Resident Evil: During The Storm

 Racoon City Rises...

So Resident Evil has been on a bit of a comeback for these past two years, now hasn't it? I mean if we're really tracking things to the source then I suppose you could say that 'Resident Evil 7: Biohazard' was when things started changing for the better, but that game did go through a little bit of underperformance thus I'll wager that Resident Evil 2 Remake was really what made the people with power turn their heads. (The money men.) Thus we're in an artificial renaissance for the franchise wherein the old games are remade seemingly until we reach Resident Evil 7 and then... does that get remade? (Will Resident Evil 9 and Resident Evil 9 Remake come out within a month of each other? What's the endgame here Capcom? Do you even have an endgame?) But whereas we have a whole new army of fans that are starting to buy into the appeal of zombies, bodyhorror and puzzles, there are those who have been there from the old school, people who never dropped off after Resident Evil 6 and even those who still prefer the originals to this day. 

I don't usually talk about mods too much on this blog, but that's not because of any unspoken policy or dislike towards them, I just rarely see something that looks so incredible I have to talk about it. Personally I have a huge amount of respect for those with the humility, love and talent to sit down and just create a mod for a game that they like, just for the love of the game in general or to put their mark on it. Over the years we've seen all kinds of community driven mod projects that have ranged from the thousands of armour and weapon mods for Bethesda titles, to total conversions for Half Life and everything inbetween. And for my part I've dabbled in a great many mods in my spare time, and being a little bit of a PC gamer sometimes mods are literally required in order to play some older games. (Or simply for those games to work in times when PC ports are buggier than all get-out.)

Total conversion mods, however, are the things that really blow me away, as that's when the basic game is modified and changed upon to the extent where the base game often isn't recognisable and instead one is simply just using the engine to make their own world or tell their own story. For this you have famous mods such as Skyrim's Enderal, Oblivion's Nehrim, Empire at War's Republic at War, (a favourite of yours truly) and, as is the point of today's blog, Resident Evil 2's During the Storm. Now to tie things back into my intro, where's not talking about the 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2 but the old school 1998 original bought to life on PC through the 2006 Sourcenext port. (Which, for the record, is kind of a pain-in-the-butt to get ahold of today, but I'm sure there's always a way if you're interested.) Someone took this framework and decided to expand on this game with an entire conversion mod, and it is insanely impressive.

Taking place in the largely unexplored location of Racoon City, (Heavy sarcasm detected) the mod takes one of the 'Resident Evil: Outbreak' characters who survived that disaster, and Racoon City, in order to place them down in an semi-open world branching narrative storyline. Yeah- 'ambitious' doesn't even begin to describe the sorts of heights these developers are shooting for, and were I Brutus I'd probably be preparing my best stabbing knife. (Sorry, that was an atrociously bad 'Julius Caesar' reference. I'll see myself out.) According to the Moddb page, they want to create an 'Open world' akin to what Dark Souls employs, which I understand to mean a world made up connected areas and corridors rather than large open locations. (Don't think the engine could handle that) They'll be side quests that have a bearing on the outcome of the main story, thus imparting branching narrative opportunities, time sensitive objectives which don't cause a mission fail but might reflect down the line, an extensive cast of side characters and enemies who will be able to follow the player through cells. I know that last point doesn't sound quite as impressive to a layman but trust me; that is incredible.

You'll probably notice something about all the points I bought up, like how Capcom are currently employing exactly none of them with the Resident Evil's of today. (Except the 'following the player through doors' thing, I guess) Even with all of the modern day advancements and revolutions to game design, modern day Resident Evils are basically exactly the same in structure as their older counterparts. In fact, when thinking the RE3 remake in particular, there have even been some steps to actively stomp down on things like 'branching narratives' for whatever reason. And I'm not denigrating the new games for that, I think too many titles fall for the allure of other game's strengths rather than nurture their own, (Resident Evil fell for exact trap for 6) but that doesn't mean I've never wondered. Seeing such innovations actually be pursued, and by an indie fan-made mod no-less, is actually quite exciting.

One question I immediately had when I came across this was "how". Not the ins and outs, but just the basic 'how did any of this happen on the simplest of levels'. And now that I've looked a bit into it I think I understand it to be a use of the Resident Evil 3 development method, in that assets are being recycled in order to make new locations. However, this team have access to Resident Evil 2 and 3 for assets. (As well as Outbreak, I guess, but I'm not entirely sure if there was even a PC port of that. Or if it would even have any useable assets at all.) I don't know if anything new will me made in the general world building department or if match-ups and reshuffling will go to make up some of the 'new locations' they've hinted at, but there was a bit of talk about custom weapons so I'd imagine there would be. Also, I don't know what sort of black magic sorcery this team is working with but they're apparently projecting the game to the be twice of length of Resident Evil 2. How does that happen? I dunno, but I like it.

The team in question have bitten off quite the undertaking, and it's natural to throw a little sceptical shade about everything I've just told you because nothing should be taken for granted. However I will say that out of the 7 members of the team that I see listed on Moddb, there's some promising pedigree. Several of the folks have worked on other Resident Evil 2 mod projects and the director/main programmer has another big mod in 'Resident Evil: Mortal Night' that they completed several years ago; so there's receipts here. That being said, from what I've browsed through this seems to easily be the most ambitious thing that any of them have worked on (At least in regards to modding) and I just love the sort of people willing to step outside of their comfort zone like that. To go to these lengths to mod a game that isn't even readily available for the average player? There undeniable passion there.

Of course, with the tense I've been using you'll likely have become aware that this mod isn't exactly out yet. In actuality it's due for 2021 and we're just starting to see videos of the work they've done so far around about now, but it's all just jaw dropping for someone like me. Resident Evil 2 was actually one of the first horror games that I played which had an effect on me (Somehow I played 1 as a kid and barely even remembered it; go figure) so seeing anything new imposed onto this framework (I can't believe I'm referring to a complete game as 'framework') does something special to me. Of course, the game doesn't look impressive graphically so if you lack the nostalgia element you might have trouble seeing the scope of the work like I do, but perhaps you'll still be able to respect the effort and work some people are willing undertake for the hobby they love.