First of all, this is not a review of Resident Evil 8 or anything like it, I have not played the game yet, maybe for lack of time or lack of motivation (I'm not too much of a fan of first person horror games), but I can say that this game and entire saga has managed to reinvent itself and get out of its comfort zone to get us into rejuvenating experiences as is the case of installments 7 and 8, that rescue mechanics of games like Amnesia or Outlast and redefine them at will, we have a survival horror where ammunition is scarce, the weapons are always a roulette when aiming and where we never feel comfortable at all. Today I want to talk about its development because taking advantage of the release of its documentary -Making of Resident Evil Village - The Internal Struggle- and I was able to watch it, I have some interesting thoughts about the industry.
Making video games is not easy, in this art many structures are combined and all have a special relevance in how the game can be seen, from the playable mechanics, the story and even its music must be in the same sync for a game to become a solid, playable and entertaining piece, even today I think that this industry day by day is perfected and gives a technological leap with each passing game, yes, but it is also much more difficult to make a product that stands out from the rest and that pleases the players at the same time that you manage employees and keep its development cheap, this is more visible in the sagas that have been around for a long time in the consoles, with each installment that passes the studios are forced by their players to generate much more immersive, fun and realistic experience, keeping a limited budget and only recently, facing a global pandemic that would wipe out any game developer.
Covid-19 has caused the daily routines of studios to be critically affected, some games cancelling their development temporarily and others working from home in a way that very few at first could take advantage of, Resident Evil 8 was a victim of the pandemic and its consequences, While it is a game that has taken all the love from critics and players for its more varied proposal and focused on being a Survival Horror but also varying in action and shooting, this change from the action and spectacularity offered by Resident Evil 7 brought challenges for developers and for Capcom its producer.
I guess the new Resident Evil follows that game design in which we had an enemy that was virtually invincible and with whom we had to "coexist" and dodge all over the stage, this new installment put us in the harsh cold in the middle of a mansion full of werewolves and a varied selection of creatures in addition to the main villains, Well, the Capcom development team had problems in the middle of the development of the game with the enemies, because many testers as they played the difficulty of the creatures increased in such a way that they could not progress in the game naturally, they felt frustrated in parts of the game that they could not evade and that generated a problem, we had to redesign both the scenario and the difficulty of these monsters, which was not easy if we take into consideration that all this occurred in the middle of the health crisis last year, the key to the problem is the problems that these inconveniences generated between the quality certification teams and the developers, as shown in the video documentary, the game director Morimasa Sato "So, for a month, I sat at home, worried about Resident Evil Village" this because Capcom closed all development of their games with a view to combat Covid.
The problem that the developers had was serious to the point that the testers argued that it was boring to play the game, there were too many enemies, they were too aggressive and the combat mechanics were too limited to deal with them in a satisfactory way for the player, from here it was seen that the relations between the quality controllers and the developers were broken because the latter thought that the game worked correctly as it was.
Finally Capcom interceded and had the development team rework the game to solve this difficulty, focusing it much more on a limited amount of enemies but also with limited firepower so that the player would always be aware of not missing a single shot and not wasting bullets.
The result? A game that is very reminiscent of the P. T demo for its setting and style of gameplay, which although it gets us right into the action and shooting against werewolves, does not give up having a slower pace, letting the scenery speak, creating tension in the player and offering an experience both frightening and rewarding to play, Resident Evil 8 since its arrival has attracted both locals and strangers once again to one of its mansions and has offered an experience that although it resembles its predecessor, it cleverly mixes survival horror mechanics and molds them into a first level title.
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