Games | In the Chainsaw Museum with “Resident Evil 4”

is much less simple than it looks: “Resident Evil 4”. Photo: Screenshot A bloody chainsaw is currently on display in the Nuremberg Toy Museum. It is a controller created specifically for the video game “Resident Evil 4”. In the text accompanying the exhibit, the background story of the game is briefly summarized and described as clichéd, but: "At second glance, it becomes apparent... a very multi-layered and complex narrative." How do you come up with that? When you discover “allusions to art and media history”: Caravaggio, Botticelli, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Raphael. Paintings by these painters hang in “Resident Evil 4”, specifically in the castle of the villain Salazar, which Leon S. Kennedy, the hero of the game, passes through.

When it came out in 2005, I imagined a pacifist message from this extremely violent game. One after the other, farmers are killed, then monks or members of a sect. Vanishing professions, I mused. And finally, people kill: soldiers. (Incidentally, all of those mentioned are infested with parasites and controlled by them and are essentially zombies.) Capcom, the manufacturing company, is saying: Soldiers will disappear. Wars will disappear. Violence will disappear. As is the religion represented by the monks, which essentially controls them remotely. Imagine there's no heaven.

Oh well. "This mixture of high and pop culture is also what characterizes the chainsaw controller, which, so to speak, museumizes itself by squeezing itself into a wooden display case that is much too small and from which the saw blade has already forcefully made its way." Again the Nuremberg Toy Museum is chattering in here.

It's complete nonsense to control the game with a chainsaw: Leon doesn't have one.

It's complete nonsense to control the game with a chainsaw: Leon doesn't have one. Only a certain type of enemy attacks with it. "The chainsaw shape is completely unsuitable for controlling a computer game." This museum must always have the last word.

“Resident Evil 4” is one of the most popular parts of the horror series, the ninth part of which was released this year; Overall, including the spin-offs, it is the 27th - and the first in which Leon is actually allowed to handle a chainsaw. The end credits always send a shiver down your spine because they so vividly demonstrate the size of this industry.

In comparison to the fourth part discussed here (and also to others in the series), "Requiem", i.e. the ninth, comes off poorly, for example with a writer and gaming colleague (his new artist name has not yet been decided, so no mention of it by name): "My artistic heart was spoken to in no way." I immediately understood what he meant. The predecessor, for example, which was very inspired by the fourth part and also largely takes place in a village, still had poetic moments and really crazy ideas. In 2026 there will be dull action.

But a word from the Nuremberg Toy Museum? None. Here people indulge in chainsaws, it's almost manic: "Is the chainsaw controller a self-reflexive art object, a silly merchandise item or simply a slightly dysfunctional Playstation 2 controller?" It seriously raises the question of why the museum doesn't exclusively exhibit chainsaws.

"The 'Resident Evil' series has sold a total of over 200 million units, making it the most successful horror video game brand in the world." For a change, that's not what the Nuremberg Toy Museum says, but rather "Video Games Sales Wiki." But it was easy to see that it was nothing announced by the toy museum. Because otherwise it would just have said something like: “Chainsaw, chainsaw, chainsaw.” Touche. Vrrrrrrroouummmmmm…

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