Resident Evil 4

The player controls Leon S. Kennedy, from a third-person perspective. Departing from the series' previous games, the gameplay focuses more on combat and shootouts. The camera is placed behind Leon and zooms in for an over-the-shoulder view when aiming a weapon, or a first-person view when aiming with a sniper rifle.

There is no crosshair for firearms; instead, every firearm has a laser sight. Unlike previous games where players can only shoot straight, up, or down, players have more options. For example, shots to the feet can cause enemies to stumble, and shots to the arms can make them drop their weapons. Players can also shoot down projectiles like thrown axes or scythes.

S. government agent Leon S. S. President's daughter, who has been abducted by a mysterious cult.

He travels to an unnamed rural village in Spain, where he encounters a group of hostile villagers who pledge their lives to Los Iluminados, the cult that kidnapped Ashley. The villagers were once simple farmers until becoming infected by a mind-controlling parasite known as Las Plagas.

In 1999, producer Shinji Mikami said a Resident Evil sequel was in development for PlayStation 2. Resident Evil 4 underwent a lengthy development, during which at least four versions were discarded. The first version was directed by Hideki Kamiya. Around the turn of the millennium, Resident Evil 2 writer Noboru Sugimura created a story based on Kamiya's idea to make a "cool" and "stylish" action game.

The story was based on unraveling the mystery surrounding the body of the protagonist, Tony, an invincible man with skills and an intellect exceeding that of normal people, with his superhuman abilities explained with biotechnology. As Kamiya felt the playable character did not look brave and heroic enough in battles from a fixed angle, he decided to drop the prerendered backgrounds from previous installments and use a dynamic camera system. The team spent 11 days in the United Kingdom and Spain, photographing objects such as Gothic statues, bricks, and stone pavements for use in textures.

The GameCube and PlayStation 2 versions of Resident Evil 4 have a score of 96/100 on Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim". These versions have the top ranking on Metacritic's list of the Best Video Games for 2005. In addition to the gameplay, the characters and story received positive commentary, leading to the finished product being deemed as one of the best video games ever made. GameSpot's Greg Kasavin praised the voice acting, but claimed that it was betrayed by "some uncharacteristically goofy dialogue".

Yahoo! Games' Adam Pavlacka and GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd acclaimed Capcom for adding great amounts of detail to the characters. IGN's Matt Casamassina went into further detail in his review for Resident Evil 4, praising not only the detailed character design but also the fight choreography and three-dimensional modeling within cinematic sequences. Casamassina also complimented the voice actors, especially Paul Mercier (Leon), commenting, "For once, the characters are believable because Capcom has hired competent actors to supply their voices.

Resident Evil 4 is considered one of the best video games of all time. It is included in the reference book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die (2014). Nintendo Power ranked it as number one in their list of the top 25 best GameCube games of all time in 2005 and also ranked it second on their list of the best games of the 2000s in 2010. In 2008, Resident Evil 4 was ranked first place in the list of the best video games of all time according to the readers of IGN, and sixth place in the list of the best PlayStation 2 games of all time according to the IGN staff.

In 2021, IGN ranked the game as the 40th best game of all time. In 2009, Game Informer ranked Resident Evil 4 number one on their list of top GameCube games and number three on their list of top PlayStation 2 games. In 2022, Complex magazine named it the tenth-best PlayStation 2 game of all time. GamePro ranked it as the second best game for the PS2.