"Most".
You say this and yet it influenced from Gears all the way to Mass Effect.
Actually Gears of War influenced several of those games, or some of the game just had similar mechanics that existed without citing RE4 or gears as an influence. But none of this is relevant since most third-person shooters aren't over the shoulder when you're walking without aiming, (or in a mode that changes the camera to that), you're trying to dismiss that fact to inflate the importance of RE4 but it doesn't really change anything that the majority, even among the most popular of TPS, don't have a close shoulder style when walking without aiming. that doesn't take away from what RE4 did influence so not sure what you're doing that.
Before RE4 most third person cameras were zoomed back like that Max Payne shot from above. To deny RE4's impact is to deny reality. It changed games overnight literally.
No one did that, you're having a meltdown over nothing, there were also several TPS games that had multiple camera modes, like the gif I showed above. it did not change games overnight either, Gears did, now you're inflating its important even further, which will inevitably have to be pushed back. Until after Gears, which also wasn't overnight, success than you saw the clones and the games using IT'S iteration of that RE4+Kill Switch formula, but in a way that made the devs jump on with it, which wasn't as common with RE4, where many devs either still had the multiple camera modes like the game I gifted above, or the far back Max Payne style.
RE4 influenced games, no one is denying that, you're just putting too much value on what it actually did, and then heading toward sensationalism. I mean this part of the conversation started with you moving the goal posts to games that had over the shoulder shooting, to having it when they are walking.
RE4 also influenced the RE series to RE5 and RE6, it's not all one-sided.
Important game, especially for RE series good and bad, was influential. No need to go further.
Did nobody play Virtuoso on the 3DO LOL
There are parts of that game that zoomed in, but you weren't aiming, you were still shooting the same way, just the camera zoomed in lol. Also, that game was hot in the magazines back then, digitized rocker with shotguns blazing.
Then people played it.
If they did it first, it is certainly groundbreaking, but while having a camera in first person and centered at third person is the obvious decision, moving it off center isn't wizardry and a mind bending evolution. More important for gameplay was to be able to switch sides. Whoever did that first, because it kind of fixed this innovation, removed the kind of awkward feeling having to approach left corners different than right corners, which is a problem a center camera did not even have to begin with.
No, I don't even think it was the first RE game to have an over the shoulder shooting, I believe some previous spin-offs had it, than some arcade games had it, light gun, several PC games, I don't think Console games had it though outside of the Xbox which has a few, Freedom Fighters and the like. Don't recall the PS2 or GameCube having any before 2005.