BIOHAZARD 7

[Darkmoon]

There is always potential in the series. Like a few others, I haven't played RE6 yet. I bought it dirt cheap months ago but haven't been able to muster the energy to stick it in a drive, abuse a friend into joining me (I am not dealing with the AI after RE5, unless I'm paid to) and actually playing it. Of course, it doesn't help that whenever I mention I should get around to it people tend to say, 'Don't'. But there are still things they can do.

The first thing is to build a genuine villain. Umbrella worked because it was the Hydra - cut off one head, and you'd just find two more. Destroy a facility, kill a CEO, cure a virus...it didn't matter. Umbrella was so rich, so big and so powerful that it felt like it was going to take the player doing something extraordinary to get past the bough politicians and legal system, the virtually unlimited resources and it's own army of not just horrible monsters but trained soldiers. No bit player politicians or terrorist cells are ever going to have the same impact. TriCell would be a good choice to replace Umbrella, but frankly revealing that Umbrella was never killed off all along would be...not the best choice, which would have not been going, 'Oh yeah, it's gone lol' in RE4's prologue, but at least make it all the more sinister. 'You thought we were gone? Guess who owns the shares in TriCell. Guess who was bank rolling WilPharma? Want to know who funded the research into the T-Abyss at Montpellier University? Surprise!' The idea that some core section of Umbrella, a part independent of the people running the company, has remained active and in power is better than nothing.

An even better idea would be turning a former friend into an enemy, but Capcom has not got the balls to do that. The fact they were talking about bringing Wesker back for RE6 should tell you that, but...

More important than anything, I think Capcom need to leave the huge, world changing stories to one side for a bit. From what I've seen of RE6 B.O.W's are such a part of life that you can probably buy a zombie, flatpacked and ready to ship, at your local Ikea. By normalizing the situation so much they've created a situation where a B.O.W outbreak is no worse than a large fire or earthquake. Dangerous, sure, but the knowledge of how to deal with it is out there, the systems in place to deal with it. However, you have the same fire on an oil rig, and you have a much bigger issue instantly.

As much as I say they need to move the story on, right now they need to focus on making games that they don't need to keep twisting the numbers to make into a success. RE6 sold, what, 2 million copies less than they initially wanted? It only made there goals because they kept lowering them...kinda like me for new RE games. A deep, compelling story isn't what they need. Here's a tick list of what I'd do, in Capcoms shoes (You can therefore tick each of these off as what they won't do, instead adding a kaiju-like monster fucking the great wall of china, 'cos Call of Battlefield Shooters blows up national monuments and we wanna be cooooool tooooo, while Chris straps into a giant robot with cannons that fire smaller cannons which in turn fire Leons) if I wanted to make a less shit game than RE6.

1 - Introduce, and keep, a major villain running. Whether it be the shitt Alex Wesker storyline, Jake turning to the darkside, Umbrella/TriCell rising up again or even the return of Wesker's Cousins Evil Coatee'd Robot Clone they need at least a few escapes from justice before being killed to emotionally invest players. We don't give a shit about villain number 8 - I barely remember Saddler, or the bearded dude in Revelations, or whatchmacallit from RE6. We cared about the Ashfords because they were the face of the faceless Umbrella corporation, we cared about Wesker because he'd been a huge dick since game 1, hell I even cared a bit about Sergei because he was related to Umbrella. Midgets need not apply. Make a villain we can hate, make them strong and make them last.

2 - Give us a character we can fear with. No one believes Chris, Jill or Leon can be killed. If you get your name in more than one game and weren't killed when you appeared, you're probably immortal. The mental image of Chris sailing through the air in Damnation after being slapped by a G-Mutant, only to pop back up a few seconds later right as rain sums it up. I'd suggest a small town cop, a reservist - someone with a reason to have combat training without heavy combat experience to make them into an elite badass. Someone who can show fear, terror and not make wise ass remarks. If the character isn't afraid we have no real reason to be either. Just because a game should be (mostly) survivable doesn't mean the characters know that.

3 - Make it isolated. Stick it in Alaska when they're snowed in. Put it on an island during a storm. Hell, have an infected oil rig. You've set up that the BSAA will show up to any outbreak and kick ass - now find a reason why they can't. And if you can't do that? Kill them, bait them, trap them - have the villain screw them over and then do it again, for kicks. The BSAA are going to have to be Worf'd by any major villain anyway to be taken seriously. Have the villain outthink them, out fight them and out plan them, and have them do it with dickishness such as kids strapped with virus bombs, infected team mates turned on there former allies and a great deal of gloating. But make sure they can't save the day - that's for the main character.

4 - Focus on gameplay. As much as I dislike RE4's story, it's a pleasure to play. Capcom needs to do that again. Even going back to a more RE4 style system would be a solid move. Look at how other games handle the inevitable online play - Dead Space 3 wasn't perfect, but having two slightly different story paths depending on if you were in one or two player mode was a decent plan. Not implemented very smoothly, but it worked. An entirely separate co-op campaign using the main game's assets is also an option. Pretty much anything that isn't enforced co-op. You can't have a horror game, or even a survival game, if you have two characters and enough guns between them to take over any third world nation you care to name.

5 - Focus on fear. Half human creatures can be scary even with a good gun if they're smart and tough. Use the next gen system's super powers to make the enemies scary because they out-think you, at least in some basic ways like going around behind people, and using decoys and distractions. Make them anything but predictable swarm drones running into 'hangun bullet to knee to stagger, suplex murder' combos. Then ramp up the nigtmare fuel. Have the infected screaming to die, have them weep over lost loved ones, have the spooky messages on the walls in blood and the nursery with a bloody crib. Have the diary of a mother desperately trying to save her children slowly loosing her humanity and the terrifying merged mutated, pulsating result. Make us feel for the enemies we have to kill, and be afraid that we'll be next. Hell, have a death scene where the main character eats a round rather than b'e dragged off. Make us fear the change, and fear the changed, in equal parts.

[Renard]

As much as I dislike RE4's story, it's a pleasure to play. Capcom needs to do that again. Even going back to a more RE4 style system would be a solid move.

I agree with just about everything you listed, except for this. In my opinion, they need to go back to a sort of Code: Veronica semi-fixed camera gameplay style. I know FPS and TPS shooter are "where it's at" nowadays, but if they're going to truly revamp the series this time, they're going to have to go back to the fixed camera angles.

[Spera01]

Honestly? I'm sick of the fucking BSAA and I'm sick of these outbreaks being such large scale. I miss the claustrophobic mansion with just a team of specialized cops going through it and trying to figure out what happened. The next game should do something like that. No more of this global bioterrorism bullshit. Just a small remote location, nothing else. Actually, exploring a forest would be cool and could make for a unsettling location. Returning characters are irrelevant as long as the new characters are likeable and not Jake. Although I will say if there are two characters I want to see back, it's either Claire or Barry. Hell, give me both in the same game and I'd be ecstatic. A game with old man Barry fighting to protect his family would be cool.

Villain wise, lets not have anything remotely like Carla. A simple accidental outbreak would work fine. Maybe just have a back story about how it was some area holding sample viruses, accidents happened, and shit got out of hand. Could even leave it open ended and not completely reveal who is responsible. If they do have to put a target on someone, then don't have it be another throwaway villain. Besides Wesker, it's hard to care anything about the villains as of late. They're just there to mutate and die. Making the new villain actually build up a reputation for a few games before being killed would be nice.

I'm also sick of new viruses constantly being introduced. Go back to what we already have instead of just introducing new shit for one game. Bring back an outbreak of the T or G-virus and show some new interesting B.O.W.s from them. None of this C-virus garbage or whatever ABCD virus they plan to introduce next.

I also want a fucking G outbreak already. Stop introducing new viruses and go back to the classics. You could even say "lol foreshadowing" with Ada's line in Umbrella Chronicles worrying about what G would do in a similar situation. Give us the sort of creatures seen in BIO4's "Stylish" version that became Devil May Cry; hybrid, vague and grotesque.

Pretty much exactly how I feel. A group of different looking G's fucking shit up in a small remote area would be wonderful. I'd maybe throw in a few zombies and other B.O.W.s for the hell of it though while keeping G's the focus.

[Drake]

Here's the thing though: the series can't really go back to small-scale outbreaks any longer, not with how it has evolved. From 1 and the small outbreak across a specified area to the medium outbreak of 2, the series has constantly had to evolve in order to make the threat genuine. The series can go back to a medium scale outbreak, like 4, but the days of small scale outbreaks are gone.

Then in regards to viruses, you have to realize that with the advent of the bsaa and other organizations, the viruses of old have been sufficiently analyzed and have the right countermeasures available. Look at g-Curtis: had it been the bsaa instead of Leon and a small military outfit, they would've likely been able to handle Curtis due to pre-established measures. The t-virus (regardless of its multiple variants like abyss, Veronica, or such) and the g-virus are simply unable to be threats due to time that has passed, in which strategies and vaccines have been made to counter them. The c-virus was a natural evolution, one needed to give the viruses the ability to be threatening again. Had it and the abyss not come, we likely would still be dealing with parasites.

Resident evil is no longer survival horror, it will not likely go back to that genre in the main series. It is action horror and, unless a new game crash comes and forces capcom to think drastically in order to make profits, it'll stay that way.

Personally, I love dead space and have found it to be a suitable replacement for resident evil. So, if capcom would learn from how dead space proceeded and go from there, they could re energize the series and increase both short term and long term sales. They need to focus not just on the viral outbreaks, but in the people involved. Bring in new people, like perhaps the child of a former hero like Barry or Chris. 6 had the chance to establish this by having Chris die and piers survive, but we all know how that turned out...

As dark moon said, the series needs to bring in the whole "body mutated, mind in torment" aspect of horror, like we saw with the May-day monster in revelations. This, together with a better virus, and better character development would help the series greatly.

[News Bot]

Then in regards to viruses, you have to realize that with the advent of the bsaa and other organizations, the viruses of old have been sufficiently analyzed and have the right countermeasures available. Look at g-Curtis: had it been the bsaa instead of Leon and a small military outfit, they would've likely been able to handle Curtis due to pre-established measures. The t-virus (regardless of its multiple variants like abyss, Veronica, or such) and the g-virus are simply unable to be threats due to time that has passed, in which strategies and vaccines have been made to counter them. The c-virus was a natural evolution, one needed to give the viruses the ability to be threatening again. Had it and the abyss not come, we likely would still be dealing with parasites.

This is entirely wrong. There are countermeasures against the t-virus ("shoot them in the head") but this applies only to Zombies. That's where the countermeasures end.

All of the viruses in the series are still threats, except for the t-Virus which has a vaccine. However, it would not take much writing for them to completely invalidate the vaccine and just say someone has deliberately re-engineered the virus in some way. The C-virus wasn't a natural evolution, it was just an excuse to design new types of monsters. Virtually all of the viruses are just plot devices for creature design.

One of the main points of the viruses in the series that has been severely overlooked and understated is that the mutations they cause are random. For the t-virus, it's "stable" enough to have a high pattern of occurrence for certain mutations. The other viruses? Not at all. This makes them unpredictable, and being unpredictable means that you cannot form countermeasures. The BSAA actually relies on sheer manpower in the event of a G outbreak. And if the BSAA can't handle something, they carpet bomb the target area.

[Det. Beauregard]

RE4 was a good break from the old RE gamestyle....but after beating the crap out of it I couldn't help but want the old gamestyle to have what RE4 had.

Good combat system
Good camera system
fun upgrade system
more explorable world

Unfortunately RE4 broke the mold so much we got RE5, which was bad, and then RE6 which was worse.

I will always maintain that the RE series needed RE4 to prove that you could do more with the series than zombies, Umbrella, and Raccoon City or Rockfort Island. But RE4 ultimately destroyed the series in the end and the new direction that Mikami left behind just ran into a corner the very next game.

They just keep wasting opportunities at Capcom these days.

I really couldn't agree more; nicely said.

[Darkmoon]

I agree with just about everything you listed, except for this. In my opinion, they need to go back to a sort of Code: Veronica semi-fixed camera gameplay style. I know FPS and TPS shooter are "where it's at" nowadays, but if they're going to truly revamp the series this time, they're going to have to go back to the fixed camera angles.

Don't get me wrong - I'd prefer something more akin to the first Silent Hill game than anything else, given the choice, but RE4 is fun to play.

The problem with fixed camera angles is two fold; they are unlikely to make money (which is a problem for Capcom) and they act as a crutch in enemy placement and level design. If there is an obvious blind corner you approach with caution, if you spot an alcove on the map you have an idea something may be lurking in there.

Silent Hill proves you don't need fixed camera angles to be terrifying, and has proved it from the first game. Amnesia shows you can do it in first person, even, if you're clever. What you do need is enemies you have a reason to fear, an atmosphere that encourages fear and a plot that encourages a suspension of belief to allow that fear to grow. I suspect you could probably make a scary RTS game is you knew what you were doing.

And honestly, if the series is to survive, it needs to make money. If RE4 had flopped we'd, at best, have a reboot by now. Thus it needs to appeal to as many people as possible. What Capcom don't seem to get is that you can make a decent game with RE4's gameplay, rather than a saturday afternoon action flick.

Here's the thing though: the series can't really go back to small-scale outbreaks any longer, not with how it has evolved. From 1 and the small outbreak across a specified area to the medium outbreak of 2, the series has constantly had to evolve in order to make the threat genuine. The series can go back to a medium scale outbreak, like 4, but the days of small scale outbreaks are gone.

I disagree. In terms of people, Raccoon City was probably far larger than RE4 was. While obviously Saddler controlled a larger area (and more villages, since we wipe out the entire population of the one we see about three times in the first twenty minutes of play) I'm pretty sure Raccoon City was larger, and more significant (nothing in RE4 was ever important, after all).

With virus' now available from school vending machines there's no reason that a small, isolated outbreak can't happen. It could be a test run by a new enemy, a re-infection from a larger, now contained outbreak that's demanding BSAA resources, or even a small part of a much larger outbreak we never really get to see. Constantly ramping up the danger to THE WORLD!!! can only go so long before we have moon sized mecha Wesker trying to screw Mount Etna with his fifty thousand foot dick to impregnate the whole planet, or some such weird crap. It should be saved for something remotely important, not as comic book villain fodder or whatever it is that RE6 does with it's global threat...I really must play that, but I bet reducing it in time and scale to a single area, or even a single city, wouldn't have hurt the plot all that much. I could be wrong, though.

There are plenty of ways to do it, but I suspect as long as Call of Modern Battlefield continues to go global in there campaigns, Capcom will continue to try too.

[Akainu]

That's an oxymoron.



Good luck with that.

I'll wait to see the game in-action, before I decide on buying it - just as I did with Bio6 (which I still haven't played ).

Same here, When you take a dollar out of your pocket, you're voting...Or so I've heard. Sure as hell I'm not gonna vote for a corridor shooter.

Thus it needs to appeal to as many people as possible.

Maybe that's the problem...

[Akainu]

This is entirely wrong. There are countermeasures against the t-virus ("shoot them in the head") but this applies only to Zombies. That's where the countermeasures end.

Wait, you forgot the US$50 Millions Jake Muller vaccin against C-Virus! lol

Personally, I love dead space and have found it to be a suitable replacement for resident evil

To me,Dead Space is to Video games what Alien,the 8th passenger is to cinema. A true masterpiece, which btw absolutly shreds RE in every aspects. When you're a long time RE fan like & you play DS....you realize that the RE franchise was completly outclassed & unable to evolve.

[TheBatMan]

Wait, you forgot the US$50 Millions Jake Muller vaccin against C-Virus! lol



To me,Dead Space is to Video games what Alien,the 8th passenger is to cinema. A true masterpiece, which btw absolutly shreds RE in every aspects. When you're a long time RE fan like & you play DS....you realize that the RE franchise was completly outclassed & unable to evolve.

Hmm, can't say I agree with that. Dead Space was ruined by its "Go here, fix this" mentality for practically the whole game and became boring very quickly. But it did have atmosphere, I'll give it that.

[Guest]

Hmm, can't say I agree with that. Dead Space was ruined by its "Go here, fix this" mentality for practically the whole game and became boring very quickly. But it did have atmosphere, I'll give it that.

Isaac i need you to go downstairs to my office and fix the goddamn printer, and while you at it don't forget to bring me some sweet skittles from the vending machine, my sugar levels are too damn low !

[Wrathborne]

The series has endless potential. The doom and gloom is pretty reactionary. I'm more worried about the creativity of the developers than the potential of the series.

Nope, its limited to Michael Bay and COD these days. That seems to be what CAPCOM is interested in as it keeps the sales up.

It used to have endless potential, but with every sequel we get these days...I dunno.

I kind of just miss the simplicity of a Mansion/Police station that leads towards a Hidden Lab and characters fighting to survive.
Its more "We HAVE to save the world!" these days.

[Scream]

On that note, I'd love to see a Biohazard in space. OK, not like Dino Crisis or Jason X (actually I like Jason X for some reason), but Dead-space like. Newsbot should get on his horn and start sounding out about it to devs and shit.

[Graco]

As much as I love Resident Evil, I never felt like it had endless potential which is what makes how it has been handled so disappointing. I still believe it hasn't been exhausted, but I'm skeptical of its future.

[TheBatMan]

On that note, I'd love to see a Biohazard in space. OK, not like Dino Crisis or Jason X (actually I like Jason X for some reason), but Dead-space like. Newsbot should get on his horn and start sounding out about it to devs and shit.

Well it wasn't literally in Space but Biohazard 5 was basically a remake of Moonraker just set in Africa.

My main worry about the future of the games is that Capcom themselves seem to have no faith in the series and the current team have little interest in old school survival horror. In terms of story Capcom have made no attempt to build up a new story arc since Bio5 and have instead created a series of pretty much stand alone, contained stories. I remember saying back in the day that killing off Wesker was the worst thing they could do without getting a replacement villain ready to take his place. Why on earth they killed off Simmons in 6 I have no idea. He was perfectly set up to be the new main recurring threat.

The saddest thing from all this is that I feel Capcom know Resident Evil's ship has sailed and are simply trying to milk it dry while they can.