I just read an article on IGN about RE returning to its roots. It seems a long time producer by the name of Masachika Kawata talks about going back to what made the original games so groundbreaking and special. He even goes as far as mentioning a possible reboot of the series.  Now I love Resident Evil 4, really like Resident Evil 5, and enjoyed Resident Evil 6. However, after 6 I really had the urge for the series to start anew, and after playing REmake yet again I can say this couldn't come at a better time (with new consoles on the horizon). Of course nothing is confirmed and Resident Evil 7 could come out next year with more explosions and guns then ever, but at least fans have a glimmer of hope to hold on to until then.

they say this everytime

then the "press" eats it up

then the first trailer comes out with explosions and monster with a slogan saying "horror returns" or something very cliche to that extent

then the game has no atmosphere, tension, or even jump scares

then the Resident Evil cycle repeats

I dunno. Apparently RE6 made some some nice money for Capcom so I doubt they would take the risk of swaying away from the new formula. Would be nice, though, but money talks louder than its consumers.

I still maintain that RE6 is a damn fine game. That's my story and Im sticking to it!

Didn't they already said, years ago, that RE6 would return to the series roots somewhere?

@Klei said:

Didn't they already said, years ago, that RE6 would return to the series roots somewhere?

Yeah, and it kinda sorta in a weird way if you squint at it did. The Leon campaign was far more "survival horror" than Resident Evil 5 was, but it wasn't a very good campaign, sadly.

Neither were Chris, Jake's, or Ada's campaigns but hey.

I dunno. Apparently RE6 made some some nice money for Capcom so I doubt they would take the risk of swaying away from the new formula. Would be nice, though, but money talks louder than its consumers.

I still maintain that RE6 is a damn fine game. That's my story and Im sticking to it!

I find that... unlikely. We have more chance of Resident Evil 1.5 being released to the public than we do of Capcom making a game that is like those old games.

@DeathbyYeti said:

then the game has no atmosphere, tension, or even jump scares

Isn't that a good thing? Jump scares aren't atmospheric; they're just a cheap thrill.

then the Resident Evil cycle repeats

Also, given that the Sonic cycle is pretty much the same thing, I'm feeling the need to get a better term. The "This Time We Mean It" Cycle?

Didn't they already said, years ago, that RE6 would return to the series roots somewhere?

Yeah right!

@Video_Game_King: what i mean by "even jump scares" means no effort is put into trying the "horror"

If I knew RE4 was going to destroy the franchise then I wouldn't of loved the shit out of it.

@DeathbyYeti said:

they say this everytime

then the "press" eats it up

then the first trailer comes out with explosions and monster with a slogan saying "horror returns" or something very cliche to that extent

then the game has no atmosphere, tension, or even jump scares

then the Resident Evil cycle repeats

This is the sad, sad truth.

I'll believe it when I see it.

A producer for a game series says the next game is going to be good and exactly what fans want? It must be true.

tank controls and static camera please.

@Oldirtybearon said:

@Klei said:

Didn't they already said, years ago, that RE6 would return to the series roots somewhere?

Yeah, and it kinda sorta in a weird way if you squint at it did. The Leon campaign was far more "survival horror" than Resident Evil 5 was, but it wasn't a very good campaign, sadly.

Neither were Chris, Jake's, or Ada's campaigns but hey.

They've been stringing people with this sort of BS for ages now. Lost in Nightmares, Revelations, RE6's Leon campaign -- they'll pepper in some survival horror-lite as a way to attempt to appease the older fans while still primarily catering to the RE4 audience. RE6 was the penultimate clusterfuck where they tried every which way and what you ended up with was... well, RE6. Bad action game, bad survival horror game -- just a bad game overall.

Though while Lost in Nightmares before it was actually pretty damn good, I couldn't trust Capcom to keep to their word that they would actually attempt to make a full game out of survival horror. A reboot is most certainly in order, though. The narrative is a fucking joke, and this is coming from someone who actually enjoyed following the fiction for a good long while, and the series is losing all sense of identity and is often now recognised as being ripoffs of other games. RE6's incredibly transparent 'inspirations' in particular were downright shameful.

Should they reboot Resident Evil, they need to pick a style and stick to it. Enough of this pandering, fanservicey ''survival horror'' shit. Either try to make some actual survival horror games (unlikely of course, but I'd commend them if they'd try) or just make the series an all out action-fest, fit it with some controls that aren't so slippery and give the shooting some feedback. Basically just make another RE4 or RE5. Though tone down on the QTE's if you please.

I wonder what true survival horror even means anymore. Shitty fixed camera angles? Awkward controls? Inventory management? Insanely obtuse puzzle design?

What does Resident Evil even have to go back to?

I'll believe it when I see it.

@bartok said:

If I knew RE4 was going to destroy the franchise then I wouldn't of loved the shit out of it.

It didn't destroy the franchise so much as prove that the franchise was stale as shit. And it went about horror in a different way, and still nailed it. Now the RE games can't get the horror of the first games right, and it can't get the unease and tension of RE4 right.

This next one, undoubtedly, won't be any different. It will either be action-heavy and playable, or a complete, slogging mess like RE6. Cut RE6 down A LOT and focus on good gameplay? You're onto something.

And I'd argue "true survival horror" can still be done quite effectively. Give the player a sense of hopelessness, and you've got it. Look at Amnesia or Slender. First-person games, but they nailed it. Or, again, look back to RE4. You stood a chance, but holy Christ, everything was so tense. If they're going to tout survival horror, they need to nail atmosphere, tension, and/or helplessness. And they don't.

And the lore. Christ. The lore. Straight up, at this point, a reboot might best serve to actually nail that survival horror tension again. The amount of viruses, and weird-ass non-zombie enemies is just insane.

@MikkaQ said:

I wonder what true survival horror even means anymore. atmospheric camera angles? contextually fitting controls? Inventory management? puzzles?

Awwwwww yeeeeeeaaaah.

But seriously, no, just... more exploration, some actual atmosphere that doesn't strike explosions everywhere to make its point, enemies that force you to flee, supplies scarcity, memo/diary reading for hints, peculiar puzzles, keeping it single player. Lost in Nightmares was pretty much the blueprint of how a modern day Resident Evil survival horror could look, so long as you took out the cooperative partner. And the Wesker boss battle -- actually RE5 could have done without the Wesker boss battles, too. Boy, did they suck. Anywhoo they could even add in the ability for you to move and shoot like in Revelations, so long as they have enemies that are still able to decimate you if you're not absolutely careful, and there's enough atmosphere and strong use of sound to make you choose to walk around corners into of running.

I just want a game where you play as/with Barry Burton. That's all I need from an RE game, really.

@Yummylee: Yeah I guess my point is games like Amnesia or even that one Silent Hill game for the Wii have done survival horror really quite well, but I can't see Resident Evil taking those advances into it's own design. It's such a famously stubborn franchise that I have no idea how "returning to it's roots" is going to help it. It should just move on to the next major overhaul of the design. That is to say we need another Resident Evil 4, but I doubt that's gonna happen any time soon.

Man maybe just make it fuckin' Dark Souls, and have you alternate between feeling empowered against a couple zombies and being overwhelmed beyond any reasonable attempts at combat by a giant horde of them.

@MikkaQ said:

I wonder what true survival horror even means anymore. Shitty fixed camera angles? Awkward controls? Inventory management? Insanely obtuse puzzle design?

What does Resident Evil even have to go back to?

Hilariously bad voice acting.

Man, I really don't want a myhtology reboot. They're starting to build up The Family, and I want to see where it goes. Plus, Alex Wesker is still a loose end. If they just mean reboot in the gameplay sense though, that's fine. I don't care what type of game they make next, as long as it's the same universe.

@MikkaQ said:

@Yummylee: Yeah I guess my point is games like Amnesia or even that one Silent Hill game for the Wii have done survival horror really quite well, but I can't see Resident Evil taking those advances into it's own design. It's such a famously stubborn franchise that I have no idea how "returning to it's roots" is going to help it. It should just move on to the next major overhaul of the design. That is to say we need another Resident Evil 4, but I doubt that's gonna happen any time soon.

Man maybe just make it fuckin' Dark Souls, and have you alternate between feeling empowered against a couple zombies and being overwhelmed beyond any reasonable attempts at combat by a giant horde of them.

A third-person ZombiU may be a more fitting aspiration, but yeah, that style of really hardcore, oppressive game-design could work wonders. God Damn, now I'm envisioning an open-world Raccoon City...

Well yeah, Kawata said if Revelations Unveiled Edition got better critical reception and comparable sales to RE6 that's probably what they'll go for in the future games. Sounds good to me, at least.

As much as Resident Evil is a prominent name in their catalog, if they are going to take things in a (again) different direction, I say just make a new IP the will embody those intentions. Let the series take a rest for a bit.

To everyone pointing out they've been saying the same thing before releasing the last couple games there is one important difference this time around. For everything people can say about the direction they took with RE4 and 5 we can't argue against the fact those games reviewed extremely well and sold by the boatload. 5 and 4 remain to this day the number 1 and 2 biggest selling entries in the franchise.

RE6 bombed with reviewers and after a strong first week sales tanked quickly in subsequent weeks. In the end money talks and if the current direction for a franchise doesn't bring growth or worst yet actually brings declining sales changes will happen.

Sounds good.

But honestly I don't care if it's survival horror or action adventure, I just want another GOOD Resident Evil game.

@Willtron said:

@bartok said:

If I knew RE4 was going to destroy the franchise then I wouldn't of loved the shit out of it.

It didn't destroy the franchise so much as prove that the franchise was stale as shit.

It wasn't stale as shit. You don't say that about a series that just released arguably the best or second best game in the series, Code Veronica.

..that's what came before 4, right? If so then yeah, not stale. Code Veronica was great.

I can't remember if I would have been excited for a new Resident Evil in that exact format back then, so maybe people were getting tired of it, I can't really remember. It definitely wasn't as bad as the current state of FPS games though.

@MassimoMoretti said:

Capcom has done nothing but ruin their IPs one at a time, again and again. Street Fighter, MvC, Mega Man and of course RE are all dead to me.

It's laughable you include Street Fighter and Marvel in that, considering how strong the last few entries in both of those series have been.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 maintains a strong following and is extremely fun.

Street Fighter IV is the biggest fighting game in the competitive scene.

Street Fighter x Tekken is well, apparently the new 2013 patch has made it pretty good, so the jury is out on that still.

It's fine if you don't like them, but to say Capcom ruined those two is just hyperbole.

Survival horror always meant exactly what it was; an action-adventure with fixed or forced third person perspective (as opposed to floating), limited inventory, limited resources, tank controls by default and a focus on puzzles and exploration. The idea that "we're going to revolutionize survival horror..!" like No, you're not. You're going to make some kind of action adventure that is not survival horror, but perhaps continues a few survival horror tropes. FEAR is not a survival horror game. Amnesia is not a survival horror game, Amnesia is basically a horror version of Portal. And that's fine. But survival horror refers to a very specific thing, not just 'any game that is scary'.

That said, RE4 is completely brilliant and RE5 is pretty great as well. But they're great horror third person shooters. And that's fine. They have survival horror elements, but they are third person shooters, in the same way Uncharted has some traversal but is not a platformer.

And no, Capcom is not going to make RE7 into a survival horror game. Because Capcom relies on Resident Evil to generate 3-5 million in sales. Because they're going to spend 40 million dollars making it. You don't spend 40 million dollars making a niche game that appeals to maybe a million people.

The funny thing is that they can't go back to what made the series so revolutionary and special in the beginning because all those elements are outdated and not practical anymore. They have to go forward and find new creative ways to integrate survival horror core elements while maintaining the modern status quo of what makes a game enjoyable to play. Unfortunately it seems that they don't know how to blend the old with the new - while at the same time fans are also somewhat to blame because they too don't know what they want. What IS survival horror in modern day? It's no longer poor camera angles and frustrating controls. Yet when you take some of those elements away, streamline some things, people will cry out that it's not survival horror anymore. Look at Dead Space 1 - some call it survival horror while others claim it's just a shooter with horror elements. The action while already quite slow and plodding for most modern third person shooters was apparently way too fast and agile for survival horror fans. We can't go back to the days of Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil 1 because some of those game mechanics, which were chosen out of necessity back then and just so happened to have heightened the tension, are no longer acceptable solutions in modern game design.

In the end you're left with developers that don't know how to innovate the genre with a lot of fans that don't know what they really want out of it anymore.

@Brodehouse: I don't think it HAS to be that way anymore. The genre can evolve, and SHOULD evolve past fixed camera angles and obtuse puzzles. Thats like if they made Quake 1 and said well this is the final mold, all First Person Shooters will need to follow this formula. Half Life came out and showed that you don't need these weird maze-like maps, and a shoe string excuse of a plot to go gib up some monsters. You CAN have a deeper narrative, slower gameplay, and still be a First Person Shooter. Survival Horror definitely CAN outgrow those past trappings that made it so iconic while still holding on to what actually made the games tick. I'd love to play a Silent Hill game that was actually fun to play one day but wasn't Homecoming.

@Humanity said:

What IS survival horror in modern day?

Amnesia

and if you have arachnophobia, Minecraft.

@Sooty: But is Amnesia what would typically be defined as survival horror? While I think it's a great HORROR game I don't think it classifies. Survival horror has combat in it and the player takes a more active role in what happens around him/her. I would say Amnesia is more like a cross between a horror and an adventure game - you collect clues, solve puzzles and once in a while you hide in a closet as something goes bump in the night.

@Humanity said:

@Sooty: But is Amnesia what would typically be defined as survival horror? While I think it's a great HORROR game I don't think it classifies. Survival horror has combat in it and the player takes a more active role in what happens around him/her. I would say Amnesia is more like a cross between a horror and an adventure game - you collect clues, solve puzzles and once in a while you hide in a closet as something goes bump in the night.

To be honest every time I play Amnesia I feel like I'm going to die in real life so I'm giving it the survival horror title just for that.

I think the older games Frictional made had combat but were meant to be pretty janky.

@Sooty: The fact that you can't actually fight back ironically eliminated a lot of the horror for me. If I knew that I had a chance to fight off whatever was out there I'd be a lot more scared since it would make the whole situation a lot more ambiguous as to what action you should take. Thats just me though.

I think if they just put a little more work into the atmosphere that it sure would go a long way. Even if it is an action game, if it's a tense action game (and not because of bad controls), then I think it's doing its job. Also I think part of the problem is they're looking at the wrong series for inspiration, Gears of War is not the successor to Resident Evil, Dead Space is. Plus Capcom needs to invest in higher quality writers, all of their franchises suffer from poor writing and a lack of direction for their stories, and I know there are plenty of talented Japanese story tellers to choose from.

I doubt it.

Honestly I want them to keep what they did with RE5 and just make it more about monsters that are actually terrifying. While I thoroughly enjoyed RE5, I do agree with some of the complaints users made. One being the lack of night-time, and the obviously not scary African virus thingy. I want grotesque monsters like Lickers and the such, not something as moronic as a tentacle that pops out when you behead the enemy.

I really liked RE6. I would love an RE7 with even greater explosions and a more over the top plot. I like Fast and Furious movies for the same reason. 
 
I also wouldn't mind a remake, but I honestly don't think it is necessary. Just make it a smaller scale story that takes place somewhere that isn't crowded. Like on the moon. And have it star Barry Burton. 
 
And for the people saying that Capcom says this "every time" I think that what gives the possibility of a reboot more weight now is how well the new DmC was received. RE6 was shit on by almost everyone in the industry, I'm sure that Capcom doesn't wan't that to happen again.

Obligatory RE6 is an atrocity against the majesty of RE5 comment.

That said, bring on more RE. I haven't given up on the series yet. Just don't make it too scary because I am a big wuss.