Summary
Resident Evilhas a bright future ahead of it. Whether therumors of Capcom remakingResident Evil 0andCode: Veronicaare true or not, the franchise is tremendously healthy and its mainline installments haven’t been so revitalized in a long time. There are some who prefer the retro classics to the modern era as there always inevitably will be, but that’s what makes the series so enduring and popular within every generational era that it’s had to adapt to since its humble beginnings with tank controls and fixed camera angles.
Resident Evilhasn’t been coy about the external inspirations it wears on its sleeve lately and if it truly wanted to embellish an ordinarily ubiquitous feature the franchise has largely only dabbled with it wouldn’t have to look far. Indeed, even thoughThe Evil Withincame afterward and had inevitable inspirations drawn fromResident Evildue to its director, Shinji Mikami, being the latter’s series creator,Resident Evilshould now pull fromThe Evil Within’s well with regard to intense stealth gameplay.
Resident Evil Has Yet to Dig into Stealth as Much as Action
To be clear, stealth has always technically been a part ofResident Evil. How big a part it plays and in which entry varies, andby no means isResident Evilconsidered a stealth-oriented seriesrather than an action-oriented one, but it’s certainly apparent.
Stealth played its biggest role in the mainline series viaResident Evil: Revelations 2, as well as inResident Evil 6, but even without the ability to crouch players have been able to sneak by enemies as far back as the originalResident Evil.
Before theResident Evil 4remake, theResident Evil 2remake came close to a more modern take on stealth withSherry Birkin’s playable sequence in the orphanage, which allows players to crouch out of sight behind environmental obstacles they can also crouch under and around.Resident Evil 4’s remake then made stealth a prominent feature, though it still isn’t quite as viable as simply circumventing enemies or gunning them down.
The Evil Within Should Be Resident Evil’s Stealth Gameplay Blueprint
Therefore, in terms ofResident Evilhaving full-blown stealth mechanics that are preferable to every other available option inResident Evil’s survival horror, it has never come close towhatThe Evil Withinhas been able to achieve.The Evil Withinand its sequel unmistakably possess the same hectic action that aResident Eviltitle does and yet when players must also contend with managing Sebastian Castellanos’ stamina along with resources and ammunition there are many more threats to assess and stealth becomes a highly encouraged route.
One easylessonResident Evilcould learn fromThe Evil Withinto make its stealth gameplay more effective is to grossly restrict how much ammunition players have. Likewise, level design is an important consideration; if Leon and Claire could crouch in theResident Evil 2remake, for instance, it would’ve been neat to see them be able to lose Mr. X in the RPD lobby as they duck below the reception counter and silently loop him.
Enemies being more lethal would also do the trick since players would knowingly spare what little ammunition they’ve been harboring and sneak around them instead, whichThe Evil Withinsuccessfully ingrains in players as early as the sadist butcher encounter at the beginning of the game.The Evil Withinalso sets players up for more stealth kill opportunities than recentResident Evilgames have.
It’ll be interesting to see if elaborate stealth mechanics are more prevalent from now on inResident Evilsince the most recent remake seemed to punctuate such gameplay, and the giveaway for if that’s a direction Capcom is willing to explore will be if stealth is reprised in a big way in the next mainline entry. If so,Resident Evilcan actually afford to embrace such creative liberties and perhaps engage with stealth as much asThe Evil Withindoes, whereas the originalResident Evil 4never demanded the stealth mechanics the remake gave to it.
The Evil Within 2
WHERE TO PLAY
From mastermind Shinji Mikami, The Evil Within 2 is the latest evolution of survival horror. Detective Sebastian Castellanos has lost it all. But when given a chance to save his daughter, he must descend once more into the nightmarish world of STEM. Horrifying threats emerge from every corner as the world twists and warps around him. Will Sebastian face adversity head on with weapons and traps, or sneak through the shadows to survive.
