The Rise and Fall of Resident Evil?

Resident Evil is, without a doubt, a staple in the video game industry, and the game that defined survival horror when it was first released back in 1996. The main canon games Resident Evils one through three and also Code: Veronica were praised for it's unique approach to gaming, with the limited ammunition and limited save, truly drawing out on the "survival" part of survival horror.

Then in 2005, the franchise took a new approach. Resident Evil 4 was a double edged sword, many might say. For one thing, it revolutionized gaming (again!), specifically the third person shooter sub-genre. The over the shoulder aiming technique that Resident Evil 4 pioneered is seen in many of today's third person shooters. The game itself was very satisfying and overall, Capcom made a nice profit off the game, now considered one of the best games in the past decade.

On the other hand, people who grew up with the originals claim that the fear aspect of the game was diluted in Resident Evil 4. This argument got worse as Resident Evil 5 added a co-op feature to the game. These loyalists also claimed that the games were becoming less and less survival horror and more action packed. In fact, Hiroyuki Kobayashi (or at least, I believe it was him), said it himself that the newer games were a new genre, "dramatic horror".



Cutting to the chase, Capcom had released Resident Evil 6 in October, and they believed that the game would succeed with high colors much like the past two entries had, despite critics. This wasn't the case, as sales have been below expectations, and the game's price has been but multiple times. I think it's at $30 here in America, half its original sales price. There was even this deal that Capcom had put into play with it's new DmC reboot, where if you brought the DmC game (specifically online at Best Buy), you'd get Resident Evil 6 for an extra 10 dollars. To quote a comment I saw: "This reeks of desperation"

What do you think of the current standing of the franchise? Do believe the franchise will continue to succeed, while continuously removing itself from its roots, or do you believe that it will catch up with Capcom and ultimately kill the franchise? Or maybe something else? Feel free to share your thoughts.


Also, on Resident Evil: Revelations:

I don't have much experience with Resident Evil, but I personally believe that Keiji Inafune poisoned Capcom as a whole with his "Western" game design philosophy. This has been going on for a long time, it just took a while for people to notice since it hit Capcom's main franchises(Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Megaman, etc.). Resident Evil 5 was a soulless, mediocre (but still enjoyable) third person shooter in a sea of soulless, mediocre(but still enjoyable) third person shooters, and I believe the genre shift also made it that much easier for survival horror games to die without anyone noticing.


I think the Resident Evil: Revelations release is just going to be a litmus test to see which direction Capcom wants fans to take with the series, what with the talk about rebooting the series and all.