Warning: There will be spoilers ahead! Recently, Capcom released the much-anticipated Resident Evil: Requiem (RE:9) after growing controversy leading up to the game’s launch, one of such controversies being that many gaming journalists were denied access to review the game, a massive red flag in the gaming world. Now, post-launch, many fans of the game series (myself included) played the game and, after beating it, felt that the game was empty.
I thought, maybe it was just me, being bitter after being snubbed by Capcom to review the game after working with them in the past to review four previous titles. But after looking at some forums (Reddit and Discord mainly), I took comfort in knowing that I was not the only one who felt something was off about the game. Don’t get me wrong, the game was good, but it lacked passion and soul, especially in a major area, the story, which tells me that the creative minds behind the franchise are burning out creatively.
We’re introduced to Grace, whose moments in the game are supposed to be the horror aspect of the game, was given a raw deal. Powerfully voiced by Angela Sant’Albano, Grace ended up being the bane of many players who could not stand her stammering and gameplay, as many players complained that her part of the game was “boring”. On the second playthrough, yes, I agree, BUT in the first playthrough, it worked. I think the devs were banking on the game’s success in the segments where players play as Leon.
This is where the burnout accusation I’m making comes in. The Grace segments are trying to capitalize on the success of RE7 & RE8 (Biohazard & Village), where the series became terrifying by placing players in first-person. It worked for Grace at first, before things became repetitive during her gameplay. The one major disappointment was the hype built up for the monster, The Girl, who was supposed to be a terrifying stalking antagonist. She was scary at first, but then became more annoying than anything. The Leon segments are basically Resident Evil 4 all over again, heavy on the action and one-liners. I can tell you for certain, the devs knew people were not going to like Grace, and would be bored with the gameplay, so they put Leon in as jingly keys to distract players and give them memberberries of 4 to keep them invested in playing.
At the end (With the “true” aka Good Ending), we finally get a callback to a previous game with the arrival of Hound Wolf Squad, Chris Redfield’s spc-op group, again coming to save the day when all looks lost…just for it to end on a cliffhanger. This left a major plothole from the previous RE title. At the end of Village, after Hound Wolf Squad kicks a lot of ass covertly as the BSAA were attempting to carry out their own mission, and failing, it was revealed in a twist that the BSAA special forces soldiers were…zombies. This is never answered… at all. Not in this game. And NO, the zombies of the dead BSAA soldiers don’t count.
This is where further proof of Creative Burnout is manifesting. For detailed information on the topic, I strongly recommend reading Ness Labs’ write-up HERE. To put it simply, Creative Burnout is when the one creating has run out of ideas and can’t move forward. A harmful habit they fall back on is…repeating previous work. Now look back at what I said a paragraph or two ago. The creative team behind the series seems to be running out of ideas to keep the story going. And don’t get me started on the disappointment of the “Return to Raccoon City” hook, which was, come on, a major portion of the gameplay was in the outskirts of the city, but when we FINALLY get INTO the city and check out quickly three areas, it’s brief.
A major problem, I think, is that there are too many plots and stories going on, almost appearing that each game is in its own universe, independent of the others. The franchise also relies heavily on expanding its lore through non-game media (Books, Comics, Animated films, etc), which not everyone partakes in; hell, I’m a big RE fan (been playing a majority of the main titles and some off-shoot ones since the 90s), but I don’t read the books or comics. I have no doubt there’s a RE 5 remake in the works, but my god, I seriously hope that if they are going to hype up a new title as they did with this one, and having sponsors from companies like Porsche and Hamilton Watches, the game better be scary as hell, origonal, and have better tie-in lore than “MEMBER DAT?!” references.
