Resident Evil Requiem is the next mainline entry in the iconic survival horror series, and this time we're going back to Raccoon City. But, did you know the game was once maybe going to be a multiplayer experience?
"Resident Evil Requiem is a single-player, offline game," producer Masachika Kawata asserts in a creators' message video, so don't get too excited (or worried) at the prospect. However, he adds: "We were even exploring many different systems early in development."
"You might have heard some of the rumors," says director Koshi Nakanishi for all of you who keep your ear to the ground on all things Resident Evil. "Things like an online Resident Evil or an open-world Resident Evil, which we spent some time experimenting with. But in the end, although we had some interesting concepts, we realized that it wasn't what fans wanted to see or play. So we went back to the drawing board, and created what led to Resident Evil Requiem."
I wonder what an online Resident Evil would look like. Would we see the ghosts of other players getting spooked or killed, like in a Dark Souls game? Or would we have been tackling missions together in a full-on multiplayer Raccoon city? We may never know.
It takes upwards of five years to make an AAA video game these days, so it's no surprise that Resident Evil 9 went through a few different iterations at Capcom before the company landed on what we've seen in its gameplay – it's a lot of walking down dark corridors, but they look real pretty.
Resident Evil Requiem follows a new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft. She's a skittish but well-trained FBI agent. "We always thought about making Leon the protagonist, but making a horror game based around him is difficult," Nakanishi explains. "He wouldn't jump at something like a bucket falling. No one wants to see Leon scared by every little thing. So he's actually quite a bad match for horror." Sorry if you wanted to see more of the beefcake, you'll have to wait.
Until then, check out all the best horror games you can play today while you wait for Resident Evil Requiem to launch next February.
