Resident Evil 6 is a third-person shooter game developed and published by Capcom in 2012. The game was a big installment to the Resident Evil series and was initially released for PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The game was later released in March 2013 for Windows. In the game, players can control characters like Ada Wong, Jake Muller, Leon S. Kennedy, and Chris Redfield as they confront a bio-terrorist war and those behind it.
The game was well-made and received great success (Although not as good as its predecessors), as the story was centered around the mentioned characters, and their interwoven paths and each of them set different gameplay and a new tone to the game.
Resident Evil 6 had existed as a concept since 2009 and underwent development in 2010 by the same producer as Resident Evil 4, Hiroyuki Kobayashi. The game had more than 600 people working as staff, easily making it Capcom’s largest project. The game received some criticism, especially from people who loved the earlier games. For them, the game did not do justice to its previous installments.
Nonetheless, the game sold over 10 million copies and was later re-released on PS4 and Xbox One in 2016. In 2019, the game came to Nintendo Switch. Resident Evil 7 switched the game to a first-person perspective, which added a newfound horror to the game.
One of the big factors for the criticism received by Resident Evil 6 was the changes made by the developers. They spoke about it almost a decade ago, and why they made these changes.
Eiichiro Sasaki has worked as a Director for Resident Evil: Outbreak(2003) and Resident Evil 6(2012), as well as Star Gladiator – Episode 1 (1996). He may not have had a long background, but he is familiar with the Resident Evil series since the beginning and was, therefore, the Director for RE6.
According to Director Eiichiro Sasaki, they weren’t sure who to put as the main characters, and they didn’t have much of a clue on why they would go for Leon and Chris together, but when Eiichiro thought about it, he remembered the scene where they both point guns at each other, showing the differences and the similarities they share.
These characters embody the qualities that are good, and essential in the main character, so seeing them together would be really cool. However, these characters are similar according to Eiichiro, which is something they wanted to avoid. So, they made changes to Chris as Leon had not made an appearance in a while, and they wanted him to be as he is.
Furthermore, they wanted to kill off Chris but realized that there was no good way to do that without coming off as a bad attempt at just making a generic “main character died” story, so they trashed that idea.
These changes made a significant impact, and many fans were not happy with them. According to them, having Leon with either Jill Valentine or Claire Redfield (other beloved playable characters) would have made the story more meaningful, as they have been put together in previous installments before. These characters also shared a personal history, which would have added nostalgia to the game.
But that was not what the developers had in their minds, and maybe that’s why the game fell short. Did these changes impact the way you looked at the Resident Evil series? If so, let us know your thoughts down below!