Because a character or two from the original is also a staple for a viable sequel, the characters Chris Redfield, Claire Redfield, Leon Kennedy, etc were carried along for the ridiculous ride as they tracked down and rooted out the influence of the Umbrella Corporation around the world... sometimes by accident while saving the president’s daughter in Spain.

But consider this alternate timeline, if you will, with the emphasis on Raccoon City instead of the Umbrella Corporation as a narrative thread:

The zombie outbreak hits Raccoon City, the widespread panic hits, most people are evacuated… some are not. Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield attempt to escape, battling zombies as they do so, fight William Birkin, etc and Raccoon City is nuked to cover Umbrella’s industrial accident. The majority of Raccoon City is reduced to rubble. Those that survive on the fringes hope for evacuation, but nothing comes. It becomes clear that whatever hit Raccoon City is has affected the entire nation, possibly the world. The first-hand witnesses to the events (Leon and Claire) are left to shepherd the survivors and must frequently venture into the ruins of Raccoon City in order to eek out a living for themselves and those under their care. Each raid requires they penetrate deeper and deeper into ground zero, even going into the ruins of the Umbrella Labs and they face the remnants of the zombie horde they faced earlier in and any other twisted horrors created by the blast in addition to whatever was released after the destruction of the Umbrella Corp. Subsequent characters emerge from this conflict among the survivors, each with their own story to tell, how they got there and what they lost. Some demand they caravan to nearby cities in search of help, while others are certain that someday rescue will come and they need only to survive long enough until they are discovered.

Now, this is by no means a fully developed idea, but how much more relatable is this scenario compared to that of a lone police officer surviving the zombie apocalypse and becomes the president’s bodyguard and professional zombie/Umbrella Corporation hunter? Not that I’m arguing plausibility in a video game, but I am arguing that this has the ability to maintain the survival horror theme far more than one that focuses on the increasingly ridiculous use of the Umbrella Corporation as a narrative tie-in from one sequel to the next. It not only made the story less relatable, it also corrupted the characters by forcing them to go along with this avenue of storytelling. In my above-mentioned scenario with Umbrella as a diminished role, it will forever remain a haunting specter of the events leading up to the destruction of Raccoon City, and presumably society at large. We are left to forever guess what purpose the zombie virus had, or if it was even an intentional development. If given that scenario, if we were to guess that Umbrella was ACTUALLY in charge of an archeological excavation in Spain, had a research lab in Antarctica where a there is guy crossdressing to look like his twin sister who was in cryostasis in said Antarctic research facility so that she could become one with the zombie virus, etc etc… You would get laughed out of the room… unfortunately, that’s more or less exactly the story they followed and went with (also Wesker is involved somehow).

Now bear in mind, the ONLY reason they had to run with this story is that the developers decided that the Umbrella Corp was so damned important… they’re basically the Sith: faceless, ‘mysteriously’ behind everything, woefully incompetent, but somehow succeeding anyway. Instead of sequels that explore the characters, the fantastic events they’ve been thrust into and exploring/surviving in the ruins of civilization, we get storylines that can only be described as ass-slapping lunacy because AT ALL COSTS Umbrella had to be involved somehow in every major plot twist. It’s not even a plot twist by now. It’s a knowing groan as we ask ourselves after “how on earth is this company still around?” we ask “what has the Umbrella Corp been up to now?” and our total lack of surprise that Wesker has been made into some super solder who (wait for it) WORKS WITH UMBRELLA? Well, color me surprised. Who saw THAT one coming?

They’ve created a death spiral for themselves by doing this. There are completely plausible ways to incorporate the much-desired multi-player platform that is so profitable for replay value without using Umbrella as some asinine plot device. How about doing what you did with Resident Evil: Outbreak but on a platform that doesn’t suck for multiplayer? The XBox 360? The PS3? Those might work better than the damned PS2 did. Using RE Outbreak as a model for sequels it allows just as much dramatic story potential as the genre can allow AND you get to keep your likable original cast!

By telling multiple people's stories running parallel to each other and intersecting at key moments, RE transforms from a survival horror game into the video game equivalent to Crash... with zombies. Which would be about the coolest thing I can think of. I think if they wanted to preserve the series as a survival horror series, that is the only reliable direction they could have taken, but since they didn't I'm pretty sure that we will never again see a new survival horror with the RE brand on it. It’s functionally extinct in that capacity. I’m sure the games can still be fun. I’ve harped on RE4 a lot, but I honestly enjoyed playing it as a game in and of itself… I just mentally divorced it from Resident Evil. Heck, I’d even be ok with RE5 if it existed in its own universe, but I guess when I see a sequel and expect a narrative coherency, I would have liked to see a better one than Umbrella Corp… simultaneously the most incompetent and successful corporation on the planet.

I agree with pretty much all of this, with the small exception that I think you might be over-emphasising the role of Umbrella in the last two games- the "faceless villain" being primarily replaced with Albert Wesker. The Los Illuminados were reasonably independent as I recall and Resi 5 is more about the power vacuum Umbrella has left (again with Wesker -typical arch villain who happens to be defeated in the world's most conveniently located volcano- taking over the remaining resources). True the other "big pharma" companies are mostly just a kind of repackaged umbrella, but you've also got the other action genre staple of "terrorists" as well. (In fact I think the only area of "acceptable action game villains" yet to be touched on is the Nazi's)

Outbreak was terrible waste of an opportunity and the new Resi: Raccoon City (not resi 6) looks like it's going to take the best elements of that and ruin them with a more action oriented run and gun, gears-esque, scenario. Alas the problems of transferring to a mainstream audience.

In many ways I think capcom first lost their true "survival horror" with Dino Crisis 2 (a game I love getting out every now and again I hasten to add), introducing a more fast paced and frenetic style to combat that the games following, and to a comparative degree, including Veronica started to emulate. They've failed to seperate the requirements of a true survival horror game from their gun toting, sword wielding, anti-demonic counterparts (Devil May Cry and Onimushia (spelling?). Obviously very different series, but the gap has still closed dramatically. Capcom really needs to take a good look at the silent hill series and start considering atmosphere again rather than initial shock tactics alone. (I finally played my first Silent Hill game (Homecoming) before christmas, and it freaked the bejesus out of me - in a good way)

You can't even blame the over the shoulder mechanic for ruining the tension, one look at Dead Space - best game for frights and shock, *and* atmosphere, I've ever played- should tell you all you need to know. The characters have become too buffed up and World Police-like. The balance has been tipped too far in favour of the good guys - even if the reinforcements aren't actually available, knowing that you've come from that kind of background and you have biceps from a gears of war game and moves from a John Woo film can really upset the balance of things. The most appealing features imo of the Silent Hill and Dead Space characters is their lack of pre-incident uberness.

My conclusion, the Resi series are still good games, but they're not really Resi anymore. For true survival horror look elsewhere, they really belong in their own category of "action horror", bridging the gap between the world of Silent Hill/Dead Space and the arcade type pace of L4D and Killing floor. I can only hope Resi 6 will show a return to the more claustrophobic realms of Raccoon City (or more likely a non-nuked type equivalent).

Generic, that's the word I was trying to think of; Resi's become a lot more generic and mainstream than it used to be.

I'm not going to fault a game for going 'mainstream'. If it's good and popular, it's going to go mainstream, barring the notable exception of titles like Vagrant Story. Popularity can be just as much a good thing as a bad thing. It's a matter of how you make a more widely popular title profitable. HALO has done a good job of this by continuing to offer a decent story and being extremely popular. I'm even more impressed with the Gears of War franchise which has actually managed a more than decent emotional arc despite being a shooter. It's at least on par with the drama in a good war movie. Even in pen and paper RPG worlds, fringe games are not always better and mainstream is not always bad, but fringe often has more creative flexibility so you'll absolutely find more innovation... but that's no guarantee of quality.

In regards to Resident Evil, even though they've understandably tried to distance themselves from Umbrella, all the titles have at least a passing mention of it. In RE4, Los Illuminados was a cult and was the true villain, but there was a mention that Umbrella was behind the archeological dig and it's using the samples of the excavated monsters and that the T and G viruses were derived from them. Wesker's appearance in that title wasn't even necessary, serving only to add an infuriating timing puzzle to what has been up until then an action/adventure game. Even calling attention to the fact that "these aren't zombies" at the beginning by Leon was extremely stupid. You could almost hear the RE4 dev team trying to cover their asses with a line like that. Also, it's like they were trying to justify to the fans why the zombies weren't actually zombies, which was only necessary because they tried to give the game a frame of reference to the franchise that it barely applies to anyway. Why even bother? The fact they're even obligated to try to involve Umbrella at all is what makes it ridiculous... there was nothing wrong with the game itself otherwise. It was really fun and pretty scary.

It would have made Capcom's job a lot easier if they kind of did what Square did with Final Fantasy. A Final Fantasy game is a fantasy(ish) game with a few similar themes and (for the most part) containing stories and mythologies that have absolutely nothing at all to do with each other. Similarities can then be thematic and a few endearing little traits (like chocobos and dudes named Cid), and in that sense, certain elements can exist from game to game but be independent in regards to cast and story. If they truly wanted to explore one aspect of their lore, they can do what (again) Square did with the Ivalice Alliance by releasing titles around one specific mythos (in this case, Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and Final Fantasy XII all taking place in the same world with the same rough geography and similar catalog of high-profile monsters) They could have the Umbrella Files or something to that effect and have two or three games that explore the mythos of the Umbrella Corporation on their own creative terms instead of shoehorning it in whenever they need a narrative tie-in to the previous titles. If Resident Evil or Biohazard (in Japan) isn't a generic enough name of a franchise to accomplish that, I don't know what is.

I have to agree, Capcom definately seem to be over-relying on their main stock characters. I'm just thankful we've got a a chance of getting away from the whole "you're nothing but a terrorist" cliche. That's why RE:outbreak could have been such a good game. After establishing a general premise, expansion always wins out over reiteration. Take the Game of THrones series, Gears of War, Halo etc All the most long lasting series (that maintained a consistent quality pr better) widened their scope in their subsequent features.

What we really need in the world of Zombie themed games is a higher budget Zombie sim. Like project zomboid and We're Alive rolled into one tasty package. The only real issue would be the value of plot, whether a more sandbox survival style was chosen with some kind of generic AI system or more detailed "quest" type games like borderlands, Dead island etc (which have already been done)

I've often wondered whether it would be possible to design an engine that could adapt samples from satellite images and scale them to a digital map on the ground - using pre-defined textures of course. That way you could design a game that could be adapted for the user's own location or to create a much greater longevity, Sort of a Left4Dead style AI that can place encounters etc and keep track of things with a variable mapping system.

DOn't really know how feasable that would be though =/ (oh, and if you think it's a good idea, you heard it here first - although since I've posted it on the forums, the intellectual property probably belongs to the OU guys too now =P )

What games had the "you're nothing but a terrorist" cliche going for it? Are we still talking about Resident Evil?

It's ok to rely on your characters heavily if the characters are interesting or at least different. I mean, Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy are basically the same character now. You could have dropped off Chris Redfield in RE4 and it wouldn't have made it any different a game... if anything, it would have made MORE sense considering Chris' background as an elite S.T.A.R.S. member as opposed to Leon... a police officer. Even though that would have made more sense, it was apparently Leon's turn to appear in an RE game as the lead, but that's relying upon the characters' story as they were introduced originally, that is to say, when they were all different and interesting (hell, you even played as a defenseless little girl for a part of RE2).

If your ENTIRE STORY can remain the same with a change of the lead character, that's a serious problem. That's my issue with the way that Umbrella defined the scope of the RE franchise, it's forced the characters with these diverse backgrounds and motivations into these ridiculous action-movie cliches as opposed to allowing them to be the interesting characters they were when initially introduced. This sort of perspective is important. Imagine Gears of War as told by Carmine or Cole instead of Marcus Fenix. As often as these characters are written off as stereotypes, changing the lead character like that would drastically alter the way the game plays out and the way the story unfolds. Their motivations and personalities are all very very different even though their goals are the same. THAT'S why they're interesting. Compare that to RE, where literally every character is interchangeable in the lead role, and you kind of get how much their character development has atrophied across titles.

Dead Island is... well, I have my own opinion on Dead Island... but this is about RE, so I'll save that for another rant/post. Suffice to say I call that game: Fetch Quest Island + Zombies.

in regards to the OU MMORPG:
Doing an Outbreak MMORPG has been on the table for at least 5 years. Many elements of the game were set up for easy conversion to programming language. It's one of the reasons we made it a d100 as opposed to anything else. There are far too many reasons as to why we're not currently doing it, but we're leaving our options open to do so in the future.

ChrisDLR said:

What games had the "you're nothing but a terrorist" cliche going for it? Are we still talking about Resident Evil?

The last 2 RE games both featured similar accusations, number 4 more than 5 though. It's kinda depressing how right you are about the interchangability of the characters. The gears guys get a great treatment in the third one (though I'm yet to finish it, so no spoilers) with a lot more fleshing out, in contrast Resi really seems to have stagnated. =/ Dead island has its fun points, but it is essentially another UPS game, much like similar titles (e.g. Borderlands) the fun is in the people you play with as much as the game itself.

ChrisDLR said:

There are far too many reasons as to why we're not currently doing it, but we're leaving our options open to do so in the future.

Now that I would love to see =]

Yeah, I was extraordinarily impressed with how GoW3 turned out. Maybe because I wasn't expecting any character development and more or less the same catalog of opponents as GoW2. The lambent proved to be a shockingly diverse and interesting threat... plus it had you kind of feeling sorry for the locust, all things considered. At the end of GoW2 you figured out they were literally sandwiched between two forces that were hell-bent on killing them. They were monstrous and took human slaves to be lobotomized, sure, but they at least had a more relatable motivation than just KILL ALL HUMANS. I also found myself playing the game to discover more about the story which is more than I can say about the recent Final Fantasy titles... which makes me very sad.

Dead Island is fun, but it's tiring to face the same 6 opponents and do the same kind of quest over and over again: "I really need six nails to do such-and such" "can you bring me some water?", "Find my wife/sister/brother/husband please!" Besides, the element of fear was largely gone when I was playing because of a massive glitch that allowed me to dupe any weapon... which they have since fixed. What the did REALLY well is the vigilante element though. No matter how much of a badass my character got, I found myself drastically altering course in order to avoid shootouts with them. Plus, I loved the setting. It was very well done. But yeah, it's basically Borderlands... but the zombie DLC for Borderlands was extremely fun because it was also pretty hilarious. I still laugh at the intro movie:

HAH! I had nearly forgotten about that. "That's a swear!"

My favorite line is "AH! For the angel's sake!"

I was thinking about this thread, while contemplating some kind of interplanetary colonization ideas I was having. I was thinking that maybe a corporation like umbrella, in the far flung future, sets up base on some out-of-the-way colony world and lets its biowarfare experiments loose on the populace. It gets to test out its creations before putting them on the market throughout the galaxy or universe. And that will be the plausible reason for why "Umbrella" does what it does.

That's actually one of the scenario possibilities mentioned in the Outbreak: Deep Space book... but switch corporation with government.

It's also similar to the business model of Weyland-Yutani:
Deadly Alien organisms > off-planet testing bio-weapons use? > profit/inevitable human extinction?

ChrisDLR said:

It's also similar to the business model of Weyland-Yutani:
Deadly Alien organisms > off-planet testing bio-weapons use? > profit/inevitable human extinction?

You're correct. I hadn't watched an Alien movie for some years. I had forgotten about that aspect. Plus, the background of the Alien universe is that megacorps were often at war with each other (if I remember right, though it's hardly mentioned in the movies). And just about everyone was an employee of a corporation. Kill off as many employees as you can, and cripple the corporation.