“People Would be Really Sick” of Resident Evil if it Didn’t Leave Survival Horror, Says Producer

8 Oct, 2011

With the upcoming Operation Raccoon City, Resident Evil is starting to look a lot less evil and a lot more shooter. Producer Masachika Kawata isn’t adverse to the idea of exploring different genres within the series though, and explains that every day fans are asking for different experiences within the universe of Resident Evil. It’s no excuse for terrible movies, but Kawata said that with the different genres within the franchise’s name, it keeps things interesting.

“At the core, basically, we want to make the best use of our brand,” explained Kawata in an interview with Gamasutra. “Resident Evil is an IP, and a franchise, that people have loved for a long time.

“It’s still very, very popular and we’re very, very happy about that, and we want to basically answer all the requests that we get about the series. People want to see a lot of different experiences within the Resident Evil universe, and so we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to answer those requests with a lot of different experiences, in different forms, in games.”

It wasn’t a decision for money according to Kawata. Kind of a refreshing feel to it, as most developers would make changes to sell more copies of their game. Not in this case, as Kawata stated it was largely a response to fans. Was there a fear of dilution within the franchise? For the most part no. “I’m not too concerned about that, for the simple reason that all these different Resident Evil games that are coming out are focused on very different things,” answered Kawata. “I’m thinking that if we would have brought out all these Resident Evil titles, and they were all focused on survival horror, absolutely I think people would be really sick of Resident Evil.”

Variety is the spice of life, they all say. In this case, Resident Evil believes it’s also the key to what makes fans keep coming back for more. “In my mind, we’ve got this online shooter game, we’ve got other things like Mercenaries that are even more action-focused, and some other games,” said Kawata. “And by going in a lot of different directions, I’m pretty confident that people are going to still be enjoying Resident Evil for a long time.”

Via Gamasutra, 1up.