Capcom: Resident Evil 4 and 5 didn't ditch horror

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 1 November, 2011

Japanese company discusses "confused messaging".

Resident Evil 4 and 5 did not move the series away from its horror roots towards action, Capcom has insisted.

Instead, both games explored a different kind of horror.

Tsukasa Takenaka, assistant producer on Nintendo 3DS game Resident Evil: Revelations, told Eurogamer there had been "confused messaging" around what Capcom had tried to do with the last two numbered Resident Evil games.

"I don't think 4 and 5 are not horror games," Takenaka told Eurogamer. "What we were trying to do with those games is explore different kinds of horror.

"For instance, Resident Evil 4 is not about zombies. It's about the Ganados speaking in human words and coming at you with weapons. That's a different kind of horrific thing than zombies.

"With Resident Evil 5 it was more about the light and darkness and these new things we were finally able to do with the hardware to see the contrast in the environments and those different types of surprising and interesting experiences. It was a kind of new horror.

"It's not so much that we were going away from horror and towards action. It's more that we were trying to do different kinds of scary experiences. That's maybe something that's got a little confused in terms of the messaging."

Revelations, due out early next year, is seen by many fans as a return to the series' scare-orientated haunted house roots. It is the first all-new Resi adventure since 2009's opinion-splitting Resident Evil 5.

Is its gameplay the result of fan response to Resident Evil 5?

"Certainly user feedback and what our fans and consumers want is very important to us," Takenaka explained. "We're always listening to that feedback and making use of it."

And does Revelations hint at the direction Capcom will take with Resident Evil 6?

"I don't know. What's Resident Evil 6?"

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 7 months ago

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  • ollyn #1 7 months ago

    Yeah they didn't move away from Horror to action. They just explored a more action oriented less scary type of horror.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #2 7 months ago

    Yeah and i didnt move house 2 years ago, I just live more remotley from my original house :rolleyes:

    That said i like 4 & 5, but would prefer the next one to be like 1-3, also i still maintain you cant have a co op horror game, soon as youve got someone to chat and joke with its never gonna be scary.

  • DUFFMAN5 #3 7 months ago

    Bullshite, so why did we get the old school style dlc for 5...which was better than the main game. I know the world and his dog loves 4 (maybe not 5) and I have enjoyed playing it many times on many diff consoles, however it is not anywhere near survival horror in the traditional RE cannon and as for 5, so it was the " light and darkness" was it...err ok then. RE5 was a massive let down, an ok action game that had its moments but that is all it will ever be.

  • JahB #4 7 months ago

    4 was still very much a horror game in my book. 5 took a dump on everything that made RE good though...

  • metallicorphan #5 7 months ago

    I loved 4 on the Wii(one of the few games i did like on that system),but 5 i hated and could not get going on it,that stupid cow you were with kept running towards the bad guys and getting killed(which means game over for you),so i gave up in the end,seemed to me it was meant to be played with two players and not just the one

    i still wish they would do full REmakes of Resi 2 and 3,like they did with Resi 1

  • King_Edward #6 7 months ago

    5 was practically a bromance.

  • Ignatius_Cheese #7 7 months ago

    What's Resident Evil 6?

    Well, given Capcom's current stance on the franchise, it will be a poorly written (possibly racist) third person shooter with tacked on shonky co-op.

    I.e. not Resident Evil.

  • ZuluHero #8 7 months ago

    @GamesProgrammer I don't know, it depends if you are playing with a like-minded person who is willing to invest in the world and immerse themselves.

    My brother and i quite enjoyed Obscure, while a little bit more 'teen-horror', it was quite scary at times and we had quite a few scares. That moment of nervous laughter after we both jumped, one of us jumping and setting the other off. Those frantic moments of being chased together because you've both run out of ammo. Etc.

    Personally we thought it was 100 times better than RE5, which we also played through completely in co-op.
    Edited by ZuluHero at 01/11/11 @ 09:14

  • -cerberus- #9 7 months ago

    Taken from the back of the GC box of RE4:

    "Forget everything you know about Resident Evil. Forget survival horror. This is the most epic, intense and horrific action game ever."

    RE4 ruined survival horror.

  • bad09 #10 7 months ago

    "Resident Evil 4 and 5 did not move the series away from its horror roots towards action, Capcom has insisted."

    Insist all you want doesn't make it true. 4 massively moved away from horror, I know I never actually finished it (got bored to death somewhere in the castle)but I don't think I got any horror or scares at all from 4. 5 had so little horror atmosphere I ended up playing lights on sound off and the radio playing.

    / hugs RE 1-CV

  • Kami #11 7 months ago

    Look, there are regional approaches to horror. The Brits seem to be more known for the humourous approach, the Americans prefer it to all be in your face and then some, the Japanese prefer their horror to be psychological, the Russians I find really exploit light and dark. Every region seems to have its own ideas and roots in the horror genre.

    Resident Evil, despite what people say, has never been THAT scary - I think we all want to believe it is, when really it isn't. Most Resi titles have been blackly camp, with a devious and calculated sense of humour thrown in amidst the often full-frontal gore. Resi 4 was taking a genre that had run its course at the time and reworking it into a new perspective. The game itself was still Resident Evil - still blackly comic, it was with Resi 5 that they lost the sense of humour a bit.

    I think the first thing Capcom need to do if they want this to continue is... sort the plot out. Many of the characters are scattered - and one is completely unaccounted for r.e. Sherry Birkin. Get a line drawn under the past...

    ... and never bring Wesker back ever again. I know the temptation is there, but he's gone. Time to find a new sinister baddie to torment people.

  • Bilstar #12 7 months ago

    @-cerberus- Haaaa, nice quote. Well found. I wonder what Mr Takenaka would have said to that.

  • SheffAl #13 7 months ago

    I think he is the one who is confused. Lots of fans were upset by the move away from the slower paced adventure element to pure action. Of course both are horror. Just shows how out of touch japanese devs seem to be.

  • yoomazir #14 7 months ago

    Everyone remembers RE4 as one of the greatest game of all times.
    RE5, on the other side, is a play & forget kind of game.
    Edited by yoomazir at 01/11/11 @ 10:29

  • abigsmurf #15 7 months ago

    Not entirely sure what you're talking about Kami.

    Resident Evil was scary in a way that the vast majority of gamers had never experienced before. Although it didn't create the survival horror genre (Alone in the Dark wins that acolade) it was atmospheric and terrifying in a way that no game had been before.

    Whether it was the infamous dogs, "itchy itchy, tasty tasty", the spiders, the giant snake, the shark, the first time you encounter a hunter or when you aren't careful with ammo or don't carry enough and have to get around some zombies, the game was plenty scary.

    REmake, Project Zero and even Silent Hill make RE1 look tame but any gamer who played it upon release will tell you how revolutionary it was.

  • nickthegun #16 7 months ago

    Horror = Tank Controls

  • Kami #17 7 months ago

    No doubt, but it was never "scary" - not really. The franchise has always had a darkly comic sensibility - posing, timing and the infamously camp script voice acted by people who clearly couldn't even get porn dubbing work. The scares are just that - momentary scares. The dogs jumping in through the windows - it works the first time, but it's a one-shot deal. Once it's done... it's kind of over.

    Not to mention that ammo wasn't nearly as scarce as people prefer to remember. You could turn it right down in the Director's Cut, that is true but not otherwise. The boulders - tbh, first time for me that was annoying more than scary.

    Let's even go further. The whole phallic joke in Resi 2 was taken to its extreme (why does everything that tries to get in through the mouth need to look like a... well.. hmm...), as well as that awkward moment with the Police Chief and the Mayor's Daughter... AWK-WARD! Resident Evil 3... seriously, I'm not even going to explain the humour in this one as it oozes from every single orifice of the game (Hint - watch some Hentai to see where this game was going!). Code Veronica - Alfred Ashford was a FANTASTIC camp creation worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, an absolute masterclass. Resi 4, again like 3, was chock full of humour and thankfully self-aware of that fact.

    Perhaps, in Resi and Resi 2, I will accept they TRIED to make it "scary", but in Resi 3 and Code Veronica, and Resi 4, they really did go all out, and I thought in those the horror was certainly not the star of the show, far from it.

    People WANT to believe Resi has always been about the horror. I get that. I even admire it. But part of what DEFINES the game within those boundaries is the humour, the wit, the sarcasm, the black jokes. Shaun of the Dead is also set in a horror framework... doesn't make it any less a comedy...

    I'm not speaking ill of Resident Evil. Far from it. I love this franchise - the fact I can go back and point out the lines (I HAVE THIS!) and the scenarios (RAR I'm a G-Virus mutant sperm cross member cross embryo thingy and I'm going to go down your throat! I'm in no way related to the Xenomorphs! RARRRRRR!) to the sadly ironic but often very funny endings (Robert Kendo - come on, you NEVER laughed at how stupid that was?!) to the characters like Nikolai and of course, Alfred Ashford and Nemesis. I say this BECAUSE I've been there since the PS1 original. I've bought every game. Finished each one, and even done Knife completions. Trust me when I say, I do know and love this series.

    To deny the humour is part of the franchise is only going to end up with us getting more games like Resident Evil 5. Slick, polished... but terribly dull overall.

    I don't WANT another Resi 5. So let's have the dark comedy back...

    Even if you want to believe Resi is about the horror - it needs that lift that only a really good "What the f..?! HAHAHA!" moment can provide.

  • Slipstream #18 7 months ago

    We're aware you didn't ditch horror, you ditched undead zombies, the life of Resident Evil.

  • JumpinJackFlash #19 7 months ago

    Ignatius_Cheese

    Well, given Capcom's current stance on the franchise, it will be a poorly written (possibly racist) third person shooter with tacked on shonky co-op.

    RE5 wasn't racist at all. That was just some bullshit interview by "up his own arse" N'Gai Croal. The man is such a hypocrite, he was ok with shooting the Spanish in RE4 but when it comes to a white protagonist killing black enemies in a small African village he throws his dummy out of his pram.

    What a wanker...

  • atthegates #20 7 months ago

    what a load of shite. Sounds like something a company says when they want to keep making the same kind of game. Will we ever get the real resi back? 1-3 were classy. One things for sure, Capcom are stubborn bastards.

  • darkphoenix #21 7 months ago

    Hey Capcom, maybe you missed it but "Dead Space" stole your thunder ( and your throne ).
    SURVIVAL horror, get it?

  • atthegates #22 7 months ago

    @darkphoenix well said.

  • wanderingkid #23 7 months ago

    @Kami Sorry but RE1,2 were certainly scary, and did I did run out of ammo. 3(Nemesis) although scary at times was for me where the series went towards what I call 'panic horror' the kind of ticking time bomb anxiousness and where in my opinion the series has remained since.
    Your main and other points I totally agree with; the black comedy and B-movie acting, this series is much less without those vital ingredients !

    And for the record I love each RE game even 5 : )

  • Dgzter #24 7 months ago

    Resident Evil is truly one of my favourite games; I've played through it so many times, for nostalgia, for scares, for speed runs, for knife runs, for kicks. The game exhilarates me in ways that I can't really describe, perhaps can't even justify. It has a special place in my gaming heart (along with Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within). There is something about the premise, the structure, the gameplay, the monsters, the typewriter save system, the pseudo-mythology, the B-movie acting and voiceovers, the basic lateral-thinking puzzles, and the frantic conservation of ammo that captivates me. And, of course, the music: the theme for the Save Room - I'm a fucking agnostic, but if there is a heaven THAT's the tune that would be on repeat!

    I can still feel that heartbeat in Resi 2; it's a dim echo of a forgotten past in 3 and Code: Veronica. In 4 and 5, it's the haunting presence of an exemplary forbear, forever frustrated behind the veil of history, looking crestfallenly on the banal mediocrity of its progeny, leaving us with only this profound, whispered sentiment: they're fucking shite!

  • WukWhiteWolf #25 7 months ago

    RE5 wasn't bad as a game, it was bad as a horror game.

  • darkcult #26 7 months ago

    Resi 5 was a great game. Still, would love to see RE Remake released ... And RE Zero.

  • metroid455 #27 7 months ago

    ahem 5 DID ditch the horror thankyou!!!

  • Kami #28 7 months ago

    @wanderingkid - Fair point, although as I said, I've not felt that scared by the franchise. Maybe I was very quick to latch onto the black comedy and that maybe nulled the horror for me. It happens - to me, the horror framework makes the black comedy work, but to me it's never been THAT scary.

    To each their own though - I love the series, and absolutely, without the dark wit and humour and the deliciously and intentionally silly script, Resident Evil doesn't really work as well.

    It's a key ingredient of the series. Without it, there is no heartbeat as someone else put it. No life. It's just another straight-laced action series with zombies.

    When Capcom gets that it needs to remain in the kind of B-Movie arena, the series will definitely get back on track. I mean, how can you fail to warm to a game series that has a mutant midget baddie and his "boss" who has a massive scorpion extension coming out from between his legs?!

  • danger.to.others #29 7 months ago

    I suspect a bit of mistranslation going on. Giving the benefit of the doubt, I think the Capcom guy is saying the horror is still in the game, not that it isn't an action game.

    Am I the only person who loved Resident Evil 5? There's so much hate for it, but as someone who played 1-5 and Code Veronica, I'm at a loss how anyone who liked the series for it's B-movie plots and goofy humor wouldn't like it.
    Maybe it's because I had a co-op partner in my wife who played the game all into it, instead of talking away on a mic and I never had to play with team AI, but as a co-op game I thought it was great.
    Sure, it's faster paced, but the tone is the same. Capcom should be commended for trying to keep the series fresh instead of just doing the same game as before, but with prettier graphics. They got away with that for four games, another would have driven it into the ground.
    RE is still horror in the same vein as always. Hell, the first one had the master of picking and giant spiders. Fun, gory, unpredictable at the time...but not scary.
    Wherever they take the series, as long as they keep the goofy yet gory vibe and the bad voice acting, I'll be there buying the games.

  • Kami #30 7 months ago

    I personally found Resi 5 very straight. I mean, if you tried VERY HARD you could take things out of context, but the overall effect to me was it was trying to be a big Hollywood actiony blockbuster type of game, and it kind of forgot to have fun along the way - it got a bit too into itself and the player was neglected, pulled along but not encompassed in it all.

    I won't deny that Resi 5 was in many regards technically brilliant, but these days technically brilliant shouldn't be a selling point - we should expect a game, especially a franchise like Resident Evil, to be technically brilliant.

    I'll explain it another way - Final Fantasy XII was another technically brilliant game. The plot, the characters, the environment, everything was technically brilliant about it. So... why have so many of us forgotten about it? Why don't we proclaim it as a brilliant game like FF7?

    It's curious I know. I personally didn't quite feel like I was let in on the joke, if there was a joke in Resi 5. It felt predictable, a bit cliche (that's not a bad thing in some cases but in Resi 5, it was badly done) and just... Excella didn't exhude menace in the same way that Irving did. I think Excella was the weakest character in the game, whilst the strongest character was Irving, who they threw away like a cheap bit of trash and mores the pity tbh.

    Again, not sure how many will agree. I still think that inventory system needs to be thrown in a furnace, burned without trace and never EVER used again. Ever. EVER.

    EVER!
    Edited by Kami at 02/11/11 @ 03:47