referring to U3, aka "It." That boss fight returns, but nobody really cared about it back in the day. "It" was just another big, dumb monster that you shot until it died. The area before it, where it chased you through box cars hanging over a chasm, was and still is one of the most terrifying parts of the original RE4. After that, the boss fight against U3 was a cooldown. I was pretty disappointed that Capcom seemed to miss something so obvious.
2. The final battle against the Black Robe was anticlimactic. Ada and the Black Robe seemed tied in the same way Jill and Nemesis were connected. The first combat scenario is a boss fight against it! It stalks Ada, not in the same way Mr. X or Nemesis stalked their prey, but appearing in cinematics and to challenge her to more boss fights. When the screen took on that purple tinge with purple flames and ashes rising from everything, my pulse picked up. You knew exactly what was coming, and you scrambled to prepare for it. Then you end up killing the Black Robe--who transforms into U3--at the end of chapter four out of seven. It felt very anticlimactic and was a bit of a letdown.
Otherwise I agree with TJ's review. I finished Separate Ways a couple of days ago and have been disciplined in not letting myself dive right back into it until I've hit some of my deadlines. It's that good, but with a couple of changes, it could have been that much better.
