Resident evil will return to it's roots

[Wrathborne]

I think they need to go for the complete reboot really. Yes they'd be retelling the whole story all over again from the beginning, but its not like they don't have almost 18 years worth of lore built up thats still available to use, build upon, or just expand completely.

Outside of character relationships there are events in the series that could be expanded on to their fullest.

RE0 is a good example of a game that has a second chance to be told and played in a different way and get expanded upon so it feels less like filler and more like its own entry(My opinion, sorry to disagree with others). There was always a real mystique about what Bravo team went through and we never really got to see or experience much of this.

Each game and story has a chance to shine again and be expanded upon and thats not a bad thing. I mean hell, how many of us here would love the first 3 games to be remade, and retold similarly like the REmake or Revelations, but with more exploration of the mansion, Arklay mountains, Raccoon city, the various Umbrella facilities as well as the characters getting some actual development and a more series focused narrative?

The idea of RE1-3 getting the Revelations treatment with a few of the features from the more recent series entries(As much as I hated 6, I DID like the new sprint move, and the melee attack/stamina meter. Those did fit in well.)

The one thing they really need to do though, is they need to really start listening to the fans.
Old and new fans, there is a middle ground that both sides can appreciate and really, its not like anyone wants to hate the series, or the direction its been taken.

When they seriously start listening to what we've all been saying, and it gets applied in a game, a lot fo us just might stop hating Capcom so much.

[Spera01]

As I posted in the other thread: I'm all for a reboot. Even the story. While I've grown up with it and pretty much love the characters, I find myself just not caring that much anymore. Where else can the story really go? More random organizations and more outbreaks? Sure, we got Alex Wesker and Ada's organization to elaborate on but do you really think their plot and motivations are going to be drastically different from Wesker's or Carla's? It's just more of the same adding onto everything. If they can come up with something new and clever though, I'd be all for it. RE6's story left a bad taste in my mouth though and I now find myself wanting Wesker to come back simply because DC Douglas is the man.

Perhaps they don't have to rid the story, but I think a reboot like RE4 is a must at this point... Maybe they could do a new kind of gameplay that features some returning characters while the story takes place during events that happened off-screen in the past. This way we could still have a relevant story without it just continuing on with more of the same shit. Perhaps show what Billy has been up to all these years or what exactly he did after Rebecca left him. Bring Barry back and have him fighting to defend his family against an outbreak/show him trying to rescue Jill from Raccoon City. Or you know what I'd like actually? A game where you actually play as Wesker (not counting Umbrella Chronicles), playing through the events of (and possibly even before) RE0-RE1. There's still plenty of opportunities to expand the story without actually expanding it if that makes sense. Otherwise, if we're going to see just more of stuff like RE6, I'd rather just see the reboot button pressed.

[Darkmoon]

At this point Capcom could make my dream Resident Evil game and I probably wouldn't buy it. I trust Capcom so little now that anything they put out, I view automatically in a negative and suspicious way (my wife and I are debating getting Remember Me, which is only produced by Capcom, but it's hard going) and I'm viewing the community around Resident Evil almost as negatively these days. Only a handful of people don't make me want to murder them now...and reading the 1.5 topics will probably turn me grey. I swear, I'm waiting for someone to go, 'But I'm rubber and you're glue' as a retort.

Hell, the only reason I'm still here is a misplaced sense of loyalty to this place since I;ve been here so long and the handful of people I actually give a rat's ass about.

So reboot away Capcom. I'm sure it'll be an even bigger clusterfuck than your usual bullshit.

[Vixtro]

They don't need to reboot the story, they just need to reboot the gameplay. Capcom need to completely unlearn everything from this current downhill slump that RE4 started.

[News Bot]

They still need to finish off TRICELL and Ada's organization, and they could also shed some more light on the rival company of Umbrella.

[Grem]

Yeah, Leon's story needs a conclusion (Ada's true intentions, etc..), that's almost the only thing left storywise. Sadly, Capcom didn't do it for RE6 and it was the perfect opportunity.

[Dracarys]

Shit word reboot is scary as fuck in combination with Resident Evil. Yeah sure DmC proves to be awesome, but i don't want to throw away my last 13 years which I spend loving current RE story. For love of god Capcom make RE games scary again, but don't change the story and characters!

The problem is the story they set up for the RE world now makes horror impractical and any situation can probably fall flat too 'Where is the BSAA?'. A reboot would reset everything to zero and provide freedom to create horror without the story suffering as a result. No more huge army sitting in the background constantly, if they kept Umbrella around longer could focus the story on a small group of individuals each game, like RE1/2/3/CV/0 did...until RE4 came along and said "lol Umbrella is dead" in the first minute..

[Grem]

The problem is the story they set up for the RE world now makes horror impractical and any situation can probably fall flat too 'Where is the BSAA?'. A reboot would reset everything to zero and provide freedom to create horror without the story suffering as a result. No more huge army sitting in the background constantly, if they kept Umbrella around longer could focus the story on a small group of individuals each game, like RE1/2/3/CV/0 did...until RE4 came along and said "lol Umbrella is dead" in the first minute..

They could still simply ditch the bioterrorim story arc without affecting the RE universe as we know it. Why not make a game where the big bad would be the Family in their hideout, for instance?

You could have a story where the Family plans secretly to arm the US with more deadly bioweapons and it wouldn't be "ah! bioterrorists! shoot them up they want to destroy the world! join the BSAA!"

[Scream]

Well sorry to say but other than a reboot the only way to make a decent RE game again would be to either:
- Do another remake in the same style as REmake
- Create a game similar in style to old RE and put it in Raccoon City (or a sequel to CV or something).

The third option of continuing the current storyline is like umm, suicide IMO. They could finish it off with another movie/novel (a fitting end for an unwanted story).

What they should do (but won't), is remake RE2/RE3 as one game, and continue the new canon from that game (as RE1 2 and 3 are very well established now). People want to see what REALLY happens after Raccoon City, and play it.. not a series of novels/videos/movies and games in between or whatever they did.

Though I'm very intrigued, not just by the reboot scenario but the open world idea. It's what I would of done, I can only imagine an RE game like Fallout/Skyrim - fucking awesome.. (I would say GTA, but GTA4 seems so simplistic/no depth to it these days - GTA 5 should be interesting as an open world experiment). Though the Japanese prefer third person games, so it would be interesting to see how it develops. I think I mentioned alternative universes/"what if" scenarios before somewhere, that could be another interesting take on the series without removing established lore. Weird, but then again the universe is weird to us humans..

Of course all the above depends on them not being idiots and creating a crap game (which is going to be a huge task for a team not familiar with creating good games).

[Kegluneq]

A reboot is the only way to bring back the feeling of the survival horror back.

Mikami described it best. They didn't want to have the former characters coming back to BH2 because they had already gone through that experience. BH3 and BH:CV reflect this aspect perfectly. The main characters and the players barely feel the same tension and fear found on previous games.

New characters, and a new atmosphere, and a new gameplay engine are necessary to bring BH back to its survival horror roots. And for that to happen, you need a reboot. Even if some things are unpractical these days (fighting one or two slow zombies at a time would not have the same impact it did 15 years ago), there are still ways to create the atmosphere necessary to balance off the player psychologically and re-use the same concepts and designs if you use creative ways to employ them. Zombie U is a testament of that.

Capcom should drop it as it is. I don't think they'll do a good job with a reboot, though. But it's still better than continuously insisting on the current trend of BH which has systematically disappointed the fans. BH4 was a fresh breeze and it worked because it kept some elements of horror intact. But that was short lived. Capcom needs to find new ways to improve the survival horror aspect instead of milking the cow.

[Lanzagranadas]

Resident Evil will return to its roots when pigs can fly and crows are able to handle a rocket Launcher. Serioulsy, what a joke Capcom, we heared that promisse before....

Anyway, it´s interestig to see what people expect of a "reboot". Reboot could be an amazing thing, but could also be a disaster, all depending on how they do it.

[Mrox2]

I would only love a reboot if they put zombies, well skilled story writers and game engineers and the most important thing: tons of graphics, i mean, super ultra graphics.

^
Though I would love a RE-boot starting from RE3.5 as an alternate RE universe, semi-reboot.

[Pikminister]

They still need to finish off TRICELL and Ada's organization, and they could also shed some more light on the rival company of Umbrella.

I understand why you would want that News Bot, but the whole point of such a reboot, would be to go back to the survival-horror roots of the series.

I don't find the plotlines in RE as being really important to reach that goal. Not as much as the actual content in terms of gameplay. The Survival element is always found there and nowhere else.

If they want to make the games Survival-Horror again, they don't have to hire a good horror story writer. They simply have to move away from trying to make RE an action shooter. Because that sort of gameplay simply makes it impossible to feel any fear or to set limits to how much ammo and resources you have at your disposal (in shooters, you usually have a lot of both).

Therefore, I found this quote he made, to be the most relevant:

Kawata: “Survival horror as a genre is never going to be on the same level, financially, as shooters and much more popular, mainstream games."

With that Kawata acknowledges that Survival-Horror is something that hardly goes together with an action shooter type game.

A Survival type gameplay (which has been described as one that punishes players and forces them to think, seriously administrate resources and ammo) is what would hold back a title from reaching CoD type sales. Because let's be honest here. In CoD, barely anything is hard to get.

Thus why its the game of choice for most casuals and even little kids. Survival would be too hard for those type of people.

[TheNightBegins]

This is some really exciting news. I am a huge fan of the old school RE and a return to its roots is like a dream come true. I really dont think it calls for rebooting the story though. How cheeky is that! We invest all this time and money in the series and they get towards the end of the story and say meh lets try that again. If someone was to sit you down and tell you a story for over an hour and then say oh hang on let me start again. Would you continue to listen? I know I sure as hell wouldnt.

Its also prefect timing for Dead Space 3. They turn their game into co-op action because RE5 did so well and then RE6 bombs, I bet EA are crapping their pants now. Thats probably why they are releasing all that DLC nonsense.

Anyway back to the roots hell yeah! New story ohhh hell no! If they reboot the story then alot of people need to get fired because its a major fail in my opinion. What should I do with all this crap I collected? Its no longer relevant??

[Bianca]

Anyway back to the roots hell yeah! New story ohhh hell no! If they reboot the story then alot of people need to get fired because its a major fail in my opinion. What should I do with all this crap I collected? Its no longer relevant??

I think this is the first time I've seen someone argue that a series cannot be rebooted because their collectors' items would be deemed irrelevant. This actually made me laugh. In a good way.