Resident Evil 6 is one of the most maligned entries in this long series, often considered a low point, despite the numerous peaks and valleys these games have seen over the years. In truth, even at its worst, RE6 easily exceeds the low bar of some of the series’ worst spin-off titles. However, it still noticeably suffers from far higher expectations as not only a mainline entry, but one with a ton of marketing and hype leading up to it that felt all the more let down by its numerous shortcomings and bloated and ironically monotonous design.
One of the most immediately striking features of this entry is that the game features four separate campaigns, generally featuring pairs of characters with one recurring series character paired with a new character. Further, in a sort of attempt to please everyone, each of these campaigns has a distinct style and feel to it. Leon and Helena start with a story of political intrigue, but attempts to capitalize on some of the series’ horror roots with a more subdued, slow-paced spooky aesthetic and progression. Chris and Piers follow a story much more in line with RE5’s action as the pair mow down enemies in a more military context and style. Jake and Sherry come in somewhere in the middle with a more character-driven narrative that has no shortage of action, but is much more toned back and exploratory than Chris and Piers' adventure. Lastly, Ada’s campaign (Ada doesn’t have much of an official partner, but a second player can join her in co-op playing as an anonymous masked agent partner), which unlocks after completing the others is kind of all over the place in playstyles but features some stealth capabilities absent from most of the other campaigns. This structure is fairly central to a lot of the game’s definition, goals, and ultimately, its biggest pain points, so I’ll mostly focus on it by drilling into them individually below.
But first, it’s worth noting at the outset that there’s a lot of overlap and interconnection between these campaigns. It’s not so simple as each campaign is playing the exact same levels over and over, but the same few settings are found in multiple campaigns with few settings being unique to one campaign. There was a cool idea behind this in that your games online can intersect with other people and for instance, if while playing as Leon and Helena, you get to a part of the story in which you’re working together with Sherry and Jake, other players playing as them at that same point can queue up with you in the same session. Though this wasn’t that great an idea in practice, it is at least neat in theory. The downside of this is that the game feels quite repetitive since you're playing the same timeline from different angles four times over. One of the most grueling things about the game is that not only is it fairly dull, but it’s very long for a game of its type clocking in at about 24 hours when one of RE4’s few consistent criticisms is that it was a little too long at 16 hours. But this issue is exacerbated by the fact that so much of that time feels like retracing the same steps. Even if the levels are laid out quite differently for the different campaigns, it still often feels tiresome retracing the same few story beats and watching the same cutscenes of the characters interacting with each new campaign you play.
As an unsurprising disclaimer, I’ve seen a wide variety of opinions on which campaigns are good and bad. The general consensus on the game among series veterans tends to be fairly negative but even its greatest critics tend to have their pick of which campaigns fare worse than others. For me personally, I think Jake and Sherry’s is the best for reasons I’ll get into. Ada’s I think has some interesting ideas and Leon and Helena’s is occasionally good, but Chris and Piers’ I found painful. In general, I’ll often just name the campaign by the name of the recurring character as a short-hand.
I’ll start with the bad: Chris’ game I find miserable every time I play it. The enemies are given the ability to wield guns, which really takes away from the classic Resident Evil feel, but further makes it hard to differentiate the game from a slew of other shooters. Calling it Call of Duty is a common—if exaggerated—refrain. There is some truth to this criticism as for the most part, the enemies might as well be reskinned soldiers you’re fighting rather than monsters much of the time and the military-style squad Chris leads often fits that kind of narrative, though I do consider the description to be a touch hyperbolic. Still, this simply isn’t what I come to this series for. There’s nothing wrong with shooters in general and I’ve found plenty of them fun, but I don’t come to Resident Evil just to play a mindless shooter and that’s often what this campaign feels like. There is some interesting potential with the story as the game sets up a character arc of Chris dealing with the immense trauma we’ve seen him dealt by the horrific events of the too-many games he is in and witnessing the terrible losses he has. Unfortunately, this arc is not executed very well at all and utterly flops its ending, which could have actually made for a fairly satisfying conclusion.
Leon’s game is a bit better as we have more of the dark lighting, slower-paced survival horror-type aesthetic throughout most of the levels. There was some effort here to touch on the very thing I would’ve liked to see from the series after the action-packed letdown of RE5, but the game’s snappy action controls that fit Chris’ campaign well enough often take me out of it here. Further, the gameplay in general still just feels too repetitive and like there’s a bit too much slogging through repetitive waves of enemies to capture the feel of the older style. Some of the over-the-top amusing villainry the series is notorious/beloved for is present, but the plot is at times overly-simplistic and at others confusing and convoluted. This is especially a point where the game’s choice to confine the iconic in-game notes to an out-of-game menu certainly don’t help its coherence.
I won’t say too much about Ada’s game given that it’s kind of hard to discuss it much without spoilers, but the experience itself is pretty hit or miss. In my opinion, she gets a few of the cooler parts in the game, they're just few and far between. It just doesn’t really add enough to a game that’s already struggling, especially when you're playing it after three other fairly grueling campaigns and are probably about ready to just be done. Perhaps worst of all, the game prior to this ends with a lot of open questions that this campaign seems like the obvious answer to that will make it all fit together. But it doesn't deliver at all and the plot development is not remotely interesting, despite that potential.
Sherry’s campaign is the only one I feel a bit more positive on. Its defining feature is a pursuer-like monster called the Ustanak which stalks the characters much like RE3’s iconic Nemesis. This feature doesn’t work that great given Ustanak’s encounters are heavily scripted like much of this incredibly linear game and thus there’s no real interesting gameplay aspect to Ustanak’s relentless pursuit. Further, the monster simply isn’t nearly as interesting in design and just looks like a knock-off Nemesis with a weird comb-over. However, to me, I think this campaign is the most fun because of its protagonists who steal the show. Having Sherry return as a bad-ass agent is a fun development. But despite the patently ridiculous and silly idea to have Wesker’s son as a too-cool motorcycle baddie, Jake is actually a pretty good character in himself and the two have a good chemistry throughout. This allows for some actual character development and dynamics that makes their story much more engaging than the other campaigns that generally at best only go through the motions of their character arcs. While I much prefer the series’ more slow-paced survival horror entries, I also find the sort of in-between horror and action of Sherry’s game the best fit for RE6’s gameplay rather than the faux-horror of Leon’s game that might on paper seem more up my alley. All that to say, as should be apparent, I still don’t think Jake and Sherry’s game is great and it definitely has its pain points—ie, the terrible snowmobile segment that may be the worst part of the entire game—but it’s to me definitely the part they should have fleshed out into its own game rather than the other directions the game branches into with the other campaigns.
And that last point really drives home the biggest overall problem I have with RE6. It’s clear the game is aiming to be this grand coming together of so many different styles the series has featured before. It was in some sense trying to have “something for everyone.” But in my opinion, as is often the case with trying to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. Obviously, the game sold super well and definitely does have its champions, so clearly it worked for some. I can't literally mean no one. But I do think this attempt to cover all bases is why the game ultimately earned its notorious reputation among many disappointed fans. The compounding reason for this is that the game was heavily built up to with tons and tons of marketing leading up to it. I doubt anyone thought it would be a series finale, but it had all the build-up of a massive series climax of some sort. The scene of Chris and Leon coming into a head-on conflict was really played up in the marketing, sparking all kinds of theories of what might lead up to this conflict and how it could play out. If I had to pick the game’s single biggest failure, it’s probably how built up that scene was. I won’t spoil too much, but the scene itself is incredibly contrived and worse, it is resolved with all the consequence of a shrug almost immediately afterward, which is perhaps the most exemplary illustration of the game's disappointing performance.
I don’t have a lot of positives to say for the game but I can speak on them briefly enough. The game does look pretty cool for its time. I think some of the aesthetics detract from a more subdued horror I would have appreciated, but it is admittedly cool seeing these iconic characters with touched-up new models that really come to life. Even if they're repetitive, a good number of the cutscenes and action sequences do look pretty good and explosive. While I don’t like the action emphasis too much, for what it is, the game has a lot of really fluid movement. You can use a ton of melee attacks, sometimes a little too effectively. You can jump over obstacles, slide all over the place, and run rather fast too. The item menu is terrible, but otherwise, there is some pretty fun action gameplay in itself throughout.
If there is one thing I do especially like about the game, its actually its legacy as a series flop. RE6 is a part of a sort of dark ages in the series with a slew of rough releases interspersed at best by middling titles like Revelations. Despite its notoriety today, the game did sell incredibly well. It kind of had to given its massive budget, but still, it remains one of the top 5 best-selling entries in the series and it wasn’t long ago that it was undisputedly in the top couple spots along with its immediate predecessor (I’ve seen differing numbers so I’m not totally sure exactly where it sits now). Capcom could have taken that as a message that the game was in every sense a success and in some ways, that would be a pretty smart move and at least financially is hard to argue against. But while we can speculate the reasons they did it forever, the direction the series has taken since suggests that the developer took many of the long-time series fans’ criticisms to heart. Resident Evil 7 is almost definitely a response to those criticisms with a revamped approach that is in many ways a return to form rejecting almost all of RE6’s core design. Though I try to see its merits in fairness to those who do adore this game, I have liked this game less and less every time I have played it. But I think it’s also fair to say that without its many pain points, the series heights we’ve seen since would not have emerged as they have.
My other Resident Evil reviews:
