Resident Evil Is Moving Away From Survival Horror Because Action Sells More

Over the years, Resident Evil shifted gradually from its survival-horror roots towards its current action-oriented gameplay. Resident Evil: Revelations producer Masachika Kawata explained the – purely financial – reasons behind the change.

"RE4 started in that direction, and RE5 kept going in that direction," a-t-il déclaré. "And I think that especially for the North American market, we need to keep going in that direction, and take that a step further. And that's exactly one of the reasons that Revelations is the way it is."

Kawata admitted that a lot of the series' fans love to see it return to its "good old days" of survival-horror, but he explained that their number is not as large as action fans.

"Looking at the marketing data [for survival horror games] … the market is small, compared to the number of units Appel du devoir and all those action games sell," a-t-il expliqué. "A 'survival horror' Resident Evil doesn't seem like it'd be able to sell those kinds of numbers."