Tell a Concise Story
I’m sure that one of the difficulties Capcom imagines they have in moving forward is the Kojima-esque lore they have built around the characters, corporations, and events surrounding this series. How could they just write a simple story, given the number of apocalypse-level events that have occurred in this universe? How could they possibly tell a quiet, subtle, muted story?
The answer: Just go ahead and do it. They could (a) ignore some or all aspects of the mythos or (b) find a nook in this world that hasn’t already been exploited for one of the previous games. Advocating for a reboot would be dumb and moot at this point, given the fact that Capcom is releasing a remake of a remake, hearkening back to the days of survival horror Resident Evil. But they could do something to draw in people who might otherwise have checked out on the franchise altogether.
Not to praise the original too much, because it had its own set of problems — Jill Sandwich, anyone? — but what captured audiences about that first game had to do with the relative simplicity of its narrative. Kind of like a good Stephen King novel, it was a ‘situation’ sort of game. ‘People trapped in a giant house with zombies.’ Even that game went a little crazy toward the end, but everyone remembers the first half to two-thirds, which involves people fighting zombies. Even in a world so exhausted with zombie-related media, it would be interesting to see how Resident Evil would manage as a lean, contained story.
