BitSnark

After Resident Evil 5, Masachika Kawata, the current producer of Resident Evil: Raccoon City, said the following: “The series will see a complete renovation with the next entry on every level,”

Yeah. That was a crock of shit then wasn’t it?

Yesterday, Capcom finally broke cover on the long-gestating sequel with a trailer for all and sundry to see. It was a long bastard too; clocking in at just over three and half minutes, it showed a lot more than just the typical brief CG sequence and cut to the logo.

Indeed we got protracted, extended glimpses of the ‘renovated’ gameplay of Resident Evil 6 and what we saw was about as revolutionary and fresh as one Call of Duty title following on from the next.

Essentially everything that you loved or hated about Resident Evil 5 is here in greater prominence and louder than ever before. The trailer showed us co-op, zombies with automatic weapons(!), cookie-cutter cover mechanics, completely over the top fist fighting and grappling and the kind of diving and sliding guns-akimbo action that would make John Woo blush if he ever saw it.

Instead of coming up with something new, or even going back in the other direction and revisiting their survival horror roots, Resident Evil 6 looks to be the most action-focused, shooter orientated entry in the series yet.

The series metamorphosis from Survival Horror into Shooter Horror, is, on the evidence of this at least, totally complete. On the evidence of this trailer, there is no change here; with the promise of the game being ‘different on every level’ to it’s predecessor, ringing hollow and horribly false.

Personally, I don’t hold any great degree of disdain for Resident Evil 5, so I can’t say that I feel the same venom toward it as many other fans do.

The problem of course is that Resident Evil is now playing in a totally different playground now and has been for a little while. With the slowly-declining Silent Hill franchise no longer counted among it’s peers, Resident Evil 6 will be forced to share limelight with titles such as the ever-improving Dead Space series and of course, the juggernaught Gears of War franchise.

Still, with Capcom’s insistence to forge on in this direction, the trailer did what it had to do to impress folks who keen on more of the same. Chris and Leon are the main protagonists this time and there appears to be a larger focus on more populated, urban environments with ‘Muscles McGee’ Chris Redfield, shoving civilians out of the way during a riot in neon-drenched, night-time Hong Kong en route to a zombie extermination in a block of apartments.

Setting-wise, it appears to be a world away from the dreary, sun-bleached African environments seen in Resi 5, with other locations including what appears to be a snow-capped Moscow among others.

So then, i’m looking forward to this and am cautiously if quietly optimistic about the quality of the final product. Sadly though, i’m not the raving, blindly optimistic fool I should have been had Capcom not continued with such a conservative and well-worn direction for the series.

Resident Evil 6 is due out on 360 & PS3 on November 20th this year. A PC version is due at a later date to be determined.

The reveal trailer can be seen at the link below: