Resident Evil 6 Demo Analysis

My trepidation toward the upcoming Resident Evil 6 is well-documented. As a huge survival horror fan, I haven’t liked the new direction Capcom has taken the series, so when I got the chance to try out the game, I admit I had low expectations.

I left the demo feeling worse than I expected, and not just because of the design flaws present. I was teased by playing Leon’s section first. There are three separate campaigns in Resident Evil 6. One is led by Leon, offering gameplay more akin to survival horror of old. The next is Chris Redfield, who runs a far more gun-toting, corridor-ridden shooter. Finally there’s Jake, whose background is still shrouded in mystery, but from the look of the demo, his campaign consists of QTEs and OTT boss battles.

Playing Leon’s demo, it felt like Capcom were trying to capture some of the magic of classic Resident Evil. There were intense moments walking through dark, eerie banquet halls, accompanied by brilliantly dramatic music that provided some good scares (all heavily scripted, but still good). Also, we were back fighting zombies, good old-fashioned, flesh-eating undead. From a thematic perspective, I couldn’t be happier with Capcom’s intention but technically, the demo has some issues. There was frequent screen-tearing during cut-scenes, too many moments of forced pacing where you can’t move freely, and running felt disjointed. But the experience appealed to me because of the tone of the game. It felt like the game I have been playing since I was a (petrified) kid.

Sadly, what came next was a travesty in the form of Chris Redfield. Chris’ demo is a train wreck from start to finish. I would never judge the quality of a finished game based on a demo, but if this is the direction they are taking Resident Evil, run the other way. Chris leads a squad, who have just rescued him from the bottom of a bottle in a sleazy bar, across the rooftops of an unexciting urban landscape. As I said, Chris’ section is much more action-based and gun-heavy, so who or what is your enemy?

It’s Infected with guns. Yes, you’re fighting against armed enemies. Not running from zombies, but going head-on against armed enemies. No fear of being bitten, no fear of ammo management, because every enemy drops at least a clip’s worth, leading to mindless point-to-point run-and-gun.

There are so many issues with a game a mere three months from release that I can’t help but be concerned. Melee combat is literally hit and miss. Chris will sometimes throw a straight punch into thin air, only for an enemy to collapse on the floor like an awful 1960s western fight scene. When Chris (or Leon or Jake) runs, it feels like you’re controlling a character in a mech-suit. There’s an uncomfortable pause after every step that breaks the fluidity of motion, and transitions over obstacles can leave you disorientated due to the awkward camera.

Capcom have decided to form Chris’ campaign around a third-person shooter, but based on the demo, they’ve built a barely average one. There’s no sense of suspense or fear as there needs to be in Resident Evil. The section becomes tedious because there is no challenge. The whole rooftop setting doesn’t work either. If the aim was for Capcom to try and capture the intensity seen in Modern Warfare’s Favela mission (another rooftop-hopping affair), they’re not even close.

Finally, we come to Jake, a cocky guy with a flair for martial arts expert who is seen taking on a behemoth in the form of the Ustanak. Ustanak looks like a cross between SoulCalibur’s Astaroth and Batman and Robin’s Bane. He’s fast, powerful, and scary, everything you’d want in a boss.

Sadly Jake’s section doesn’t really show off a good boss battle, but begins with a QTE before dropping you in an uninspired room to tackle Ustanak. This section boils down to leading him to big exploding barrels until he dies. Again, it feels like Capcom doesn’t trust us enough to give us thoughtful gameplay, so we’re stuck with monotony. What doesn’t help is that the infected that drop in to shoot you and disrupt the fight hardly have an impact. As they are barely accurate enough to hit you, you can ignore them altogether. Jake does control better than Leon and Chris though. He has a greater sense of motion thanks to his more outlandish melee moves.

In an attempt to encompass a huge chunk of the gaming market, Capcom has created a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ demo. This feels like a game lacking identity, bundling three forgettable experiences together, none of which you would associate with the Resident Evil franchise. None of the entries were good, or even average. There are deep design flaws in the demo, ones which I feel can’t be rectified in three months of development. Again I can’t make any conclusions about the final game, but considering this is intended to excite people about the game, I couldn’t feel less enthused.

You can also see Capcom’s RE6 streamed playthrough from E3 and read Debbie’s impressions of the similar demo.

The European release date for Resident Evil 6 is 2nd October 2012 on Xbox 360 and PS3.