In Defense of Capcom Keeping the Multiplayer Resident Evil Dream Alive

The Resident Evil franchise is known for a lot of things—tense scares, environmental puzzles, and expansive level design, to name but a few—but it’s not often thought of as having a multiplayer focus. This is somewhat interesting as, while Resident Evil is single-player-oriented, the series has enjoyed a number of forays into multiplayer game design, to varying degrees of success.

Indeed, although games like Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil Revelations 2 are often praised for their strong multiplayer systems, they are also frequently overlooked thanks to highly criticized flops like Resident Evil Resistance and Umbrella Corps. These two camps—the good Resident Evil multiplayer games and the bad ones—are remarkably different, offering fundamentally distinct experiences: the most beloved Resident Evil multiplayer games tend to revolve around freeform co-op gameplay, typically integrated directly into the campaign, while the more maligned releases lean into competitive, repetitive gameplay that strays too far from the Resident Evil formula.

Even Resident Evil games with lukewarm reputations, like Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6, have been praised for their co-op systems.

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There’s a Wealth of Potential in Multiplayer Resident Evil Games

Co-op horror is a historically underserved genre space. Only a handful of popular horror franchises have truly delved into multiplayer elements, and when they have, the attempts can often come across as half-hearted or misguided. Take Dead Space 3, for instance: its co-op systems were serviceable, and even enjoyable in many ways, but they clashed with the core tenets of the Dead Space formula, turning DS3 into more of a cheesy action-adventure game than a tense, thought-provoking horror experience.

But this problem can be easily avoided by Resident Evil, which balances a fine line between horror and action. Sure, not all Resident Evil games would benefit from a co-op campaign, but the more action-oriented entries in the series, such as Resident Evil 5, are best enjoyed with a friend along for the ride, especially if it means avoiding janky NPC AI.

The series’ campy and often irreverent blend of blockbuster thrills and tense scares fits the cooperative multiplayer formula perfectly, offering a collaborative gameplay experience that is equal parts exciting and terrifying. In other words, few franchises can land smack-dab in the middle of scary and fun while still having multiplayer, and Resident Evil is one of them.

How Capcom Can Keep Making Good Resident Evil Multiplayer Games

While countless factors could contribute to the quality of a future Resident Evil multiplayer game, one broad-strokes design philosophy seems like a good rule of thumb: Capcom should focus on co-op over competition. The two most recent Resident Evil multiplayer games were Resident Evil Resistance and the recently axed Resident Evil Re:Verse, which were both poorly received, and the fact that they were both competitive experiences isn’t a coincidence.

PvP shooters and asymmetrical multiplayer formulas might work for horror games like Hunt: Showdown and Dead by Daylight, but Resident Evil arguably hasn’t found a way to fit that niche yet.

But linear co-op is a different story. Resident Evil‘s penchant for intense, unpredictable, and multifaceted single-player campaigns translates perfectly to cooperative gameplay, especially since the franchise often leans into character relationships and teams of various sorts.

It would make sense for a future game to star, say, Resident Evil‘s Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, allowing one player to take on the role of each, and this would also be a dream come true for many long-time fans. Beyond that, such a co-op framework would allow Capcom to do cool new things with its polished, modern RE formula.