The Resident Evil series once terrified gamers and sent chills down their spines, but recent games in the series have focused more on action oriented sequences and cooperative gameplay.
In a recent interview with Videogamer, Resident Evil producer Masachika Kawata said he has started to revise his opinion on the series after listening to months of feedback from gamers.
"When you look back on Resident Evil in the last year, we've had a variety of approaches to the [IP]," Kawata told VideoGamer."I still think it's important for us to challenge ourselves to include new elements in the games to keep them fresh and keep them relevant."
He continued, "Looking at user feedback from the last couple of games, I've started to slightly revise my opinion on that matter. I still think that, for example, bringing Resident Evil: Revelations to consoles falls within what I was saying where, it's a game that contains classic Resident Evil elements but it also has features that modern gamers expect in a game. Hopefully it can appeal to both camps."
Kawata said that returning the Resident Evil series to its roots of horror and fear could be the answer to improving the franchise.
"Going forward is the most important thing to me and the future of the series," Kawata explained. "No matter what, we're always going to have to focus on horror and fear as the main core pillar of the series. That's something I think that is not going to change."
Kawata used a hypothetical sequel to Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City as an example of what could be done to combine action game mechanics with elements of horror and fear.
"Take Operation Raccoon City, which was essentially developed as a pure shooter set in the Resident Evil universe," Kawata told Videogamer. "I think there could be potential in taking the base of that game and if we were - hypothetically - to develop a sequel to that, then start bringing back horror into that base that we started with. That could be a way to start bringing the elements that we think we need together in one game."
He concluded, "It's important to target gamers in and of themselves if people are going to buy and play our products. I think we always need to focus on where the potential market is going to be for our games. So yeah, I think bringing Revelations to consoles, the target for that game is going to be quite large because it's coming from 3DS onto four platforms. We're really targeting people we haven't done before with that, and that's something we'll need to keep doing."
What do you think about Resident Evil returning to its survival horror roots? Did you like RE6 or did you hate it? Let us know what you think in the comment section below...
