25 years of Resident Evil

 Village of the damned?

You know, for a while there I was starting to feel as though Resident Evil had silently rebooted itself without telling anyone. Ever since Resident Evil 7 Biohazard came back into the fold (or, if you will, Biohazard 7 Resident Evil) it felt as those the modern team working on these games were interested in making a horror game, but not necessarily one locked to the Resident Evil canon. I mean just look at the RE7 game, it's entirely first person instead of the over-the-shoulder third Person cam that Capcom themselves helped pioneer with RE4, there are literally no traditional zombies in the game and the only returning member of the classic alumni was the one man with a season-ticket to his plastic surgeon. In many ways the game was unrecognisable from what Resident Evil had to offer, and yet it bore that name and, presumably, the same team, so I let it slide. Yet as more RE games have come to be remade it has served to really highlight the disparity against these two halves of the franchise and make me really wonder if they'd ever come together. Well, for VIII it would appear that they have.

In celebration of 25 mostly active years in the gaming world, Resident Evil greeted fans with a rather meaty reveal of every single upcoming project they have for us to sink our teeth into. (Except for Resident Evil 4 remake, there's some stuff happening with that. I'll talk about that another time.) All of that was mostly fluff to the Internet, however, because what we wanted was that gameplay for the brand new Resident Evil and I'm happy to note; that's exactly what we got. Oh, that and a brand new meme revolving around a "big" character to chew on. Only this time instead of the man-brink chonkers Chris to set our hearts aflame, it's this just unreasonably tall powdered vampire lady called Lady Dimitrescu. (Guess we've got Hachishakusama in our Resident Evil now...) She's ah... she's really caught the Internet's attention alright. Her and her entire clan of 'daughters' (see: coven of murderous vampire girls who seem to turn into bats but other than that are sensibly scaled.) Yes, there's certainly some domme fantasists who are getting exactly what they want right now, providing what they want is to be munched down on by a bunch of messy eater vampire girls. (They could at least wipe their mouths, the blood is getting all over their garments. Gosh.)

So, yes. We are absolutely looking at vampires in a Resident Evil game, alongside the werewolf which, as I noticed during the event, appears to be superimposed over Chris. (Whatever that foreshadows. I say, pretending that it's not a clear indicator we're getting another 'stalker' character this game to join the ranks of Mr X and Nemesis) It's the height of surreal, for me, to see these traditional monsters thrown into my favourite zombie franchise that I can't help but wonder if it's yet more evidence of Resident Evil drifting away from what it once was. But given the chance to see the rest of the footage (In which it seems we are getting zombie-like enemies) I'm starting to come around to it. (Plus, just logically, RE6 literally showed off a fledgling zombie apocalypse, I'd imagine the creatures must have lost their 'bite', so to speak, within the modern RE world.)

As for the gameplay itself, do you even need me to tell you that it looks as fine as Italian wine? That RE engine has never failed to disappoint. (except for in relation to the gore in Resident Evil 3 remake, but it seems I'm the only one who noticed how much that was tuned down.) Every time I see the inside of that castle I yelp like a schoolboy at all the finery, the light sources, the chandelier, the pure soul of 'ornate' which oozes out of it; the whole place looks gorgeous and it's the power of the RE engine that brings all of that to life. I'm honestly so very impressed with the versatility of this engine, and I salivate everytime I see another glimpse of her talents in action. The general internet may be infatuated with the tall vampire lady, but I'm all about that engine, and that ain't no lie.

Combat was also shown off in the footage, wherein we learnt that living through life and death against some of the most terrifying monster imaginable has really rubbed off on old Ethan Winters. That's right, baby, this time our boy has really stepped up his game and bought the ability to thrown up his hands in front of his face and limply push back against people. (Huh.) Although that will really help out against the new crowds of enemies that we see in this game that appear to take a leaf out of Resident Evil 3 Remake's book. There's even some of those universal exploding red barrels, which says to me that RE8 is committing to a more action-orientated gameplay direction as opposed to the relatively slow-burn pace or RE7. (Although maybe not as breakneck paced as RE3R was. I think people want their game to last longer than 8 hours afterall. Well, unless you're a reviewer, but who really cares about their pathetic whingeing anyway?)

What really stood out to me, however, was the way in which the inventory system has been remodelled in order to resemble an attaché case, similar to Leon Kennedy's inventory system in RE4. (Which they invoked by name, by-the-by) This means that new items and guns will be represented as a certain size in your inventory, requiring the player to reorganise or reshuffle things in order to fit the new stuff in. Or, in the worst case scenarios, end up leaving something behind. That alone is an example of how this game, even when it feels as little like Resident Evil as possible, brings it back and returns to the experience I love. We have the inventory system, the glorious residence that I'm sure will be dripping with puzzles and, of course, the return of the weapon merchant! Only, rather than a dubious trenchcoat wearing man who chooses to know us only by the moniker of 'Stranger', this here's an absurdly large gentleman known as The Duke. (What is it with this game and skewered dimensions, is that going to be a theme or something?)

Throw all of that atop of the new destructible environmental objects (full of treasures, Zelda style) and the collectibles we'll see around the map, and Resident Evil VIII is looking to be the RE4 of it's line. That is: a weird and wonderful entry that just somehow seems to get mostly everything right. (Except Ashley. Screw Ashley.) I know that seems like a premature diagnosis, we've only seen a sliver of gameplay and they seem to be wanting to take things mostly seriously, but I'm just picking up this whiff of silliness from the whole affair. I mean, the impetus of the plot appears to be Chris just breaking into your home and nicking your baby daughter; ain't that just the slightest bit whacky? (Makes me wonder if the team had seen all those memes about "continuing the Redfield line". Maybe Chris got fed up and decided to steal himself a heir.)

Of course, this all comes with a little bit of a grimace because this is a modern AAA videogame so of course it does. And I'm not just referring to the utterly gross and tone deaf way in which the presenter told us all to get ready for preorders. (I've already clicked on your 15 minute ad, thank you very much, I don't need you bending me over a barrel too.) Those special editions, my god. Why does every big budget game feel the need to throw 20 versions of their game at us? What do they get out the deal, more purchases? Are there folk out there seriously buying two copies because they missed out on the unique weapon attachment in another bundle? (I hope not) And also, it kinda looked like the hardest difficulty setting was locked off to one of those bundles. I hope I'm seeing that wrong because I do not play Resident Evil on anything short of nightmare and you better not be trying to pull one over on me, Capcom. I will be very upset if that's the case.

But aside from that slight unpleasantness, I'm practically abuzz with Resident Evil 8 and am currently so glad that this side project got promoted to a numbered entry. I've really come around to this expansion of the Resident Evil mythos and appreciate the directions we're going in now. From here, literally anything can be on the table and that's exciting! Are we going to get a Cthulu virus out of the franchise? Probably not because the Lovecraft estate famously has terrible taste, but the possibility is still there. From here I hope that future Resident Evil games might reunite us with some of our heroes we haven't seen a great deal of, (What is Rebecca up too? Seriously?) but I suppose that's what the remakes are for, huh?