In March of last year, long time producer of the Resident Evil series, Masachika Kawata, explained to Gamasutra that Resident Evil 6 was going to be more action oriented. He was aware that this direction would upset the fans of the series, but basically, survival horror doesn’t move units, shooters do.
So with that, an early warning shot was fired to long time fans that Resident Evil 6 was quite possibly not the game survivor horror fans wanted. If anything, it was becoming clear to anyone paying attention, that the main series was moving into the action/shooter realm along side Resident Evil 5.
Almost one year, and two shooter inspired Resident Evil titles later, Masachika Kawata and the folks at Capcom have changed their tune.
This past week in an interview with the folks over at IGN UK, Kawata had this to say:
“I think that it’s important for us to have users’ needs in mind when making the games. At the same time I think a lot of what people want now is to have Chris and Jill in a game, or they want it to look like Resident Evil used to look like. That’s what makes the game work for them. We should be able to start from scratch and reboot it. It would still be Resident Evil. We wouldn’t lose the essential nature of what makes it a good game just by changing the characters.”
“Survival horror as a genre is never going to be on the same level, financially, as shooters and much more popular, mainstream games. At the same time, I think we need to have confidence to put money behind these projects, and it doesn’t mean we can’t focus on what we need to do as a survival horror game to meet fans’ needs. We are always taking into account user feedback, even when the users are very upset about something.”
Kawata also adds:
“Looking at last year – something like, for example, Operation Racoon City – it was quite an experimental attempt in bringing the Resident Evil series to new genres. And in light of that game, certainly I would say that I review my thoughts on that [the importance of action]. But I think it’s undeniable to say the series returning to its roots is important, and those roots are horror.”
Perhaps the move to port Resident Evil: Revelations to PC and consoles was a way to warm up to the more mainstream of gamers? The kind of people who aren’t too familiar with what the survival horror genre really is? Either way, be certain that Capcom will be keeping an eye on how RE: Revelations does when it makes the jump to PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U on May 24th.
