The undead of Resident Evil are a fitting metaphor for a franchise with one foot in the grave.
Since the departure of Shinji Mikami, Resident Evil has arguably become a decrepit shadow of its former self, mutated with spin-offs and genre hybridity as Capcom seek to broaden the brand's audience.
Resident Evil 2 is widely regarded as one of the greatest horror games ever made, and is a personal favourite. Watching the franchise rot like one of its iconic undead monstrosities has been a painful endeavour. What made Resident Evil 5 scary wasn't to be found in chilling atmosphere, tense and vulnerable gameplay, but instead in catastrophically poor design choices. Resident Evil had become a linear action arcade shooter with wilfully awful controls and an utterly absent minded plot. Resident Evil 5 had no idea what game it wanted to be, and I felt so wronged by it that I haven't touched the franchise since, until now.
