Resident Evil 6: Bringing People Together

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Resident Evil 6: Bringing People Together

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At E3 2012, Capcom offered a glimpse of the three different scenarios we’ll be playing in Resident Evil 6. Players could enjoy a co-op between Leon Kennedy and newcomer Helena Harper in classic survival-horror style in a Tall Oaks full of zombies, face a boss battle with Jake Muller (son of longtime series baddie Albert Wesker) and Sherry Birkin (aka the little girl from RE2), or battle across the rooftops of China with Chris Redfield and his partner Piers Nivans. But the company also revealed a new feature behind closed doors: the Crossover system, an evolution of the dual-threaded Scenario mechanic from Resident Evil 2, this time not only intersecting the story of different characters but also bringing their gameplay together in four-player co-op situations.

To demonstrate Crossover, Capcom’s developers played a scene where Leon and Helena meet with Jake and Sherry in China. En route via airplane, the US agents are attacked by a B.O.W. (that’s Bio-Organic Weapon for the uninitiated) and crash. Wesker’s son and his young partner are already on the ground when they cross paths with the crash survivors, and the four of them are then attacked by a huge creature known as Ustanak. Each of the four characters is controlled by an online player, and they must cooperate to take down the beast, which can hold and punish a character with his claw and hold another one at the same time in a cage on his back.

Eventually, the pairs get separated and switched, and players are stuck with a different partner – Leon is thrown with Sherry to one side of a wall, and Jake has to cooperate with Helena on the other side as the battle with Ustanak rages on.

Producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi tells us that the Crossover system brings together random pairs of friends who are simultaneously getting to the same section where different scenarios crosses in the storyline. Sounds like an unusual concept for online co-op matches, so we took the opportunity to get more details from Hirabayashi-san about this new feature of Resident Evil 6, which is coming out for PS3 this October.

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PlayStation.Blog: So Crossover randomly pairs players around the world playing at the same part of the game and at the same time? So we can’t just invite friends to get through a specific crossover section?
Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, Producer, Resident Evil 6: Yes, that’s exactly how it works….The concept of this feature is to have people joining you in real time and seamlessly, so whenever you happen to be at a point where you get to China as Leon, for example, somebody else in the world who’s playing roughly at the same time and they’re also about to get at that point or they’re already there as Jake, he or she will join you. So the idea is more to have a surprise about who’s going to play with you. If want to play with your friends, we recommend, first and foremost, playing with them within the storyline on the co-op, so you’ll be Jake and your friend is Sherry, or you’ll be Leon and your friend is Helena.

Of course, if want to play with friends there’s a setting for it, so whenever you come to a chapter or a story section where there’s going to be a crossover, you get a little prompt before that section asking if you want live players joining your game at this point. If you feel like playing on your own or you don’t want to play with a guy you don’t know, you can go with the AI and it’ll be you and three other AI-controlled characters. You can also choose between letting anyone come in or only friends. Of course, because you’re playing in the storyline, it means you’re not going to have a lobby as in a deathmatch, you’re going to get in touch with your friend and tell him to play the same section at the same time with the specific characters, and both will have to set the online co-op to “friends only.”

We see the concept of this feature as not necessarily being “get your friend on the other side of the crossover”, but “get your friend at the same side as you”.

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PSB: What about a chapter selection feature after you finish certain sections? This could help if players really want to set up crossover play with friends.
YH: Yes, you have chapters and, if you pick a specific one and tell your friend to play at the same one, you can increase the chances of getting your friend in there. So let’s say both of you only have each other as their only PSN friend and the setting is to play with friends only, then it’s a 100% chance you’ll be playing with each other [laughs].

But let’s say we both are popular and have 100 PSN friends each, and we both choose to play with friends only; there’s still a chance we’re going to play together, but the idea of the design is meant to this kind of scenario. You can manufacture a situation to play with a specific person, but we don’t see it as the main idea behind the Crossover concept. If players want to play with friends, they can do it in Resident Evil 5-style: two friends playing a scenario in co-op.

PSB: In order to see every side of the story, we’ll have to play multiple times, each one with a different character, right?
YH: Yes, there’s three separate storylines with two characters in them each. You could see every aspects of it yourself, but you’ll also have the chance to join someone else who’s already seen the other side of the storyline, maybe before you’ve seen it or maybe after you’ve seen it.

Let’s say you start as Leon. At some point you cross over with Jake, and then, once your crossover is done, you’re back to Leon, and then start another crossover with Chris. Then you decide “Okay, I’ve seen enough of Leon’s story” and start with Chris from the start, and you see his missions and then he crosses over with Jake separately, and later on he gets to the Leon crossover – you’ve already seen it from the Leon side, and now you see it from Chris’ side.

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PSB: So in terms of replayability, how much content will the game offer?
YH: If you play all three storylines all the way through, you’ll see everything you can see from every side in terms of story, and you’ll obviously have the chance, depending on the settings of the lobby, to have people joining you in these crossover intersections. It’s quite a lot of volume: we estimate that each one of these storylines is probably around 70% to 80% of the volume of the whole game in Resident Evil 5. So with three separate storylines, there’s plenty to play here.

PSB: We noticed you were switching between a lot of guns and equipment in real time. Does Resident Evil 6 do away with the inventory management?
YH: It’s just a demo for the E3, but yes, as you’ve seen, with the weapons and items, it’s all in real time. That’s not to say that you’re going to have plenty of bullets for a hundred different weapons. It’s still survival horror, you need to have those limits in order for the game to work. You’ll have to manage your resources in terms of having guns and ammo, but you won’t be popping in and out of a menu like you’ve seen before. It’s much more fluid.

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PSB: This section you demoed is more action based, but you said the game is still a survival horror. How are you balancing the pace of the game in that sense? Will we have scenes more based on tension and fear like in the earlier Resident Evil titles?
YH: First of all, we’ve tuned this demo to show how the Crossover works, to show an enemy so strong that it needs four players coordinating to take it down. So you have lots of action, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be all like that during the whole game. Also, we’ve set it so people don’t keep dying in the middle of the demo, so it has plenty of guns and plenty of ammo. That’s not how it’s going to be when you come across the Ustanak in the final game – you’ll still have Resident Evil-style situations where you have a shotgun with only two shells in it and you have to make sure you make it counts. Those elements will come into play in the real flow of the game when you get to this point, and we think that’s what survival horror is all about. “Can I live through this situation with the resources I have at hand?” You should feel like that, like you’re playing a Resident Evil game.

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53 Comments

  • I just want this sooooooooo bad, I like having the options to choose too. Thank god it isn’t forced for done weird gimmick they’re working on, but it sure will he interesting to see who you pair up with.

  • Wow this looks bad, I didn’t think it could get worse after RE5. I miss when survival horror games existed, now that Dead Space is also going the RE5 route there’s nothing left in the genre.

  • GALACTIK_MONKEY2

    Is there any special or collector edition yet? Cause i already pre-order mine at Gamestop.

  • Shut up and take my money :o !!!!

  • I really hope Claire is in this game.

  • Can we get an idea of what the online modes are? besides the Co-Op

  • That sounds great but here is what Id like to know.. me and my cousin plan on staying up til 8am playin this all night like we did with RE5 lol.. lets say me and him start off in co op story and Im Leon and Hes Helena… then we get to a crossover part and get separates so now Maybe hes Helena but stuck playing with Jake while I have Jakes partner Sherry with me..

    when we get back to the point where we find our Old partners again and reunite.. will the Helena I get back from Jake be my cousin still or will it be someone else completely different controlling Helena now? I hope its not the latter.

  • Very exited for RE6, can’t wait to learn more about Jake!

  • Wait I’m confused, what part of making DLC exclusive to one console but not the other “Bringing People Together”…? Can you please enlighten me to how separation is also togetherness?

  • I hope it does well with any co-op or multiplayer that it has. I also hope that they took there time on both co=op & multiplayer or they could be left with the same problems that Max Payne 3 has! Freezing, invisible people that shoot at you(i’ve killed ah couple of floating guns)dropped matches, people that don’t die, people that can lay down & surf on the ground all across the map killing you at light speed! I just wont get cought up in any more hype. Just hpoe they took there time to do it right. And@ OctoG123 Dead Space 3 will still hold the horror crown they took from the others!

  • nice action shooter , please change the name of the game :)
    i guess the chapters will be day 1 dlc, right capcom? etc

  • tired of forced co-op and lame A.I. teammates/squads. hated it in RE5, but still played it. will be skipping RE6 however.

  • please put the e3 trailer on the PS Store thank you

  • @3 there is an edition called Resident Evil 6 Anthology. It’s $89.99 and comes with RE 1, 2, 3, Code Veronica X and 4 HD as downloads and RE 5 Gold and RE 6 on disc. The XB360 version does not have RE 1-3 but instead the movie Degeneration. I’m not sure if this is in the PS3 version or is a substitution for the PS1 games. Gamestop is taking pre-orders on that now.

  • too bad he doesn’t have the balls to just decide and say it: CORRECT! no friend only matchmaking. I like the idea but if you’re going to do this, either do it in a bold manner like TGC did with Journey or don’t do it at all. It beats the purpose if you ask me with menus and settings, then it’s just another online game. Get rid of those menus and settings and do it FORCED and random just like Journey and you have my interested much more. OF course people are going to complain and say all sorts of negative stuff for not having the traditional menus but the truth is they are going to complain about smth regardless so you cannot escape that. But they did seem to embrace the idea in Journey

  • I’ll give it a try, but I miss the days of tank controls and limited ammo.

  • Will RE6 have PS Move compatibility? Also, when will Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Collection be coming to PSN? And any info on the cg movie, Resident Evil: Damnation; is the movie set before or after RE6?

  • They forgot to ask them(Capcom) that main question? i.e –

    PSB: So why are you(Capcom) stabbing loyal PlayStation Fans in the back and giving Microsoft the RE6 ‘DLC’ first? :-/

    YH: We like money not loyalty.

    Me: It’s RE6 2nd hand off eBay maybe next year for me then, sorry to say :-D

  • gonna be the 1st resident evil game ive ever owned :)

  • will it support split-screen coop and will it have separate psn log ins?

  • The fact that this game is having 360 owners get the DLC first, makes me not want to buy it.

  • 1 month doesn’t make a difference

  • i preordered this game months ago and was already super excited before i read this! this just came outta left field and blew me away… even more glad i pre-ordered

  • frozen_nightmare

    is there any word as to whether or not they fixed the AI for those of us who wanna go at it solo? Looking at the HUD I noticed that it doesn’t show the health of ur partner. Does this mean that we don’t have to babysit him/her like we had to do for Sheva? lol

  • I really really hope they bring back Raid mode from Resident Evil Revelations. Absolutely fun mode. That and Mercenaries would make this my go to go game for a long time. I still play RE5.

  • One game I’m looking forward to this year. =^_^=

  • Game looks awful. Definitely not the return of RE’s roots like Crapcom promised.

  • @9, 18, & 21- I thought that was my imagination. As if I confused this rumor w/ the usually COD or Oblivion/Fallout 3/Skyrim DLC exclusive delivery to MS first. Gah, I guess you guys confirmed it. :( While the PS3 has some great exclusive IPs, it looks like MS competes by buying temp. DLC. I think I’m going to wait for the Ultimate/GotY Ed. that packs everything.

  • First comment is right. Game looks so bad, no wait you want it so bad, why??? RE5 was the first numbered RE to have co op, be multi platform AND absolutely suck, coincidence? All I know about RE6 after still not watching the E3 trailer is, oh there is that blonde haired girl from 2 that should have been the blonde haired girl in 5, not the best character in the series getting destroyed forever.
    Seriously we are done here Crapcom. The last game I bought off you this gen WAS RE5 and even back in 2009 that was an embarrassing move by me. But you would need to be crazy if you bought any Lost Planet, Dead Rising, Street Fighter…..holy crap I just realised anything they do is garbage. Anyway, yeah we are done this gen. Call me when you get Shinji Mikami back to do Resident Evil 2 REmake.

  • @29 andrewsqual – Speak for yourself next time instead of generalizing every one with your post. I like Capcom and Resident Evil, and i will be getting RE6, just like million others.

  • Caveat Emptor (Buyer beware). Resident Evil 6 was at around 50% completion on Feb 2012. Capcom’s release date for the game is Oct 2, 2012. That’s around 8-9 months to finish the game,test,Quality and Assurance testing (Yeah Ok), ect ect. Given Capcom’s track record and their latest stunts…I’ll doubt we’ll get ours money’ worth…much less the complete game. IcedDice777’s Rule #7 will still effect….Never pay Full price for Capcom New releases. My .02

  • i hope this game will have offline 2 player co-op

  • resident evil 4 is the best , lets see if resident evil 6 can compete with that. i was greatly disappointed in resident evil 5.

  • The more I read about RE6, less I want this game. I was expecting something closer to a full lenght Lost in Nightmares.

    Resident Evil 5 looked a lot like Paul W.S. Anderson’s movies and RE6 seems to be Michael Bay’s work.

  • I hope that RE6 will be at least an “ACTION horror”, because the survivor died with RE3

  • “in classic survival-horror style” lol yea right… that died when they came out with 4. I’m done hoping for another “survival-horror” RE game from capcom. Since they have publicly said they don’t think there’s any money in the classic survival-horror, RE action games are here to stay… and I’m out

  • my fall release pickups list is slowly gettin shorter and shorter.. think im just gonna get bioshock and borderlands 2 this year and maybe last of us

    there’s just some games that dont belong online.. i cant see why people still buy into this crap.. Resident Evil, Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed, Dead Space.. all games that went down the tubes because of the addition of MP..

    gotta hand it to the lazy developers too like these guys here and EA games.. spend 50 cents on development and lets charge $59.99..

  • this game looks fun i may just buy it good thing it comes out in octuber than november less time to wait for it

  • This sounds really kool

  • never played the game, dont intend to ether. looks lik a waste of time to me. if u guys play this game and u think its great maybe u should start playing this game genre called CALL OF DUTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for real i mean ya of course it gets boring killing people over and over. especially once u prestige thn your really sik of the game cause u just get all the guns over. i think they should make a call of duty where each prestige u unlock different guns. cause tht would be badass and alot more people would keep on plyin it. and not wnt to sell it and thn regret it later. heres a list of great and outstanding games, some ull get a laugh,
    1.Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Future Soldier
    2.Gran Turismo 5
    3.Spec Ops The Line (not out til june 26, vist; http://www.specopstheline.com)
    4. GTA IV
    5. Far Cry 3
    6. MW3
    7. Battlefield 3
    8.Midnight Club L.A
    9. not this game,
    10. if ur really in to games lik i used to be b4 i got a frikin life thn u need to stop reading this and turn off ur computer or whtever and get one -_-

  • claire should be in here, ’cause just about every other RE character got an HD makeover except her. she’s one of my favorite characters, and leon. but doesn’t leon look kinda old, i know it’s years passed, but still.

  • @29 maybe u have bad tastes. none of those games u mentioned, u liked? just because u don’t like them doesn’t make them garbage. RE5 was awesome.
    @37 why are they lazy? ’cause they didn’t make a game the way u want it? those games were still awesome, u know u don’t have to play online, right? i don’t like online and still enjoyed those games. online didn’t affect it at all.
    @30 right on!

  • Thanks crapcom. Ill pass. You guys are not even about the customer anymore. Its all about the money. I’m not going to pay 60 bucks for half a game, have to buy all the maps, extra characters/colors, then you guys release a ‘super duper special edition that contains everything’ around 5 months later (or in this case 1400 bucks for the re6 edition).

    Your greed has caused me to stay away from your games and not support you. You are now rushing the game due to the customers wishes? I think not. You are pushing it up a month because there will be BETTER games out in November.

    This is going to be worse than operation raccoon city. Then, they will patch the living heck out of it (like they just did a few days ago) since the game is so rushed.

    While I am interested in Jakes story, Ill watch it on youtube.

  • I still think that maybe this game could be good.

    With regard to capcom raping consumers – that’s nothing new but it’s not an excuse/free pass. The consumer is always right but as gamers the only way to curb a company’s behavior like this is to boycott that company’s products.

    These days games don’t turn a profit if they hit $1 to $10 million in sales in consideration of production/development costs and especially those on the level of the RE franchise.

    The love for RE would need to drop significantly and be wide spread in its fan base to really affect this and perhaps make the company change there approach.

  • Resident Evil 6 is truly gonna be something special. Can’t wait until October!

  • I Really Think They’re Stepping It Up In The Whole “Horror/Survival” Thing! And I Think Its Pretty Neat They’re Bring Sherry Back In! I Already Pre-Ordered It But If You Do. You Get Two Exclusive Mercaneries Maps!!! ^_~

  • @42 Agirlwhopwnsu – Tsk, you people make me laugh… You really think Capcom is that bad? What about EA and their half-baked games released annually and their online pass, Origin e.t.c.?

    And fyi, Operation Raccoon City was made by Slant Six, not Capcom, get your fact straight. And to finish, if you think ORC was rushed i invite you to go play Mercenaries 2: World in Flames from EA and come back to me after.

  • 46: DoTheKiller91: I don’t play the other ‘half baked’ games. I don’t like the title, I don’t support it. I do not buy the online passes and I usually learn more about the games before I buy them. Hence why I cannot talk about them. I purchased RE4, like it and was disappointed by RE5. So im going to research RE6. And from what I see thus far, I dont like. Got it? You cannot have a game that big, be 50% done, advertise it and promote it in less than 6 months. RE5 advertised a full year in advance.

    Raccoon city is a RE Franchise, so they support it. Just because it was made by another studio doesn’t mean that capcom didn’t approve it. Who do the characters belong too? Last I checked leon and the rest belonged to CAPCOM. Oh wait, I guess the Capcom logo in the credits mean nothing? lol There, you’ve made me laugh.

    Im not going to change my opinion because YOU cannot get your facts straight. Learn who owns what before you come mouthing off on a forum.

    If the game was not rushed, why were people complaining about lag and enemies not feeling their hits? Check youtube then come and talk about it. 3 months later they get patches for it? Should have been included in the game or updated sooner.

  • @47 – Awww, did i hit a sensitive nerve there? You clearly have no knowledge of Resident Evil ORC and probably of RE in general, you’re probably one of those noobs who started playing RE with RE4 and thinks they know the whole franchise, please gtfo. “Crapcom” like you say so well HAVE NOTHING TO DO about ORC, they are the publishers of this game, Slant Six the devloppers, they have left the devloppement duties to a western dev, just like they are leavin duties to another dev for the upcomming DMC and the last Dead Rising game, so instead of whining at Capcom go whine at Slant Six! And you can stop with that arrogance of yours, you don’t intimidate me “got it”? Oh, an yes RE belongs to Capcom duh, but the patches are made by SS, they don’t need the patches to get approved by Capcom, they are just publishers. I don’t think Treyarch or Infinity Ward has to get their patches approved by Activision now right? Im done here, bye! :)

  • no not really I dont take gaming too seriously, like you do. lol. And you’re obviously looking to troll. As I said. the characters belong to crapcom. they have to sign off on it don’t you think? I do not stalk games like you do, but I do like the RE…Well, did till this.

    Don’t you think capcom gave them permission for THEIR characters? lol

    Yes, run off and say you’re done instead of holding a decent debate.

    Just because I do not approve of what you like, I am wrong? Grow up please and stop with the gtfo Nonsense. Save it for the next metal gear.

    Keep the ‘duh’ stuff to yourself as well. As I said, in the end, CRAPCOM has to give it the go ahead. PUBLISHERS still have a SAY in their franchises. If they dont like how it goes, they can change it. Think of it as a movie.

    Save the Weaboo stuff for the arcade. The fact is that your beloved capcom is price gouging their customers for half baked games. I dont know about other companies, I know what I see in CRAPCOM. Since I dont run out buying every game that SOUNDS good and actually take the TIME to see if a game is worth it to me PERSONALLY.

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