Brand-new Resident Evil 5 and 6 ESRB ratings have survival horror fans wondering what the heck Capcom is doing

Resident Evil 5 just got an ESRB rating for Xbox Series X|S, and just a couple of weeks after a similar rating cropped up for Resident Evil 6, fans are struggling to figure out just what the heck Capcom has in mind.

A new Resident Evil 5 ESRB rating was noted by Wario64 on Bluesky earlier today, and curiously, this rating is only for Xbox Series consoles. The content description is quite similar to that of previous versions of the game, though the text is slightly different, just as it subtly changed between the original PS3/Xbox 360 release, the later Gold Edition, and the PS4/Xbox One port.

What's odd here is that this Resident Evil 5 rating is, again, only for Xbox Series consoles, just like the Resident Evil 6 rating that popped up back in January. In a world where publishers like Square Enix are embracing multiplatform releases - and heck, even Xbox itself is doing the same - what sort of Resident Evil rerelease might only come to Xbox Series consoles?

It's certainly possible that the PS5 and/or other versions of these games just haven't been rated yet, but we're still left to wonder just what these implied new versions actually are. If Capcom continues its trend of remaking numbered entries in the Resident Evil series, 5 would be next in line, but it seems exceedingly unlikely that they'd let a full-on remake be outed by an ESRB rating.

The smart money is on remasters or current-gen patches for RE5 and 6, but exactly which platforms these games come to remains to be seen.

The Resident Evil deathmatch game that flopped is going offline as Capcom says it's "served its original, celebratory purpose admirably."