At the First Look event that went down this Saturday, I managed to reach out to members of Capcom’s PR-department and ask them about their thoughts on Resident Evil 6’s mixed reception.The latest entry in this long-running franchise has seen a very mixed reception since it was released, we personally gave it a 9/10, but the very opinionated (and handsome) Jim Sterling from Destructoid and the Jimquisition has given it a 3/10. Gamespot with a 4.5/10.
According to Metacritic the current average is a 6.6/10, not bad by any means, but not something a company like Capcom would want for their AAA title. Interestingly enough the average User Score is 0.9, which is a number generated out of almost 3000 reviews. By comparison: Resident Evil 5 had a score of 8.3/10 (7.5 from users) and the fan-favorite Resident Evil 4 has a 9.6/10 (8.9 from users).
The staff I interviewed explained that with Resident Evil 6, the company tried to bring new life into the franchise. According to the company, people were slowly, but surely growing tired of the classic Resident Evil formula. Slowly walking through zombie-infested houses, awkward aiming, forced camera-angles had to go and with Resident Evil 6 they wanted the series to become a more modern and fluent experience, while of course still maintaining core-elements.
“We announced that there would be three campaigns. Leon’s campaigns is more classic survival-horror, Chris has more action and Jake does a lot of sneaking and stealth” (paraphrased) explained one employee. When asked if people were judging it because it was not like the original from 1996, the staff cautiously proceeded to explain that they hope everybody will judge the game by its own merit and not that of previous installments.
Overall the message was that they strongly believed that the company produced a quality product that innovated the series and they hoped that people would accept it for what it is.
