The Resident Evil 4 Remake offers four difficulty modes as you can choose between Assisted, Standard, Hardcore or Professional when starting a new game. You can check out this comparison guide at Seeking Tech to see what the major gameplay differences are between these four options.
Resident Evil 4 Remake Assisted vs. Standard vs. Hardcore vs. Professional
You can check out our comparison chart for these four difficulty modes below:
| Resident Evil 4 Remake Assisted Mode | Resident Evil 4 Remake Standard Mode | Resident Evil 4 Remake Hardcore Mode | Resident Evil 4 Remake Professional Mode | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unlock Requirements | Available at the start | Available at the start | Available at the start | Beat the campaign once |
| Changing to a different difficulty? | Not supported | Drop down to Assisted in game over screen | Not supported | Not supported |
| Aim Assist | On by default | Off by default | Off by default | Off by default |
| Crafting Ammo Rate | Extra amount | Normal amount | Normal amount | Normal amount |
| Ammo Drop Rate | Normal amount | Normal amount | Normal amount | Lower amount |
| Automatic Health Recovery? | Yes | No | No | No |
| Merchant Pricing? | Lower rate for certain items | Normal rate | Higher rate for certain items | Higher rate for certain items |
| Enemy Strength | Normal | Normal | Stronger | Strongest |
Unlock Requirements
The Assisted, Standard and Hardcore difficulties are unlocked from the very start.
In order to unlock Professional difficulty, you need to beat the main campaign of the game at least once in any of the three aforementioned modes.
Changing to a different difficulty
You can only change to a different difficulty mode if you started a new game in Standard difficulty mode.
If ran out of health, then you will get a game over screen saying that “You Are Dead.” Here, you may see the option to drop the difficult level down to Assisted.
Aim Assist
If you are playing in Assisted difficulty, then aim assist is automatically enabled. For the three higher difficulties, you need to turn this setting on in the Controls tab of the Options menu.
Crafting Ammo Rate
You will get extra ammo when crafting if you are playing in the Assisted difficulty mode.
Ammo Drop Rate
The ammunition drop rate from enemies is scarcer in the Professional when compared to the other three modes.
Automatic Health Recovery
If your health dropped to the “Danger” level in Resident Evil 4 Remake, you will automatically recover some health without using any healing items while playing in the Assisted difficulty mode.
Merchant Pricing
Some items sold by the merchant will be discounted if you are playing in the Assited difficulty when compared to Standard.
On the other hand, some of the items from this seller will be priced higher, when compared to Standard, if you decide to start a new game in either the Hardcore or Professional mode.
Enemy Strength
The enemy strength should be identical for the Assisted and Standard difficulties.
The Hardcore mode makes the enemy stronger while the Professional mode makes them the strongest.
Recap
The Assisted Mode is the easiest difficulty available in Resident Evil 4 Remake as it adds extra ammo bonuses when crafting, automatically heals your character when his health gets low as well as features discounted prices on certain items sold by the merchant.
The Standard Mode is the normal difficulty setting. We recommend that you try playing RE4 Remake in this mode first as it offers the most balance in terms of challenge. If you ended up dying a lot, then you will be able to lower the difficulty to Assisted in the “You Are Dead” screen.
The Hardcore Mode is for players who have already played the original Resident Evil 4 in 2005 a bunch of times and are very familiar with how the game works. This difficulty level features stronger enemies and higher prices on the goods sold by the merchant.
The Professional Mode is the ultimate challenge in RE4 Remake as the enemies are even stronger than the ones you encountered in Hardcore mode. You can only unlock the highest difficulty setting by beating the campaign once on any of the easier modes.