Resident Evil 6 Is Revealed And It Actually Looks Exciting

It’s not often in which a video game tease actually pays off, especially when it’s from Capcom. We haven’t been burned too much in the past by Capcom but reveals like DmC and Monster Hunter on the Xbox 360 have left gamers scratching their heads a bit if not completely feeling like they should act out this gif.

Earlier this week buzz began to spread that Capcom may do the unthinkable and reveal Resident Evil 6 in a non-industry event capacity.  In the past Capcom has unveiled new Resident Evil projects at either E3 or TGS since the eyes of gamers are locked onto those events. But in a change of pace Capcom has indeed revealed Resident Evil 6 in a rather substantial way and the game actually looks pretty damn good.

As someone that has enjoyed the Resident Evil series but wasn’t fond of RE5 I wasn’t too excited for the reveal of RE6.  I wasn’t worried that Wesker was going to make a return despite becoming nothing but goo in a lava pit, but the prospect of more forced co-op and constant action did kick my excitement down a few notches.  From the looks of this rather lengthy and upfront RE6 premier trailer, it looks like Capcom has listened to the desires of gamers for the RE series to go back to its survival horror roots while still maintaining a healthy dose of action and modern game panache to appeal to folks.

Resident Evil 6 looks to break up the standard RE formula a bit by feature multiple playable characters and multiple storylines that ultimately all tie-in together.  Taking center stage in RE6 will be everyone’s favorite heroes: Leon S. Kennedy and Chris Redfield, both of whom will have separate campaigns in the story mode.  Gamers will see Leon battling a new bioweapon outbreak in Tall Oaks, a place that basically looks like Raccoon City 2.0.  With enemies that appear to be zombies (who ever thought we would see that again) and a generally dark and dense urban landscape I expect many gamers may have a moment o déjà vu upon seeing Leon kill monsters and generally show us how much of a badass he is.

Chris Redfield on the other hand will undertake his own bioweapon counter-attack mission set in China.  Yes, Mr. Mega Muscles is back again but he’s sans Sheeva and apparently has a chip on his shoulder no doubt due to all the drama he’s been through before in RE5 and RE: Revelations.  It may not be too exciting to hear that we’ll controlling Chris again, but I really like the general design of the China stage and the faux Shanghai that has been devised by Capcom.  

It also appears like the enemies Chris encounters in China will be completely different compared to those that Leon will face as they instead seem to be a combo of organic and direct weapon based bioweapons.  Just imagine fighting someone that makes the Tyrant look like a chump but has a mechanical arm of death at its deposal.

Besides Leon and Chris, a new as yet unannounced character will also be joining the fray.  A mercenary that somewhat looks like Bryan Fury from Tekken, the new addition to the world of RE doesn’t seem too out of place in the snippets that he’s shown in and even his blonde haired female companion seems nice as well.  Exactly how they’ll factor into the RE universe as a whole is unknown but I doubt Capcom will introduce some new characters only to kill them off from the get-go.

On the gameplay side of things RE6 looks ok.  I won’t completely get hyped over a two minute trailer that has a few snippets of gameplay in it, but it does seem like Capcom is aiming for a mixture of the tense horror moments of RE4 with the all-out action that RE5 featured.  In a way RE5 tried to do too much action most of the time and this RE6 trailer certainly wasn’t subtle in that regard nor did it look like an updated version of RE: Revelations. However, I am interested to see what scenarios Capcom comes up with since there does appear to be a lot of variety in the locations and enemies.

Resident Evil 6 doesn’t quite have me hooked yet, but the game does look far better than how I expected it to be.  The new characters seem interesting, Chris and Leon are still badasses, and there does seem to be a nice amount of horror or at least suspense in the locations and enemies, who apparently can snatch characters up even if they’re behind cover.  Visually RE6 looks good, though a few spots were rough, but that’s to be expected of Capcom’s internal development teams. I just wonder if Resident Evil will be able to hook gamers in since it’s coming out on November 20 for the PS3 and Xbox 360. 

Capcom could delay RE6 into January or February 2013 due to development issues, but if the November date is a hard lock then it could be going up against Halo 4 and the new Call of Duty game.  Capcom likely knows what they’re doing but releasing RE6 in November is just a bold move all around that may not bite them in the ass but may result in a few folks passing due to other games, one of which could be the next God of War installment.

For now I’ll just keep on following RE6 until I see it at E3 and I’ll likely still try to figure out who does the voice of the new mercenary character. Seriously, if you’re a voice acting fan and have a faint clue let me know since I can’t figure out if it’s Troy Baker or someone else.