New Resident Evil Tries to Finally Bring Back the Horror

Resident Evil Revelations 2's settings evoke horror, but the gameplay of the Tokyo Game Show demo, not so much.

Resident Evil Revelations 2's settings evoke horror, but the gameplay of the Tokyo Game Show demo, not so much.

CHIBA, Japan — Resident Evil games used to be scary.

It’s a familiar refrain among fans ever since the series, which gave birth to the name “survival horror,” has increasingly swung towards action in pursuit of a larger audience. When Resident Evil Revelations appeared on the 3DS in 2011, it was supposed to represent a return to the scares of zombies past.

This brings us to Resident Evil Revelations 2, due out in 2015 for consoles and Steam. WIRED was able to play a portion of Revelations 2 at the Tokyo Game Show, where Capcom reps assured me the game would mark a return to the series’ roots: less ammunition, less firepower, more horror.

Based on my brief experience with the demo, I concur with the last part.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 stars series veteran Claire Redfield and newcomer Moira Burton, two women who wake up in a filthy prison. An unseen person allows them to escape their cells and lets them explore the facility, but they are not alone: Mutilated humanoids called “Afflicted” also roam the halls, many of them having been impaled with iron bars and pointed sticks. This does nothing to enhance their combat prowess, but it certainly makes them look terrifying.

Claire and Moira are distinct characters, in part because they use different tools. Claire handles all the guns and uses a knife for quick, close combat. Moira “doesn’t do firearms,” but she has no objection to swinging a mean crowbar. She also holds a flashlight, which is helpful when searching for items.

Moira’s also a bit of a potty-mouth, dropping a four-letter word within moments of meeting Claire. I’m curious to see how this plays out: On one hand, too much profanity can highlight lazy writing. On the other, when she and I made the exact same PG-13 exclamation after a scary moment, I was more inclined to like her.

Early Resident Evil games demanded exploration of a large space that never felt safe.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 will support cooperative play, but a single player can swap between Claire and Moira at will. Claire is the “leader”; if she is killed, the game ends. Moira can be incapacitated, requiring Claire’s help to proceed, but she cannot die. This is an important quality in A.I. partners, lest they get killed and end the game abruptly.

Where Resident Evil Revelations 2 falls short of its promises, at least at this early stage, is the notion that this is at all reminiscent of the classic Resident Evil games.

The early games in this series demanded exploration of a large space that never felt safe. Killing enemies was a choice, and players ran the risk of being overwhelmed if they were not careful. Revelations 2‘s demo is strictly linear, and enemy encounters are kill-or-be-killed—no sneaking. I did feel tense, but that was because the environments were creepy and sculpted to put me at unease, not because I was in danger of running out of bullets. And certainly not when I could slash an Afflicted on the ground to keep him from standing up.

After the disappointing Resident Evil 6, I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen so far of Resident Evil Revelations 2. The characters move well, fight well, and there are plenty of scares to be found. I just hope the full game, which will be released as episodic downloads as well as a complete disc-based edition, puts Claire and Moira into a big, open environment to explore at their peril. That’s the Resident Evil I want to make a comeback.

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