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The Horror of ‘Resident Evil’ is Baked Right Into its Level Design [Resident Evil at 25]

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Horror is so often defined by a sense of place. It’s the first thing that sets the tone for a game, before you run into any creatures or puzzles. The first Resident Evil struck a chord with many due to its impressive and imposing setting, and since then the series has brought us to many horrifying locations. Resident Evil games are also known for backing up their iconic settings with excellent level design that reinforces the theme and rewards mastery for the player. 

The Spencer Mansion kicked off the series by dropping players in a classic haunted house-style mansion, complete with secret passages and hidden horrors around every corner. We’re all familiar with this type of house from decades of film and novels, so players are instantly put in a state of unease by their association with other pieces of media. Doors are locked with bizarre methods like thematic keys and crests, furthering the strange atmosphere of the house without having to show you any hideous monsters. 

These various gating methods not only made things feel off-kilter, but were an important aspect of the level design of the game. While you are dropped in without any clear indication of where you have to go to progress, the game naturally funnels you into specific areas by locking away large parts of the house to you until you explore enough to find the pieces needed to progress. There’s a long-standing principle of level design saying that you should never give the player a key before you show them the lock, and Resident Evil always did a good job of telling players exactly what types of keys they should be looking for before sending them off to find them. 

This ever-expanding nature of the location gave the player a great feeling of discovery and mastery. Many times when a new path would be unlocked, it would cleverly loop back around to a previously explored area, making the level feel big, but never requiring a massive amount of time to backtrack from one place to another. A strong use of visual landmarks, like the iconic entryway of the mansion, helps ground the player and prevent them from getting turned around easily. You’re forced to become familiar with areas because resources in the game are often very tight, so you need to look in every nook and cranny to make sure you find all the bullets or green herbs that are lying around. 

Resident Evil 2, most notably the remake, takes these principles and refines them masterfully with the police station portion of the game. Rather than using a traditional horror setting, it infuses the haunted house feeling into a place that’s meant to feel safe. We’ve already walked through hordes of zombies to get to a supposedly secure location, but even that is overrun and in shambles. It’s a smart way to show just how much higher the stakes are in this game and really ups the ante. 

While all the strange keys and passageways feel at home in a spooky old mansion, seeing them in a police station goes a long way to further throw off the player. If this place has stuff like that going on, something must be seriously wrong here. Using that juxtaposition really helps bring the lore of this area alive. The history of the police station and what happened there is also brought to life through notes left throughout the level, giving players more incentive to scour the area in search of tidbits of information that not only enrich the story, but may give clues to how to find secrets hidden throughout. 

The threat of Mr. X in the Resident Evil 2 Remake gives the player an additional mastery reward for becoming familiar with their surroundings. Once he shows up and starts stalking the player, you have to get creative in how you get around as Mr. X can show up anywhere and cut off your route. By the time he shows up, you’ve unlocked several different routes through the station, so the better you know the place the more effectively you can think on your feet to get around him in a panic. 

Despite being in a setting that was completely different than any other Resident Evil game before it, Resident Evil 7 wisely used many of these same techniques to make the Baker Family House feel like it belonged in the series. Using a similar structure in a much more natural feeling environment made a swampy family residence feel just as imposing and threatening as the original Spencer Mansion. 

Unlocking sections as you go also makes a relatively small space feel massive and rewarding by forcing you to loop around it in different ways to backtrack and find things. Being that it’s a family home, you get a lot of character development from the layout and contents of their rooms, giving you a glimpse of what the Baker Family was like before tragedy struck them, turning them into the monsters you encounter. It both feels like a real place, but is perfectly built as a video game level. 

I’m hoping that Resident Evil: Village is able to maintain the high quality of level design seen in RE7 and RE2: Remake. The modern games have always worked best when they find the core of what worked in earlier games and amplify them with an immaculate level of polish. The setting definitely evokes those seen in RE4, so hopefully they can echo what made that game special while still making something unique and modern.

Game Designer, Tabletop RPG GM, and comic book aficionado.

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

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Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

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Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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