Sadly, Mark the Zombie's dreams of becoming a ballet dancer where cruelly cut short by a bullet to the head.

I will be honest. I find myself feeling somewhat ambivalent at best regarding the approach Capcom is taking in regards to selling people on playing Resident Evil 6 via their would-be viral ‘No Hope Left’ ad campaign. For one thing, there is the simple emotional dissonance that arises from trying to portray the latest game in a long-running franchise as this overwhelmingly intense and serious emotional experience while also continuing to tie said franchise to some of the stupidest and just plain goofy would-be horror movies of the last few years. I think the only reason I cannot say that the Resident Evil movies are not the worse examples of their kind is because Uwe Boll exists. Well, that and Legend of Chun-Li. Even now the ads for the latest film in the series are already everywhere and they paint the picture of a film reaching new heights of ludicrousness, no mean feat considering the crap that has come before.

And then there is the simple fact that I have played every single episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead released to date. And let us face it, when it comes to bleakness, hopelessness, and emotional devastation, the series that gave us “…a Jill Sandwich”, masked men with chainsaws, and plots that of late have more acronym bearing secret agencies than a James Bond film just cannot hope to compete. A series with moments like these really has no business putting on airs in such a manner. It runs a real risk of becoming pretentious as all get out.

This is not to say I think Resident Evil 6 is going to be a bad game; far from it. But I have already seen enough footage of RE6 to tell that it is going to be another pulpy Resident Evil experience, filled with jump scares galore, plenty of guts and gore, and enough over-the-top moments to make Michael Bay smile. This does not strike me as a game likely to have much in the way to say about the human condition or prepared to spend long periods of time simply developing characters at the expense of say plot twists or action beats. Nor would I even really want it to. Resident Evil is not Silent Hill or The Walking Dead and it should not pretend otherwise. It is a series that embraces the less cerebral side of horror without, at its best at least, succumbing to the lows and cheap tricks that have come to dominate its film counterparts these days.

But hey, maybe this all just me over-reading into things as I can be prone to do at times. Maybe this is the perfect approach for Capcom to be taking after all. Check out the two latest trailers for Resident Evil 6, one of the live action variety dubbed a ‘cinematic’ trailer and one with actual gameplay footage, below and judge for yourselves.

Resident Evil 6 will arrive on Xbox 360 and PS3 on October 2 with a PC version being prepped for release on a as-yet-unconfirmed later date. Stay tuned to Blistered Thumbs for continuing coverage of the game and be sure to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.

Shaun K.

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