The remake of Resident Evil 3 is set to drop in just a few months' time, and for many fans of the franchise, it's one of the most anticipated games of 2020. There's several reasons for this, ranging from the success of the Resident Evil 2 remake and the hot streak Capcom has seemingly been on with releases to the simple nostalgia for the game. And while opinions will always vary, few, if any, are saying anything about it being just another zombie game, seemingly implying that the franchise is immune to zombie fatigue.
Zombie fatigue, for the uninitiated, can be roughly defined as an extreme tiredness of seeing zombies in any particular medium due to its overabundance. And while this can apply to any entertainment medium, it's always been true in video games. After all, there are zombies everywhere from Call of Duty's zombie modes to The Walking Dead (and every version of it from the Telltale series to the discontinued Overkill's The Walking Dead), from Deadlight to Dying Light, from DayZ to World War Z, and far, far more. And through it all, there's been Resident Evil.
Before moving forward, it's worth mentioning that Capcom's franchise isn't the only zombie-oriented game to date that has seemed immune to this fatigue. Several, like Left 4 Dead, had such unique formulas or gameplay styles that it overcame any zombie fatigue, for the most part at the very least. But here's a few reasons why Resident Evil stands out in the zombie-infested crowd.
First, it has time on its side. The original Resident Evil came out in 1996, with RE2 and RE3 being fan-favorites well before zombies became a trend, and Resident Evil 4 also being well-received as more and more zombie games became available. Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6 have had its major detractors over the years, though little has to do with the zombie aspects, and so on and so forth through other spin-offs and Resident Evil 7. However fans feel about latter games, the first few original games gave the franchise all the credibility it needed.
Then, it's easy enough to put out the idea of a "zombie apocalypse" or "infection outbreak" and leave that vague for players. Doing so allows for gameplay and the zombies to be a focus, even when it's a bad idea, as zombies create the perfect atmosphere for dumping rounds and rounds into an enemy, giving players "Challenging and rewarding" combat. Yet, from its various mysterious organizations and zombie types in Resident Evil, it's not that simple.
When players factor in the common types of zombies with and up to the Tyrants, from Resident Evils's Umbrella to TriCell, there's actually a lot of lore surrounding the zombies in-game. In other words, they're not a simple mindless mechanic, but a incredibly complex story-and-world building device in Resident Evil. Even when it doesn't always hit home, it's far more than generic "shoot-these-zombies," while at the same time not being overtly complex. It captures the middle ground between thoughtless and overcooked.
Another good reason is that players know going into a zombie game that they're relatively safe. They might die and State of Decay has nice permadeath features, for example, but their character is going to be more or less immune to zombie bites. Some narrative games like Telltale can still work the emotion with someone being bitten, but the majority of games will not. Seemingly well-aware of this, Resident Evil has tiptoed that line several times.
Characters die in these games, and while it's not the main characters, it's nice to see an actual impact from a zombie outbreak instead of the generic "they're all dead" approach. Furthermore, not all big characters are completely protected, as long-time protagonist Jill Valentine gets infected at one point (though she does get cured). Once again, Resident Evil finds itself in-between two extremes, and it works.
Ultimately, it may be because Resident Evil is a horror survival franchise first, with zombies being secondary to that. Instead of a zombie franchise that just has survival horror elements as opposed to straight FPS or strategy elements, it's a horror survival franchise with zombie elements. Using them properly goes a long way in why Resident Evil stands out as it does.
Resident Evil 3 launches on April 3, 2020, for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.