Highly inspired by other asymmetrical multiplayer games like Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th, the thinking behind Resident Evil: Resistance was sound but never quite came together.

Resident Evil: Resistance, 2020 (PS4/Xbox One)

So why doesn’t Resident Evil just stick to the terrifying single-player stories it does best? Maybe because some of the brand’s multiplayer-centric games have shown fun but flawed flickers of promise. Repeatedly bludgeoning Chris Redfield using a Tyrant’s mutated arm is a nice way to celebrate the franchise’s 25th birthday in theory, I’ll admit, but last month’s beta did little to convince me that the game will be a worthwhile investment for PVP diehards. RE: Verse is the newest effort, released free for Resident Evil: Village purchasers as a standalone deathmatch-style game where players battle as iconic characters from the series. And yet Resident Evil continues playing host to various co-op and competitive installments that push back against the traditional survival-horror grain. Strange, considering the Japanese publisher should know that scary games are more effective, for the most part, when played alone. Of all these side ventures, it’s the latter that Capcom seems to be obsessed with most. It can be a zombie-themed restaurant in the heart of Tokyo, a billion-dollar Hollywood movie franchise, or potentially a fear-tinged multiplayer experience where you fight alongside friends.

Flash forward 25 years, however, and Resident Evil can now mean different things to different people. Such creepy elements have become cornerstones of a genre known as survival horror, one that Capcom’s trademark series firmly cemented back when it debuted on the original PlayStation in 1996. Resident Evil games are at their best when they keep you isolated to a single setting, cut off from the outside world as you attempt to stay alive against the stumbling undead hordes.

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