Separate Ways — Ada Wong’s Return To Glory
When the remake of Capcom classic Resident Evil 4 released earlier this year, and players quickly made their way through the game’s story, it was found to be remarkably faithful to the original, with some dialogue and sequences ripped directly from the iconic survival horror masterpiece, and those that weren’t taken from the 2004 release were altered in such a way as to improve upon the intent seen in the now 19 year old game. However, one such change unfortunately failed to improve on the original’s quality, and when compared between the two, there’s a glaring and unavoidable difference: Ada Wong is simply reduced to a footnote in 2023’s Resident Evil 4.
Ada’s reduced role ranges from various cut sequences to some major moments in the plot that required her presence being given to Luis instead — though, admittedly, it was to great success, as his tragedy was much more effective in execution with the additional screen time. Luis’ prosperity, however, came at Ada’s expense, and her lacklustre involvement in the plot reduced a fan favourite character to almost cameo status, delivering a few one-off lines and Deus Ex Machina-style contrivances that received even less explanation than ever before — which is saying a lot for this series, and Ada in particular.
Separate Ways changes that substantially, effectively merging classic Ada with the reimagined Ada of the Resident Evil 2 and 4 remakes. Where the Ada Wong of the remakes felt distant and sometimes cold, the playfulness and acrobatics of the famous femme fatale return effortlessly with the remade story DLC.
From the first cutscene — Luis flamenco dancing in a prison cell surrounded by dead, sacrificed bodies to the backdrop of a man being brutally murdered — the tone is set immediately to great effect, and it only gets better. Ada’s appearance sparks a literal dance between the two, and their dynamic that was only briefly glimpsed in the main game is expanded on to add much more depth, and it begins both Luis and Ada’s development over the course of the next few hours right off the bat.
Chapter One, easily the shortest of the seven available, introduces the player to almost every mechanic at Ada’s disposal within a swift five to ten minutes; her movement, her combat capabilities, and her story beats are all concisely built into an action-packed first chapter.
Starting with combat, the easiest way to describe it is that classic Ada is back with a vengeance. In a stark departure from Resident Evil 2 Remake’s playable Ada section, the Ada Wong of Resident Evil 4, is fast, agile, and acrobatic as hell, able to zip across a fight with her grappling hook to deliver blows to staggered enemies. With a pistol, a submachine gun, a grenade, and a flash grenade to begin with — and more weapons available to find, upgrade, and buy as the story moves — Ada is never without means to fight, and there’s plenty of well-paced ammunition and crafting resource drops littered throughout the various locales available to keep Ada stocked and thinking on her feet at any given moment.
The other part of Ada’s gameplay, the movement and puzzle solving, effectively showcases her personality and methods as well, with her grappling gun having been given even more importance in traversal and progression. More than ever since these remakes first began, Ada Wong feels as agile and fast as she’s portrayed to be.
As for her portrayal and development over the course of Separate Ways, Ada’s coldness as we’ve seen it in both Resident Evil 2 Remake and Resident Evil 4 Remake is intensely challenged, forced into the classic conflict between series villain Albert Wesker and her own morals, deciding whether to continue in her espionage or compromise her mysterious goals by saving both Leon Kennedy and Ashley Graham, destroying a new bioweapon in the process. Fortunately for Ada, she’s skilled enough to do both.
Much more upfront about her traumas that stem from the Raccoon City Incident, showcased in the first three Resident Evil games and their remakes, Ada can be seen reflecting on her time in Raccoon City and the horrors she had seen, giving a much more firm idea of how she had reacted to those events and giving a much more clear idea of how she has progressed since, in the six in-universe years since the first three main games in the series. This gives a much deeper insight into Ada’s future – that we’ll possibly see if 2013’s Resident Evil 6 is remade, a strong likelihood – and is a good capstone to her story in Resident Evil 4.
Ada’s main struggle is whether she truly is dedicated to her goals in regards to trafficking and consolidating bioweapons for Wesker and The Organization, and Leon and Ashley’s presence sows doubt in both herself and Wesker, bringing their conflict much closer together in the reframing and readjusting of certain scenes. These redone scenes bring Ada and Wesker face-to-face, substituting Krauser’s role in the original Separate Ways to focus on the dynamic between the big bad and Ada, and it all works for the better, eliminating the odd middle-man to leave Krauser’s story specifically to Leon, where Ada has to deal with her own demon in Albert Wesker.
The conflict is excellently demonstrated in the small runtime of this story, giving the two characters short but meaningful interactions that fans of the series will certainly understand the gravity of, and in which newcomers can feel the tension and unspoken power that Wesker wields. Not to say Ada is powerless in these scenes, quite the contrary as in their Chapter Six confrontation, Ada’s confidence shines, helped by her voice actress Lily Gao in one of her better scenes.
Lily Gao herself has improved since her initial recordings of Resident Evil 4 Remake, and while there’s still plenty to go in terms of her improvement in voice acting, I fully believe that her lines in Separate Ways show that she could very well progress into a perfect Ada Wong in future instalments, should she return with some more practice under her belt, and perhaps some better direction. Alongside her performance, there’s plenty of sly charm in Ada’s one-liners and quips as she defeats enemies across the story — even some charming bits of frustration when she misses shots.
Where the Separate Ways Remake really differentiates itself from its original incarnation is the uniqueness in its scenarios beyond simply being rehashes of areas Leon’s been through in the main story, and instead it presents alternative areas and exploration to familiar places that are also different enough to feel totally unique to Ada, with fantastic boss concepts being the icing on the cake.
In terms of bosses, the most notable is Salazar’s other hand, called Pesanta in-game, who totally disappeared during the main game. The reason being for this is that Pesanta had left to go stalk Ada throughout most of her story, in scripted events throughout chapters one to five, resulting in a two-phase, incredibly fun fight with the long-thought-cut U-3 boss from the original game’s Leon story. That’s not the only portion of Leon’s story smartly given to Ada either, with another notable sequence being the famous laser hallway scene in which Leon — now Ada, in the remake — must make fantastical acrobatic leaps through various laser grids, and it has just as much cheesy b-movie charm as it did back in 2004.
Before the story ends, Ada will also have a showdown with Saddler, the game’s main villain, in a fun, if a bit tedious, fight that resembles the confrontation against him from the original Separate Ways.
Once the credits roll, this DLC is nowhere near done, however. With a post-credits tease that will make any Resident Evil fan excited alongside a plethora of challenges and extra costumes, accessories, and models to unlock, Separate Ways, as a piece of downloadable content, offers at least another 10 hours (going through it quickly) of content to play with and enjoy, and for a price as low at $10USD, you are getting more than your money’s worth in terms of content and enjoyability.
As a whole, Separate Ways reaches into the muddiest parts of Resident Evil 4 Remake — of which there are very few — and pulls out a polished, sublime gem that simply requires the attention of all who enjoyed the main game. And as someone who was immensely critical of and disappointed with Ada’s role and presence in the main game in contrast to my love of the character, Separate Ways is more than satisfying, a content package that is beyond everything I ever could have asked for. It is a must play.
