Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City may have been critically panned and hated by fans, on top of leading to the shutdown of its developer, Slant Six Games, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping Capcom from attempting to translate their marquee horror franchise into the multiplayer shooter space, known as Biohazard in its native Japan.
During Sony’s press briefing at Tokyo Game Show this year, Capcom announced Biohazard: Umbrella Corps., a new multiplayer-centric shooter set in the Resident Evil universe, and built on the indie-friendly Unity Engine. The game appears to function as a hybrid between the mainline over-the-shoulder play mechanics of Resident Evil, and the fast-paced online shooter action offered in the Call of Duty series. An announcement trailer showed how players can make use of a sickle-like melee weapon called a Brainer to sneak up on and slice through enemies, as well as performing mechanics like using zombies as human shields. Players appear to be able to fight zombie hordes on top of human opponents as well, across compact battle zones taken from familiar Resident Evil series environments.
Unlike many other games discussed at Tokyo Game Show during Sony’s keynote, Biohazard: Umbrella Corps. was also given immediate release information for North America and PAL territories, and not just Japan. Outside of Japan, the game will simply be titled ‘Umbrella Corps.‘, with no Resident Evil branding at all, and will sell for $29.99 USD. It will also be a digital-only title in all territories, sold on both PlayStation 4, via the PlayStation Store, and PC, via Steam. It looks like there’s no Xbox One version of Umbrella Corps. for now, in any territory, which marks the second time that Capcom has denied a current-gen game from a major franchise from Microsoft’s console, after infamously declaring that no version of Street Fighter V will ever be released for Xbox One.
Umbrella Corps. will launch in all territories in early 2016. That period will also see an HD remaster of Resident Evil Zero launching across PlayStation consoles, Xbox consoles and PC, along with a retail bundle that includes the HD remasters of both Resident Evil Zero, and this year’s Resident Evil remake re-release, solely for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Capcom is also beginning work on a full-fledged remake of fan-favourite sequel, Resident Evil 2, though this project is a long ways off from release, and currently, its platforms are unknown.
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