The marketing around Resident Evil Requiem has not been shy about the fact that the game will be making a return to the ruins of Raccoon City, the location of the first three games in the 30-year-old franchise.
Next year is Resident Evil's 30th anniversary, and bringing everything full circle to the beginning in RE9 makes sense. But according to one of the game's producers in a new interview with VGC, players will still be able to have fun with the game even if it's their first in the series."
"We think it’s important to balance the extra fun that you get from nostalgic Easter Eggs and hints and lore connections if you’re a series fan, versus not making a game alienating to players who aren’t caught up," RE9 producer Masato Kumazawa said at Tokyo Game Show today. "I don’t want people to feel they have to do their homework to fully appreciate this game."
Personally? If I'm playing the ninth numbered game in a franchise with an overarching storyline, I would kind of expect to be alienated and feel lost. Kumazawa continued, saying he thinks that even "if you don’t know anything about it, you’re just going to play this as a horror game set in a ruined city, and you’ll be able to understand and enjoy it 100%."
I know that this is language from a developer selling a product who doesn't want to alienate prospective buyers who may not have played all of the other games in the franchise, but reading this gave me some pause for concern.
"If you’re a fan and you see all the connections and the lore links and the background hints and stuff, I think you’ll enjoy it 150%, and it’ll give you that extra level of detail, but we don’t want to make it so that you have to know about the incident and understand the relationship between that timeline in order to understand the game," he said.
This is the ending of a 30-year saga. Shouldn't it be all about the 30 years that came before it? I feel like it should be expected that players have some idea what the hell is going on if they're going to be exploring the ruins of a city that is the foundation for everything in the franchise that came after it. I would like there to be more than "that extra level of detail," but I suppose I'm just being picky.
I'm expecting to see some more new footage of RE9 at a special showcase at TGS within the next week, at which point we should see the long-rumored return of Leon S. Kennedy. You know, the main character from RE2, RE4, and RE6? These are games that players should probably play before RE9 when it drops in February 2026.
Look, I'm sure RE9 will turn out just fine. I've enjoyed basically everything in the series since I first played it as a child in the 90s, and it's one of my favorite franchises ever. I just hope we aren't missing out on any potential awesomeness or nostalgia just to sate potential new fans.
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The post Resident Evil Requiem producer says you don’t need to play prior games in the franchise to enjoy RE9, and I take issue with that appeared first on Destructoid.
