In 2005, Resident Evil 4 revolutionized the horror series in what is still widely considered one of the best games of all time, and then…well, the series stumbled a little, and then fell into a dumpster that went rolling down a hill until it collided with a truck. 2009’s Resident Evil 5 dialed up Resident Evil 4’s action leanings and fell into the multiplayer-focused trap of the late augmentation era, to memetic results. While the game had a decent reception at the time and has slowly been covered in rose-tinted nostalgic goggles as folks forget its shortcomings (Chris punching a boulder while Sheva runs around inside a volcano is camp, all right), it was certainly viewed as a step back from Resident Evil 4’s generation-defining excellence.
Instead of learning lessons from Resident Evil 5, Capcom tripled down on the series’issues in 2012 with Resident Evil 6, which is often cited as one of the low points in the series. It felt as if every game needed a multiplayer element at this point in the PS360 era, and that meant that historically single-player franchises were shoehornedmultiplayer elements into their latest sequels. Some companiespulled it off.
Resident Evil 6, meanwhile, is one of the most apparent examples of Capcom following trends instead of charting its own path. Resident Evil went away for a bit, with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard reintroduction of the series in 2017 with a renewed focus on horror, a new first-person perspective, and a complete re-establishing of what the name meant. Since then, Resident Evil has kept its distinct identity intact, and found way to merge its terrifying scares and its action camp in games like Requium.
It took some stumbing to get to this point, but Capcom has re positioning Resident Evil as a genre-defining Goty contender. You can also see this trajectory with several of its other big franchises. Street Fighter V was a disaster at launch that eventually became good, and led to Street Fighter 6 bringing it all back around in 2023.
Devil May Cry went from its best game in Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening to a middling Devil May Cry 4 and the incredibly divisive DmC: Devil May Cyr. Then Devil May Cry 5 came out and reestabished the series as a standard-bearer for the action genre. It hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, though.
Street Fighter IV was an absolute mess at launch, though patches improved it significantly. More recently, Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite was a notorious dud.
By and large, however, Capcom feels like it’s finally gotten its priorities straight for these long-running IPs.