Resident Evil's New Protagonist is No Action Hero - Beyond Clips

So everything you played was pretty, pretty much like a controlled contained environment, right?

Yeah.

The demo felt like everything I played from the demo did not actually make me, did not make me think for a second that there was going to be an open world element to it.

But again, it's, you know, short hands-on demo, like real, well, I say short, it went by really quickly.

Like I was playing for 30 minutes, but it definitely felt like it was like a, there was a beginning to end to this portion of the game that I played.

How was it in terms of like in terms of gameplay?

Because again, like RE4 is very action heavy and RE8 by the end is pretty action heavy.

But then, you know, the beginning of seven is very kind of plodding and stripped down.

So this is a good question because this is something that we were told.

But basically in the video that we're seeing now in the trailer, you see how Grace is like surrounded by like files and like dossiers and little like printout papers and things like that.

That's apparently very like true to her.

So she is an FBI agent.

And so she has like combat training because of that.

But she is not Leon Kennedy.

Like she is a bookworm.

She is like a data cruncher, a number cruncher.

She is not someone who goes out and like saves president's daughter.

She knows how to use a gun because that's what FBI agents are taught to do, but that's kind of the extent of it.

And you get that in the game because she is constantly, you can hear her taking really calming breaths to calm herself down because of how scared she is of the situation.

And she will react to scary things where she turns on a light to a hallway and there's a really scary sculpture at the end of the hallway and you can hear the character just go, ah!

You know, like she's very reactive with her fear to these things.

And as a result, she's also like the demo doesn't give you a gun.

The demo requires you to find like everyday objects to sort of use as makeshift weapons.

And so the primary weapon during the demo are these like empty glass bottles that she can find along the way.

And she uses as projectiles to throw at a boom, boom, boom, boom, giant monster that stalks you.

What is it?

Oh.

What's it look like?

It looks like...

Sorry.

I've been telling this people.

Do you guys see the movie Barbarian?

Yes.

It reminds me of the monster in Barbarian.

Oh, okay.

tall like it goes all the way from the floor all the way to the top and it had and it's like it's definitely you know it's like like you can tell that it's like a woman but it's not it's not lady demitress right it's like a monstrous looking like bulbous head with freaky eyes and like like giant like godzilla claws like it's very scary and it just like awesome

And at one point it just and it just it's, you know, the size of a size of a tyrant or a size of a Mr. X.

But the sort of someone someone asked me if it was like Lisa Trevorish.

And honestly, I can kind of see that.

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

OK, now you got me.

I mean, I love I loved Lisa Trevor in the RE remake and Barbarian.

That monster is amazing.

um so i'm all for that i yeah i just i'm still trying to figure out how all of this will sort of unfold but like again like it's it's you're you're piquing my interest here i'm i'm with i'm with max too on the sort of um kind of been there done that like i feel like the uh like the hospital thing is like it's fine it's i feel like so many horror games have done it and then like the the hotel slash apartment complex like literally just did that in silent hill post apocalypse is like i mean that is like your you know

your, your go-to in, in 90% of like action video games at this point.

Um, but it's Resident Evil.

And I feel like I, I love the way those games play in control.

And like, I, I have a feeling there's, there's some tricks up their sleeve.

Like they, they invented so many sort of like modern tropes when it

i have faith in them taking like going back to sort of well-trodden familiar territory and doing something interesting with them um i yeah i wonder if this if this creature lady is going to stalk you through the whole game that then there's like the rumors about leon kennedy so is that just you haven't seen any indication of that so punk no i haven't seen i haven't seen a quaff in sight

Yeah.

I wonder, I mean, I wonder if they'll do a thing where it's like a protagonist shift in the middle, like, or, you know, he, yeah, he, he tags in, you play as him for a little bit.

Like the, you know, Resident Evil 4 had basically an entire DLC where you play a completely different main character and it's awesome.

And it's, it's sort of seeing all the elements that happened with the first character through a

a different perspective setting up things that end up you know impacting them and vice versa um so i i think that that could have a lot of potential too yeah um i'm also if i mean like i love leon but if they want to take a break from him i'd be okay with that too either way i love that dude so i'll always play another game with him

I think that Capcom has a pretty good handle on on like teases and demos and stuff for things like when before Resident Evil 7 was even announced as RE7, they had the kitchen demo for the PlayStation VR, which was in that house.

And it had like one of those mean, mean people like it was like the lady would like come in and just like hold a knife to your face.

And it was very, you know, that was their that was their Capcom's, you know, an unbranded horror demo for PSVR.

And

Then 20 minutes later, they were like, hey, Biohazard, Resident Evil 7, check it out.

It's the new one.

It's in a kitchen.

And I don't know.

That was very much like a curated demo specifically for showing that stuff off.

And it wouldn't surprise me that much if the...

if the thing that you saw matt was a was a you know carefully curated vertical slice that maybe even you know the final version varies um but yeah again like we have switching protagonists like that's not that's not unheard of for this uh for this series and at the same time like i feel like they kind of i don't know they kind of capped off um

What Ethan's Ethan's whole story.

Yeah, I mean that.

Yeah, that's like a really nice like contrast between what I played and like I played, you know, seven and village is that, you know, Ethan was, you know, he was kind of a bland guy.

Like he loved his wife.

He loved his daughter.

And then he hated his hands.

Yeah.

And his hand.

And he would always lose a hand.

I think the new the new thing for this one is that I think that her feet should keep getting messed up.

Like just just just step into bear traps and stuff.

Just

dropping things on her feet.

Do that.

Do the Ethan Hand thing.

But it's just her feet.

And I want her to make like cart to go like, oh, just do like the like the howling, like hop up and down on one foot.

That's where the third person comes in.

I do think it's a little interesting that it's like I mean, he was such a like he was a bumbling idiot and lost his hands in like cartoonish ways.

Right.

And like like duct tape his arms back on and stuff like that.

Yeah.

But the protagonists of two and three remake and obviously for your your full on like superhero, basically like

um though those those characters were like a lot more uh confident i guess and so so i guess going back to a protagonist that's like throwing glass bottles it makes me think like what is like how deep into the survival horror stuff are they going because i know they've like what resident evil revelations 2 right you played as what was it claire redfield and then like barry's daughter and barry's daughter was just like

didn't really have like, wasn't, wasn't a trained weapons expert, wasn't a cop or anything like that, you know, a special, special forces or anything.

So I, I do wonder if that's where they'll bring in Leon for stuff, you know?

Yeah.

A cool arc is like, it becomes, I mean, these become more action heavy in the second half, usually anyway, then you just swap characters.

You get somebody who can carry an infinite rocket launcher or whatever.

And it works with the perspective change.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like that a lot.

God, that's all so fascinating to me.

No release date for this game yet, right?

Just 2026?

No, February 27th.

Oh, that's right.

Oh, even better.

Cool.

All right.

That'll be here before we know it.

I got so used to watching all these showcases and directs and all this stuff over the last week that literally just said 2026.

that i was just like i don't i don't know if i believe it but now uh these guys know they're you know a few months out ahead of gta6 or anything anybody else that might eat the lunch i mean capcom's gotten so good at this this pipeline and like yeah brian your point about like them making all of these assets and things like that makes sense for them to make all these manila folders and like coffee cups and stuff because like it all their stuff is on the re engine they're gonna make other games they're gonna make other re games it makes sense to be like we've got this huge library of different you know tools and assets and stuff just

kicking around i mean i feel like those you know those office cubicles and things they could be great you know maybe in some sort of laboratory where people are making dinosaurs just throwing that out there maybe if they wanted to do some sort of uh you know crisis involving dinos that could be cool but yeah i would like that i mean what you know when i see manila folders in offices the first first thing i think of is the dinosaur you know what could be in there pictures of dna

that is true uh matt you you did a you did a piece this year right you did you did this awesome thing that was uh about like this sort of rise and fall and rise again of capcom yeah and i feel like this yeah and it's it's awesome go check that out if you haven't um and it's uh it like really tells a story about like i think for so long aaa game studios just

people just looked at them as like they just got worse.

Right.

Like I think that like the the way people talk about modern Ubisoft, which like I love a bunch of their modern games.

Right.

But it's like even even them and like and, you know, Rockstar's output has has shrunk significantly from putting out like a game or two every year or two to just one every ten, 15 years now.

You know, people aren't exactly hot on EA on any given day, but Capcom has had this like really awesome sort of, you know, renaissance where

At one point, you could look at any of their franchises and be like, this is not really going particularly well right now.

And I think your piece does a really good job of breaking that down about sort of like, they were stumbling on Resident Evil and Street Fighter and a couple others all at the same time.

And then have sort of dragged all of those back into being not only relevant, but revolutionary and modernized new franchises.

And I feel like Resident Evil is like,

the fact that we're we just recently got resident evil 4 remake and you know in the past uh two years and now we're getting resident evil 9 and it's like these are big gorgeous games that take like you know 12 15 20 hours to beat sometimes we all looked at re4 like it was going to be like oh i bet you they're going to cut all this stuff because after r3 remake they they shrunk that game down a lot and

It was kind of a bummer and four was one of those sacred cows and they knocked it out the park.

And it's one of those things where I have a tough time in my head, like sort of identifying which version of that game I like better because I love them both equally for slightly different reasons.

And so, yeah, I'm really I'm really fascinated with the future of this franchise looks like.

We also thought we would find out about the next remake.

And that's obviously coming.

I feel like that's the kind of thing they'll tease in this, right?

There'll be an Easter egg.

I know there was an Easter egg in the ending of 4 teasing 5.

But I don't know.

We've been talking a lot about maybe them remaking 1 again, but as a first person slash, I guess, optional third person shooter that doesn't have tank controls.

um that's what i thought they were cheating up because during this the whole like the summer game fest thing they had like what two different they had one that was like the resident evil sale and then another one was like happy birthday resident evil and we kept being like oh here it comes and then it was it was nothing but like yeah next year is the 30th anniversary of the franchise so yeah i would love a remake of one i know one was technically already remade for gamecube but i would love a second remake because it's it's my favorite game of all time or one of my favorite games of all time so

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