The future of Resident Evil

Found a really interesting interview from Game Informer. Yoshiaki Hirabayashi (REHD) and Michiteru Okabe (RER2) discuss the future of the series and the interviewer brings up a lot of interesting points for them to discuss.

They talked about the possible annualization of the RE series, including all spinoffs and, knowing Capcom, mobile titles and tie-ins. Definitely an intriguing idea and goes to show the series is nowhere near dead. Worth noting is that they say that IF it happens, major titles would still take 4-5 years to develop, which I think is a good thing. Furthermore, they seem to have learned from their experiences with ORC and RE6. I may have liked those games myself but there definitely was something for them to learn from the critical response those games got.

ORC was okay. But one thing that I disliked was that it was really hard. I could not figure out how to defeat Nemesis at the gas station. There was some clever touches to the game, but it was still nowhere as interesting as the older RE games.

I hate listening to Capcom. It highly annoys me that they consider Resident Evil to currently be the best survival horror series on the market. I also hate how they keep saying "we think...". They think we want more emphasize on survival horror, they think we want more item conservation, etc. Last I checked, that should be glaringly obvious.

If you guys also payed attention closely, the same guy who said that Capcom is going to try to take Resident Evil back to its roots is also the same guy who said item conservation isn't necessary for survival horror. Does that sound like Capcom has a good grasp on survival horror. They even admitted in the interview that their definition of survival horror is different than ours.

To be honest, I'm always happy when things like this emerge. Still, in the back of my head, I know that I've seen the same things said time after time and yet they do nothing about it.

Now, I don't mind what the series has become, I still enjoy it to the fullest, but they could at least TRY to be honest about it.

DampRevil wrote:

If you guys also payed attention closely, the same guy who said that Capcom is going to try to take Resident Evil back to its roots is also the same guy who said item conservation isn't necessary for survival horror.

To be fair, he said that instead of just throwing in elements like item conservation, they'll examine why those elements are beneficial and why they were done the way they were. I'd say this is something that all developers should do when creating something. Just throwing in those elements without a good understanding of them is a good way to make a poorly designed game.

Despite this, the fact that they still call RE5 a survival horror game does make it hard to take their idea of survival horror seriously. Even the biggest RE5 fans I know don't consider it a horror game.

37 Narwhals wrote:

To be fair, he said that instead of just throwing in elements like item conservation, they'll examine why those elements are beneficial and why they were done the way they were. I'd say this is something that all developers should do when creating something. Just throwing in those elements without a good understanding of them is a good way to make a poorly designed game.

Despite this, the fact that they still call RE5 a survival horror game does make it hard to take their idea of survival horror seriously. Even the biggest RE5 fans I know don't consider it a horror game.

And while that may be a logical approach, something like item conservation shouldn't have to be examined in a survival horror game. This is just my opinion, but if something like that is being questioned, then Capcom shouldn't even be making a survival horror game.

The best thing to come out of that interview is that Capcom finally understands that they need to stop comparing Resident Evil to other game series and just start treating it like its own series.

Overall, I still don't fully believe Capcom is going to do what's right for the series. We've heard this over and over again, and the worst thing is that people actually believe they're going to change their ways. At the end of the day, Capcom wants their money. The same producer in this interview who said that survival horror is something they're going to start taking more serious is the same producer who said the numbered titles will remain action oriented. Which one is it?

Well there has been a resurgence of the horror genre over the past few years. Amnesia, Outlast, Slender, tons of other successful indie titles and more recently big budget games such as Alien Isolation and The Evil Within. Oh and Silent Hills is also coming soon.

With digital markets horror is becoming more mainstream. I think Resident Evil will get back into the horror scene due to this fact alone in the near future.

Exactly. Capcom even said that they're going to focus more on survival horror for Resident Evil now that horror is becoming a more popular genre among games these days. Capcom just follows the trends and tries to be mainstream which is exactly why Resident Evil is facing its current crisis.

But this time Capcom is REALLY going back to survival horror, honest. I will say the series is looking good with Rev2. Great competition for Last Of Us and Evil Within. Capcom's been taking baby steps getting back into the horror business, like with Revelaitons. Its alright, Capcom, you can make a horror game, it'll be okay.

Last of Us isn't even a horror game.

Mass Distraction wrote:

Last of Us isn't even a horror game.

Teh Spike knows this, but Last Of Us felt more like what ive been wanting from an RE game than a majority of the actual RE games as of late.

And Rev2 is looking to be even cooler than LoU. And possibly Evil Within. Granted I havent looked into them too much, not gonna spoil Rev2 like I did RE5, many years ago...