Highlights
- Resident Evil 9 will reportedly be an open-world game.
- After Dragon's Dogma 2 expanded the RE Engine's open-world functionality, Capcom is said to be keen to keep building on that achievement with Resident Evil 9 and Monster Hunter Wilds.
- The next mainline entry in the Resident Evil series still hasn't been officially announced, but is rumored to be targeting a 2025 release.
Resident Evil 9 will be an open-world game, a well-known Capcom leaker has said. The insider also claimed that Dragon's Dogma 2 is at least partially to thank for the Resident Evil series' purported open-world foray.
Since the early aughts, Capcom has been putting out new mainline installments in its popular survival horror franchise once every four years on average. The Japanese gaming giant maintained this release pace even after it started committing to remaking some older games in the series. The seventh and latest mainline entry, Resident Evil Village, was released in 2021, which prompted some fans to speculate that its sequel will hit the market in 2025. YouTuber and Capcom leaker Dusk Golem lent credence to that theory in 2023, stating that Resident Evil 9 is targeting a 2025 launch.
Why a 2025 Release Window for Resident Evil 9 Makes Perfect Sense
Resident Evil games have been going strong, and with the ninth main entry likely in development, 2025 seems like a good time for its release.
Dusk Golem has now once again taken to social media to offer some new insights into the upcoming title, including the claim that Resident Evil 9 will supposedly have an open world. The leaker explained that the game fits into Capcom's usual pattern of greenlighting projects in trios, noting how the company did so fairly recently with Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil Village, and the Resident Evil 2 remake. On that occasion, its alleged goal was to "take advantage" of the then-latest version of the RE Engine. Similarly, Capcom greenlit Dragon's Dogma 2, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Resident Evil 9 with the explicit purpose of expanding its in-house engine's open-world functionality, Dusk Golem said.
Dragon's Dogma 2 Will Reportedly Pave the Way for Resident Evil 9's Open World
Now that Dragon's Dogma 2 has successfully leveraged the RE Engine into a AAA open-world experience, both Monster Hunter Wilds and Resident Evil 9 will be looking to build on that achievement, the leaker claimed. The extent of that ambition remains unclear, especially since even Resident Evil Village was once labeled as an open-world game by Capcom, despite it ultimately offering a smaller, interconnected world in the vein of conventional metroidvanias.
The Resident Evil series' purported open-world foray may not necessarily mark a radical shift in the core gameplay experience it has to offer. That's also according to Dusk Golem, who said that Resident Evil 9 will still be looking to retain "the DNA" of the franchise irrespective of any major level design changes it opts to introduce.
Aside from the next mainline entry in the series, Capcom is currently reportedly working on at least four other Resident Evil games. One of them is widely believed to be the RE5 remake, while the rest might be some kind of spin-offs. Given the company's historical tendency to unveil new projects about a year ahead of their market debuts, none of these rumored titles are likely to be released before 2025, as all of them are still pending official announcements.
Resident Evil
Resident Evil is a long-running survival horror franchise developed by Capcom. Spread across numerous mainline and spin-off entries, the series is known for it’s third and first-person action horror, zombie-related monsters and references, and challenging puzzles.
Summary
Capcom's survival horror franchise.
