Resident Evil 6 has just released and is one of the more action-intense games in the series, with less focus on horror and more on combat. With a streamlined inventory system and cover incorporated into combat, the game has given up a part of its distinctiveness in order to target a broader audience of gamers.
In an interview with Shack News, executive producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi explained that “Nowadays, to have a system where you’re restricted to six or eight items and that’s all you can have with you… I think the core fans might really like that, but it might not get Resident Evil into a lot of people’s hands.”
Kobayashi divulged that the studio wants “to make it as accessible as possible. A system like that is just too much for what people want from their games nowadays.”
He then stated that the nature of horror in the series has changed for similar reasons. “There’s all different types of horror. There’s a lot of niche horror out there that really core fans want, you can do a B-movie or a C-movie type of horror, but that would only appeal to a limited audience. With Resident Evil, we’re trying to be as inclusive as possible. We’re trying to reach as many people as possible.”
The new installment to the series has sacrificed horror in order to reach a bigger audience, and producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi explained the changes:
“We’re making games and we need to have mass-market appeal in order to survive. How far do we go into horror before we lose the support of the average player? How far are we going to lessen the horror elements at the risk of losing core fans, including Resident Evil fans? Where’s the Venn diagram that shows the happy medium of those things? The challenge is trying to push it as close to the edge either way, so that we can satisfy both groups of people.”
Though Hirabayashi does give reason to why the series has changed, those changes have altered it drastically. Fans will certainly notice that Resident Evil 6 is no longer a survival horror game.
