Mr. X is Resident Evil 2 most dangerous enemy and greatest horror trump card. The near-immortal Tyrant stalks the player from room to room, filling the dark halls with his stomping boot-steps. He’s terrifying, but what if there was two of him? A sneaky glitch can make this terrifying scenario possible, conjuring a second implacable man to haunt your nightmares.
One of Resident Evil 2’s more surprisingly design details is that Mr. X isn’t simply summoned randomly to hound the player from time to time. Once he arrives in the Raccoon City Police Department, he is always patrolling the game’s map. You can see that in this episode of the YouTube show Boundary Break. That means that even while you don’t see him, he’s there.
But this design quirk also creates some interesting possibilities, one of which is the ability to have two unstoppable death monsters chasing the player.
Getting this to happen is tricky. At its most basic level, glitching a second Mr. X into existence means keeping the first one nearby while hitting one of the few moments in the game where he is meant to arrive. In those moments, the game generates a Mr. X to pop in on the player. Those moments trigger when the player reaches certain areas or does a specific action, such as dousing the fire on a burning helicopter or reaching a certain spot near the STARS office in a second playthrough.
When that happens, a player who has manipulated the patrolling Mr. X to be nearby or who has managed to go out of bounds can trick that Mr. X and the one tied to one of these trigger scenes to both show up.
That level of manipulation means that you’re more likely to see two Mr. Xes in glitched speedruns than in casual play. Barring some glitching or a very unlucky chase from an already present Mr. X, players should only have to deal with one horrible zombie dude.
The glitch is a neat look at how Resident Evil 2’s dedication to detail—many games would not have Mr. X constantly patrolling the map in real-time— can lead to some silly if terrifying results.
Comments
4 responses to “Terrifying Resident Evil 2 Glitch Summons A Second Mr. X”
Mr X really sells the survival horror bit of the game. So I got to this point where I had the puzzles sorted out and I could dodge the zombies and lickers, and I was working on ways to get my clear time down. And then, inevitably, there was the STOMP STOMP STOMP of Mr X getting close, and here’s the dread and fear and horror! A ‘casual stroll’ through the game becomes a desperate scramble for survival as I try to just GET AWAY. My carefully planned speed route through the game goes all to hell because I’m now all the way over on the other side of the station.
Two of him is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.
Not exactly no. He will won’t follow you everywhere, not for very long on Claires campaign, and only for staged moments on Leons after you leave the RPD.
Remember that bit in Silent Hill 2 when there were two Pyramid Heads all of a sudden?
More terrifying because they were twice as sexually threatening. At least Mr. X doesn’t violate your corpse.
Despite this being a bug I actually think it is a way to improve on game replayability.
For example you play the game once, which unlocks a new mode that adjusts modifiers for the game. Then say you wanted to do S+, but your a little slower, or due to constraints you cant get it within a couple of saves (family or something – not everyone has tons of free time), you could use a modifier like 2 (or 3) MR X, or Half Herb Locations or Half Ammunition. Using this would offset poor times or save states. Like adding an extra MR X means that your time need is increased 30 minutes per MR X or something like that.
The opposite could also hold true. like say Double AMMO option with the offset being that you need to do the game 45 minutes quicker for s+
X gon give it to ya