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Back in July of this year, an arcade location test for a new light gun game based on the Resident Evil 2 Remake popped up in a UK arcade. This was a collaboration between Capcom and Bandai Namco, titled Resident Evil 2: Dead Shot. There were no official announcements at the time, but news started spreading as more fans found this machine at the arcade and posted footage from it online.
Then, last week at Tokyo Game Show, Capcom officially announced the game, showing off the new title, Resident Evil 2: Arcade. They announced that new location tests will be coming for the US later this year and in Japan early next year. Capcom hasn’t announced full details on when or where the US tests will be happening, but this is excellent news for us fans, especially those of us who love the horror-themed side of the light gun genre.
Those who have already played the location test preview version of the game state that it plays a lot like a House of the Dead game or the Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles/Darkside Chronicles games, with a focus on headshots for taking down foes, and the footage looks incredible so far.
It comes in a full size standing cabinet with two beretta-shaped guns (with slide recoil!) and a pretty decent sized monitor, as well as a floor panel that vibrates for more immersion. It also includes air jets to blow at the player, similar to Dark Escape 4D and a few other light gun games.
The spacing inside looks pretty small and you’ll have to be standing pretty close to the screen, but it’s not that different from games like House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn, which also had non-mounted guns in a fairly small, enclosed cabinet. But this is also a location test, so the details of the game and cabinet may still change.
The reload mechanic looks like it’s handled by shooting off-screen, which is something we haven’t seen in arcade light gun games in quite some time. So, this game might be looking to go back to a more old-school experience of light gun shooting, compared to many of the more modern mounted-gun games.
The Resident Evil series already has a long history of releasing light gun games, starting with Resident Evil: Survivor back on the PS1 in 2000, with Gun Survivor 2 the following year. Then came Resident Evil: Dead Aim in 2003, and The Umbrella Chronicles and The Darkside Chronicles in 2007 and 2009 respectively, so this looks set to be a great new addition to that lineage.
“Winter 2025” was given as the time range mentioned for the US location tests, and March 2026 for Japan, but I’ll be updating the site here with any new info we get regarding these tests. I can’t wait to get my hands on it soon. I’ve reached out to the major arcade chains here in the US to see if there’s any further news and will update when we have anything new. You can watch the trailer below and let us know what you think about the game so far!
