The term ‘bloated’ surfaced a lot in feedback, although Leon’s missions ”went down very well,” they can’t ignore what critic and fan feedback is telling them. There’s ”still a strong market” for survival horror.
Emphasis on that survival horror ‘core’ is what’s needed, agrees Pattison, and that’s likely to be their next focus for another Resident Evil. RE6 has a 67 Metacritic.
”We have obviously seen the consumer response and the PR response,” Michael Pattison told MCV. ”There was some great positives out of that, but it was a mixed bag, as we saw from the review scores. We have got to take that on-board, we can’t ignore that, and we have to take that onto the next game when we make the next Resident Evil.”
“With Resident Evil 6 specifically, we probably put too much content in there, there were comments from consumers that said it felt bloated. The Leon missions went down very well, and because we did Resident Evil Revelations on 3DS, there was a cry out for us to focus our attention on survival horror, rather than be too many things to all people. You’ll find where we go next will likely be more targeted at our core fanbase.”
Capcom are encouraged to see the survival horror genre is stronger than ever after Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us and Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider performed so well with gamers.
”A lot is said about the saturation of this zombie, post-apocalyptic survival horror. But it is still alive and well. The Last of Us shows a good direction of what the consumers want. Tomb Raider as well, we spoke to R&D and they looked at that and they enjoyed that experience. I think that proves there is still a strong market for that sort of content,” he added.
Resident Evil 6 has sold over 5 million units globally, but was below Capcom’s expectation of 7 million. Will long-time Resi Evil fans finally see Capcom deliver a new title harkening back to the old creepy mansion days?
