Resident Evil 4 Remake Fan Partially Restores Cut Chapter 0

The Resident Evil 4 remake was originally going to open with a prologue featuring a playable Ashley, and one fan gave us the best idea of what cut “Chapter 0” would look like.

When the Resident Evil 4 remake was released in 2022, the first trailer started off in a slightly odd way. Instead of focusing on Leon, the reveal trailer began by shining the spotlight on Ashley Graham, who is running from a mysterious figure and passing what appears to be a shack, where Leon's adventure begins.

The specific scene Ashley used in the announcement trailer didn't end up in the final game. Because as soon as Leon and Ashley meet, they move away from the cabin. This seemed to suggest that a section focusing on Ashley was once planned for a remake, which one dataminer confirmed and partially restored.

Resident Evil 4's Lost Chapter 0 has been recreated

A slow start that put Ashley in the spotlight

As pointed out by ResetEra user Crossing Eden, YouTuber Thekempy (who has previously looked at Uncharted's cut content) shared a video focusing on Ashley's cut prologue, dubbed “Chapter 0” in the game's files, bringing 2025 to a close. The prologue was cut during development, but the file string still exists to allow us to recreate what Thekempy would have looked like.

According to Thekempy, Chapter 0 would have begun after Ashley witnessed a ritual murder in the woods. This scene actually appeared in the game's story trailer, but was not used in the final release. There, Ashley would have crossed the road near the lakeside village, avoided Ganados, and slowly made his way toward the village.

There, Thekempy's recreation of Ashley's playable portion suggests that she would mostly crawl in and out of shacks, be chased into town, discover a Ganado carrying Luis, then be chased by more Ganados, ultimately resulting in her being kidnapped in a cutscene that no longer exists in the game files.

It's a fairly standard prologue in the grand scheme of things, but it's a little surprising to see how close it is to completion. Especially since it already has several cutscenes put together. As much as it's nice to see more of Ashley, Capcom definitely made the right move while maintaining the fast pace of the original game.