Resident Evil 8 goes Mercenary

 My extraction point!

So a big surprise for me to hear about randomly whilst I was otherwise occupied, is that Resident Evil had another showcase event just the other day. (Actually, as of the writing of this blog it was just a few hours ago.) And my first reaction is; wow, really? I'm not trying to tell these guys how to do their marketing job at all, I would never presume like that, it just feels like the Internet just got done with their horny jail sentence after getting up close and personal with the ravishing Lady Dimitrescu. (Savour these moments of blissful ignorance until the actual game comes out and she mutates into a horrifying worm-monster-thing at the end of the real game. Mark my words) And now we have yet another event to talk about, just after the unsuccessful beta for RE:Verse. (Didn't get invited to that one, but I heard all the horror stories. Not the 'good' kind of horror either) Maybe the guys over at Capcom are just really invested in making this game as much of a cultural icon as possible to guarantee success. It just rubs me wrong, is all. (I see events getting strung together like this and I start to think of the grand con that CDPR pulled from Cyberpunk. Makes me nervous)

Alongside all the confusing new announcements was a VR mode- coming to Resident Evil 4? Yeah, you heard me right. Not coming to the Resident Evil 4 Remake we know that they're working on, but the original Resident Evil 4. (Or a VR approximation of it.) Mechanically I can actually understand why this is the case. Resident Evil 7 was surprisingly well received on PSVR, and that game worked so well because it was already first-person. But if the team wanted to go back and retrofit some of their old games to capitalise on that same success, they'd be limited due to the camera and prop restrictions of the original games. (Plus, those games look dated as heck nowadays. No one wants to get up close and personal with those models) Now Resident Evil 4 isn't exactly a spring chicken, and this VR footage really does show the age of the game we're working with, but it is the first game in the series to feature a free camera and thus all the assets of the game have already been designed to be viewed fairly up close. I'm sure some extra work had to be done here and there (such as texture upscaling) but the potential was sure and there. 

My only question is why. Why do this and why now? Why, when everyone's waiting on that stupid Resident Evil 4 Remake announcement that they're literally just holding over our heads now? Why, when they themselves should be preoccupied with launching Resident Evil 8 in the best state that it can be? Why? Well, let me tell you. Because they know full-well the similarities between 4 and 8, and Capcom want everyone thinking of the good vibes that RE4 left them with when they hear about the new title. They want Resident Evil: VIIlage to wear the skin of Leon Kennedy such to the point where you think the two games are the same. Maybe you'll even buy 8 thinking it was 4 remade, because you'll get them that confused in your head. How do I know this so certainly? Because the other thing they announced was the return of a feature all the way back from Resident Evil 4 in 'The Mercenaries'. (Yes, I know the debut was actually from 'Resident Evil 3: Nemesis', but 4 gave it the pizazz which made it so beloved. In RE3 it just seemed a little confused.)

As they explained in the announcement; Resident Evil 4 The Mercenaries was a mode wherein Capcom took locations from the main game and turned them into a time-trial mission wherein you had to murder zombies in an arena. It was super rudimentary and designed to just be icing ontop of the cake (unlocked after the game was finished) but it proved to be a really enduring mode that let people just rip into zombies in the way that they always wanted to. In fact, it slightly reminds me of the Raccoon City Survivors DLC for Resident Evil 2 wherein you cosplayed as other characters for challenge runs. The only difference here, and it seems to be a difference that this iteration of the mode will have with the original 'The Mercenaries' too, is that due to the First-person nature of the game there won't be any unlockable characters. That sucks because I always felt like RE4's The Mercenaries was the first time that Capcom showed how aware they were of their fan's antics by making fan-favourite side character H.U.N.K unlockable despite having literally nothing to do with that game's story. (Even Wesker has more of a reason to return, being an iconic main villain. H.U.N.K just sort-of exists)

Resident Evil 8 offers to bring this mode back to us with it's original name, and perhaps with it's original premise of just killing things in a small arena for points. (The original Nazi zombies, if you will.) However, I get the sense that what we're really looking at are battle gauntlets that will derive their challenge through ammo scarcity and enemy bombardment, similar to the RE2 DLC. I say this because, new to this mode, the team have decided to implement the main campaign's merchant as a shop to access 'between areas'. This does give an actual value to the points gained throughout the game for once, and also borrows a mechanic from 'The Raid' mode which was tacked onto Resident Evil Revelations 1 and 2. A reminder that this game started life as 'Resident Evil Revelations 3' and that Resident Evil keeps recycling the same minigame and changing it's name for some reason. (Damn, they're giving mercenary mode the Chris Redfield treatment...)

The only real big addition to this mode would really just be the abilities that can be picked through in order to change up the gameplay, but I have to be honest and say that they don't really seem all that amazing from what I've seen so far. These abilities are gained by smashing these glowing orbs throughout the map, at which point they'll offer 3 ability slots to choose from. (No word if these are randomised or not, but if they are that would automatically generate a little bit of replay value) We've seen abilities that make you move faster, make specific weapons hit harder, deflects slightly stronger; nothing really mind blowing. In fact, all thats on offer will only really be worth it if the stat increase is literally crazy. (I'm talking x2 on handgun damage or something) So does that sound to you like enough to make this mode a 'richer experience' than it's been previously? Take out characters and shove in abilities to make up for the absence? Hey, it's up to the individual; I guess.

Apart from that this event was really just used to shove a brand new trailer down our face where it was revealed (at least to me. Maybe I don't pay all the attention to this game) that there'll actually be multiple werewolves in the game. (So there goes my theory that the enemy werewolf is actually Chris serving the 'stalking mega threat' for this game in the vein of Mr X, Lisa Trevor and Nemesis.) We got another shot of Lady Dimitrescu getting all up in the protagonist's grill wherein she... drinks his blood. (Yeah, she really chews on it. Kinda gross, not gonna lie. Attraction slowly fading) And that there would be actually three demos coming our way before launch. Three, huh? For a game coming next month? Seems a little excessive. (If you're reading this on the day it publishes, the second demo is literally out right now.) And one's coming out one day before my birthday? What a nice present- wait, it's for Playstation only... Seriously, Sony? You asshats are buying DEMO exclusivity now? What has the other two thirds of the gaming community done to offend you so? Why won't you let us have any freakin' fun?

Regardless, it won't be long now until Resident Evil 8 is in our hands and the journey of one man will come to an end, according to the marketing slogan. (It's definitely Chris. It has to be. Capcom can't keep regenerating him into other actor's bodies forever) It certainly feels a little strange to have a game like this so close, as though these sorts of games usually release at the end of their respective years, which they actually do- for various boring corporate reasons. (Plus, this is a horror game that isn't coming in anywhere close to Halloween. Maybe they really don't want competition, I dunno.) At least, for me, I can breath a little easier knowing that a family of games I love is soon to grow just that little bit larger, because it gives one of those little things to look forward to in life that we all long for. God, this year is looking dry. Post May is going to be just a gaming wasteland...