Resident Evil Outbreak offline in Europe
Capcom announces September date for PS2 survival horror title, and issues a statement on the game's PS2 Online prospects.
After months of speculation over Resident Evil Outbreak's future in Europe, Capcom has confirmed that the game will not appear on PS2 Online in the region, despite initially failing to rule it out when we called this morning.
A press release issued this morning announcing the survival horror title's launch target of September made no mention of online options, but initial inquiries seemed to suggest there was still some hope for the title's European online mode, with a spokesman unable to rule it out when asked point blank. However, a senior Capcom PR manager has since been in touch to state quite categorically, "Resident Evil Outbreak will not be online in Europe."
The publisher also issued the following statement, which it hopes will clear up some of its many supporters' fears for the future of PS2 Online titles:
"There are far more technical difficulties bringing an online game to PAL territories than Japan and the US, the most obvious of which are language and service provider issues in each territory. Capcom is working hard to overcome these difficulties. Right now a number of engineers from Japan are in Europe talking to various ISPs, and we hope that it will only be a number of months before we have an online PS2 game up and running."
With the game now due in September, time has apparently run out to resolve existing issues ahead of the game's PAL release date.
Although initial reaction to the news is bound to be negative, it's also worth remembering that Capcom has been extremely open about the situation ever since ECTS last year, when the game's producer told us "There are still plans for online for PAL, but we're considering releasing it offline. It depends on SCEE, because the [network] system is very different [compared to Japan or the US]."
Perhaps we can at least draw some comfort from the fact that Capcom continues to support PS2 Online and Xbox Live in Europe. Today marks the release of Steel Battalion - Line of Contact, for example, which is strictly Xbox Live only.
And, of course, there's still the matter of the series' return to PS2 in the form of the offline Outbreak, which ought to be an enjoyable experience even at that.