So I was watching some RE speedrunner (Bawkbasoup) play RE VIII demo today and, what the hell is going on with RE these days?
The game doesn't really look bad, on the contrary, it looks great. It appears it's going to be a really good game, with a somewhat good story and gameplay, it might repeat the success of RE7. But why the hell am I seeing big vampire mommy with massive milkers now? What does this even have to do with Resident Evil?
Resident Evil, as I know it, was a game about a corporation doing macabre research and creating a couple of viruses that can turn any living thing into a bioweapon... for profit of course, because who the hell can regulate a corporation? It's capitalism after all. It was survival horror, with a great ambient and a somewhat beliveable story. You know, Raccoon City, zombies, BOWs and a pretty interesting lore tbh. RE4 changed the setting completely by going to Spain and replacing the virus with.. parasites. Ok? It uses old RE characters so "it must be canon", the game was a huge success and that gave CAPCOM the greenlight to do whatever the fuck they wanted with RE.
Outbreak and Outbreak File 2 were the last true RE games, the last time they went classic, with the forgotten art of the fixed camera angles. Then came RE5 and why the fuck they decided to be so fucking racist? Anyways, shit game, shit story, not the best characters, over-the-top action game that doesn't feel like a RE title. RE6 was shit I won't waste time talking about it.
RE7 brought back horror but one knows it's Resident Evil because it's in the title, because the game has a completely different story, setting, everything, it feels like a generic paranormal game. Oh, it reminds you it's RE because it mentions Umbrella here and there and Chris shows up.. uh ok. Then came the RE2 and RE3 remakes, the first one is ok (it could be better if it didn't had so much cut content) but the second one is shit, why the hell is Jill enjoying the apocalypse? She doesn't even feel scared, desperate or anything, Carlos calls Nemesis "Fuckface", a zombie speaks and Jill can't stop cursing, it's shit, pure shit, it's an action game and nothing more, plus it reuses a fuckton of assets from 2. I see two different concepts in RE now, the RE games with a lot of action and shooting and the RE7/8 style of horror in first person with some action thrown in but in a separate universe, but I feel like the original immersive RE's have died, RE is now a generic horror game, like all the others generic horror games. It kinda feels they went the Dead Space way.. hmmm...
We all know Resident Evil is a well-established trademark in the g*ming industry, any title with the words "Resident Evil" is going to sell instantly, so they're going to milk it as much as possible, the lore be damned, gimme these fucking dollars yo.
I think for horror, sticking to the characters, settings, monsters, themes from the first games just wouldn't work very well. Part of good horror is the mystery, not knowing what the fuck is going on.
You cant just do "here's a 10th game about Racoon city and Umbrella and their zombie virus" theres no mystery there, we've seen that, not that I dont appreciate the resi 2 remake but if all games were that, and had the same monsters and themes, it would be borring
So yea, I liked resi 7, and I wouldn't care if it had no lore connection to the original games at all. Resi 7 is the first time a resident evil game actually spooked me since I was a middle schooler playing my older brothers copy of Resi while I was home alone lol