This is Resident Evil on a seemingly infinite budget, no idea too expensive, no whim beyond scope. Over its course you fly planes, dodge trains and drive automobiles. The storyline, in bulk at least, feels like four triple-A games tacked together, each with its own distinct interface, each with its own flavour, each riffing on a different aspect of Resident Evil's past. Then, complete a campaign and you unlock a Left 4 Dead-style Agent Hunt mode, in which you can dive into another player's game and hunt them as a zombie. There's even a seasoning of fashionable multiplayer invention layered on top, the game momentarily pairing players of different campaigns at key points where their stories cross paths. Leon, Chris and Jake's campaigns can be tackled in any order, but Ada's is only unlocked when the first three are complete. Scores of different zombie types to stomp and dismember hundreds of collectibles to gather thousands of skill points to harvest and funnel into an array of performance-enhancing upgrades - the game's generous stuffing is packed tight. A return of the series' best-known protagonists, paired off into co-op-facilitating duos. Four expansive, intertwining campaigns, each divided into five 60-odd minute-long chapters. It's just like Raccoon.Īnd God, the effort they've gone to. And with the series lacking a visionary to replace Mikami, the comment is part statement of intent, part hopeful reassurance from the Japanese developer: We've still got it. For all its respectable sales, Resident Evil 5 found few lovers.
So, in this moment, Kennedy is also acting as Capcom's mouthpiece, whispering reassurances in our ears.
Nevertheless, the scenery in these early stages of Resident Evil 6 - from the set dressing to the instant deaths to the quicktime events - is pure Shinji Mikami - even if the gifted designer is long gone. The fixed camera angles and boat-like character steering of the series' formative days have been consigned to history. Rabid dogs smash through glass panes while bug-eyed cadavers turn their heads to glare back at you over rotten shoulders, just as if you've wandered back into Spencer Mansion's woodworm-infested corridors. At face value, it's the eye-rolling incredulity of a zombie-thwacking protagonist thrown into the familiar peril of a sequel: 'This again? Really?' But as Kennedy and his new partner-in-uniform Helena Harper creep their way through an abandoned American university, its creaking halls resounding with the thunderclaps and rude flashes of a nighttime electrical storm, at times it does feel just like Raccoon. Kennedy's reference to the first town overrun by zombies in Capcom's long-running survival horror series is pregnant with meaning. "I can't believe this is happening again.
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