After redefining the horror genre in the ‘90s, the Resident Evil franchise went through a radical gameplay evolution. The original game was iconic for its jarring and uncanny camerawork, punishing resource management, and intentionally unwieldy controls: almost everything about it was designed to be as oppositional to the player as the Spencer House itself. It’s an ethos that was honed to a fine point with the next installment, Resident Evil 2, which upped the scale but maintained the desperate circumstances and high-anxiety level of challenge.
But in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and especially in Resident Evil 4, the series started to shift away from its intense, horror-centric approach. Jumpscares, monstrosities, and resource management all stuck around to a degree, but the gameplay became a lot closer to a traditional third-person shooter, a design choice that critics thought reached its limits with Resident Evil 6. Since then, the franchise has returned to its origins with RE7, Village, and Requiem, while on the cinematic side, the upcoming reboot is finally emphasizing the true survival-horror experience after decades of those elements being largely ignored on film.
