
One mission sees you saving hapless businessmen, who look oddly serene as they’re carried around on the backs of zombie-spiders. Zombies can now sprout what one of the heroes calls-in a grim tone suggesting it’s the most horrifying thing imaginable-'grasshopper legs'. I'd need to stop questioning the difference between cutscene, quick-time event and gameplay, accepting its strange flow and the fact that at any moment a zombie or helicopter blade or plane might burst in from the edge of the screen and insta-kill me. I'd need to cover my critical eye with my monocle of ironic appreciation, laughing and scoffing in response to mechanics and utterly unpredictable quick-time events that would otherwise enrage me. But with Resident Evil 7, Village and everything in between, it now feels like the series' action era is far enough in the past that I could finally face up to it without the seething indignation that it ruined my favourite series: I was ready to green-pill, and face its vapid void of action-pseudo-horror.īut I knew I'd have to come prepared. For what it represented, I had no interest in playing it back then.

That's what Resident Evil 6 was to me in 2012-a bloated product connected to the subtle horror and smart design of its roots in name only.
