For the past couple of years, Capcom has been churning out critically-acclaimed Resident Evil remakes. These remakes have helped bring these iconic horror games to modern hardware with new twists, and fans have loved almost every single one of them. It has been a fantastic nostalgia trip for franchise veterans, a great way for newcomers to experience what came before, and has also helped show why Resident Evil is as successful as it is. While that all sounds great, there will come a time when this nostalgia trip will have to come to an end.
The Resident Evil franchise has been mostly focused on these remakes since 2019, and they have gone a long way in rectifying the franchise’s past mistakes. However, this remake train will soon have to include some of the series’ more controversial entries, and once those are done Capcom will have to do something else. While Resident Evil Village showed that it is capable of crafting new experiences, it may never be able to compare to this wave of remakes.
Resident Evil Will Have to Do Something New Soon
After Resident Evil 5 and 6 brought the series away from its roots, fans were clamoring for a return to form for the franchise. While 2017’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard would give players that experience, 2019 would see the studio fully commit to this new direction. Resident Evil 2’s remake would launch that year, Resident Evil 3’s remake hit store shelves a year later, and then Resident Evil 4’s remake released in 2023.
These Resident Evil remakes have been a joy to play and have helped remind fans why they fell in love with this series in the first place, and it will likely not stop there. While nothing has been confirmed yet, the studio is likely developing even more exciting remakes. Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6 are both waiting for the remake treatment, for example, as the next main entries in line. They are likely a ways off, but the success of the previous three remakes gives the studio a reason to continue down this path.
Once the remake continuity runs parallel to Resident Evil 7, Capcom will not have any more mainline Resident Evil games to go. Unless it decides to remake the original game again or dip into the spin-offs, Capcom will have to come up with something new. While it is fully capable of doing that, there is a chance it will not have the same appeal as these nostalgia trips. There is also a chance that fans enjoy something new a lot more than these classic games, but that remains to be seen.
Resident Evil Village was very successful for Capcom, but its reviews were not as strong as some of the remakes. Fans seem to love the remakes that the studio has been crafting, and they will likely not want to see the fun end. The studio could start remaking non-mainline titles, but even that already has a predetermined endpoint. These nostalgia trips cannot last forever, and there will come a time when the studio can no longer rely on them.
There is a lot of Resident Evil content in the pipeline, and fans will likely be terrified for years to come. Not only is there a possibility that future entries could have DLC packs and updates, but there are also rumors of countless Resident Evil spin-offs in various stages of production. Even if the remakes must end, the series will not be ending anytime soon, but its future will become a bit more uncertain.
