The Resident Evil we know and love (to hate) is growing up. I’ve looked at the last decade like it’s been one long identity crisis, when the truth of it is we’ve just been overprotective of little Resi.
We were there in the mid 90s to witness its first steps. We laughed at the clumsy way it once spoke, spewing nonsense like “Jill Sandwich” as it waddled about trying to shove shaped “keys” into their corresponding holes. We were there for its countless awkward phases, we got uncomfortable when it developed a fascination with leeches, and we were relieved when it tried, and succeeded, in reinventing itself. When it got curious about its Wii, we tried our best to dodge its many questions.
Next year, it will be old enough to drink, and though we can remember what it was like to be that young, we can’t understand what it’s going through right now. It was never struggling to find its identity, that was just a clumsy way of saying we don’t approve of what it’s become. And as much as we’d like to have total control over its future, we can only help guide it. Where it goes and what it becomes is out of our hands.
I’m done hovering just so I can chastise every mistake and bad decision. I’ve given up my best years already, it’s time to take a step back. But before I go, here are some ideas that Resident Evil ought to consider seeing as I sacrificed everything for it so take notes you ungrateful little shit or I swear to Christ I’ll leave you with Konami.
Let’s start with what we know about. For example, we know Capcom is working on Resident Evil 7. We also know that it won’t be another bloated amalgam of five different games, thanks to the lessons learned after the spectacular failure of the last big release. But whether or not RE7 makes good on the numerous promises we’ve heard about “bringing the series back to its roots” doesn’t matter. Not really. What matters to me is the frightening lack of insight that went into everything else.
Resident Evil 6 wasn’t scary. It tried to be, but it lacked an understanding of how to set about constructing an effective scare. The game relied too heavily on poorly realized ones, such as having zombies play opossum so they could startle us the moment we turned our backs to it, despite how obvious it is that that’s what’s happening. Capcom even knew this, and I know they knew it because they made it so you can’t fire a cautionary bullet into each of their heads, since that’d ruin their shitty scare.
That’s lazy game design, and for as ambitious as Resident Evil 6 was with its grand ideas and scope, it was exceedingly lazy in executing them. This ruined potentially cool ideas, like its impressive cast of boss fights, which it recycled over and over again until they became torturous. The quick-timed events (QTEs) that sort of worked in Resident Evil 4 were abused until they became controller-snappingly stupid, and so on.
The point is, Resident Evil 7 needs to be a real reboot. It needs to wipe the slate clean, and rid itself of all the excess crap this franchise has accumulated over its many clumsy attempts at attracting new players. We need a stripped down survival horror experience that’s tightly paced, polished and free to focus on the little details that make good games great, rather than waste its limited imagination by spreading it too thinly over too much bland content.
One campaign with optional co-op — Dead Space 3 did a wonderful job of this — a new-and-improved wave survival mode, and possibly another secret campaign that gets unlocked after the first has been completed. That’s a nice tradition to keep going. Oh, and bring back the Merchant. I miss him so.
I like what I’ve seen of Umbrella Corps, even if its announcement has felt somewhat passive aggressive. Capcom knows we’re desperate for another Outbreak, and they’ve answered our pleas by giving us games like this and Operation Raccoon City, or the Resident Evil equivalent to a flashing neon sign that says something like, “Hey, Call of Duty fans, Resident Evil has guns too!”
The time, cost and effort it took to ship these games could have been spent on a third Outbreak, and/or even a remaster of the first two games. This short-lived series was always ahead of its time, and it’s also the only real chance Capcom has at releasing a game that appeals to fans of the series and the shooter crowds they’d like to get at.
Outbreak is a long shot, and it’s hardly the only Resident Evil that’s worth remastering. Code: Veronica could use one, if only to remove the bitter taste that was left in my mouth by the deeply unnecessary remaster we got back in 2011. Nemesis seems like another obvious choice, but I’d rather see it remade following the release of Resident Evil 2.
A remastered Chronicles bundle — the on-rails shooters Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles — has some appeal, especially if it comes with VR support. It could be beneficial to ease the tech in quietly, naturally, rather than go all out with a standalone VR release. This would lower the stakes considerably by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses for improvement before any significant investment has been made in the tech. It’d also leave time for Capcom to gather community feedback that could guide the development of future VR titles.
Capcom might not need to play it safe. Resident Evil should pair nicely with virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR, and by all accounts, their “Kitchen” demo sounds it’s one of the more impressive uses of the tech we’ve seen so far.
It felt appropriate to end this wish list with Revelations, aka my second favorite spin-off, behind Outbreak. The first game was notable for being the singular bright spot in one of the worst years this series has ever had. It’s fitting that 2012 would be a year of such harsh revelations, as we watched a historically reliable franchise deliver what was arguably the worst game in the main series. It was certainly the worst reviewed.
Revelations was proof that Capcom hasn’t completely forgotten what makes this series so special. If anything, it proved RE6 was just a very, very bad idea, and not the “beginning of the end” some doomsayers claimed it to be. Revelations was the much-needed lifesaver the franchise needed to rescue itself from the murky depths that threatened to consume it. It was legitimately scary, atmospheric and challenging, without sacrificing any of the content we’ve come to expect from a modern Resident Evil.
More than that, it was eager to innovate. It put a welcome twist on the Mercenaries survival mode — now dubbed the Raid mode — brought back weapon customization, introduced us to a freaky cast of enemies and the handy Genesis OCD Starter Kit. When its sequel released last year, it built on that out-of-the-box approach with an episodic format and the most robust survival mode to date.
Capcom hasn’t said anything about our getting a Resident Evil: Revelations 3, but I hope they’re thinking about it. It’d be a shame to see another promising spin-off series end before it’s had time to come into its own. If it continues, I’d like to see the episodic structure return with it, and it’ll need more Barry, obviously.
So, what do you think? On a scale of 1 to Angry Mob With Torches and Pitchforks, how strongly do you disagree with me? It’s okay, I can take it. Let me know where you’d like to see this series go next in the comments.
