Capcom’s certainly putting out a good amount of Resident Evil 6 footage at E3 this year, and they’re not slowing down, even with all of the major conferences over. Greg Moore and Brett Elston, flying under the banner of Capcom Unity, got ready to sit down with some Chris Redfield gameplay. Whereas Leon Kennedy’s demo showed a more classic game style, in the veins of Resident Evil 4, Chris’s couldn’t be more opposite; now a high-ranking officer in the BSAA, Chris isn’t afraid to fight on the front lines and bring some awesome firepower to some zombies and mutants. He has the ability to fire on the move, compared to Leon, who must stop and aim, and has a bristling array of weapons and equipment to choose from, at any given moment.
Brett begins the demo by demonstrating some of Chris’s new mobility options, able to dodge, dive, and roll to avoid danger. He can also break through wooden crates to search for items, one of which was a “Skill Point”. While Capcom isn’t talking about these items for now, Brett did confirm that there will be skill-based upgrades in the game. Up next, Brett showcased a new contextual kill, where Chris shoots an enemy by a railing and then runs up and throws him over the edge. After a brief cutscene and a slip of the tongue (at 4:45…NSFW!), we see some rooftop combat and our first glimpse at some of the mutants present in the game. Chris brandishes a knife and takes one out up close and personal. We also see an interesting feature to Chris’s mobility: while sprinting, he can quickly leap over gaps and vault up short walls quickly.
Brett briefly got into Chris’s inventory system, showcasing a vastly streamlined system where weapons, equipment, and other items are all stored on some sort of cross menu, likely accessible with the D-Pad. Players can also access a more classic-style menu where items are shown in a line, and players can still combine items like previous games in the series. On the next rooftop, we see the results of dismemberment: similar to earlier games in the series, enemies may mutate into different forms depending on what parts of the body are shot off. Here, Brett shoots the leg off of two enemies, and they rapidly mutate into horrible, moth-like creatures that soak up huge amounts of damage. It’s cases like these where it’s better to simply run. However, after taking a zipline, Chris and Piers get rocked by an explosion, and the demo’s showcase of divergent gameplay takes root. In this case, Chris must hand-over-hand on a horizontal rope while his partner lays down some covering fire. All campaigns are cooperative compatible, so the second player will also need to survive on their own until the two players can meet up again. The game includes a handy feature to instantly locate your partner like in Resident Evil 5, and also provides a legend at the bottom of the screen for buttons you can press to communicate with your partner.
As Brett made his way towards the objective, he mentioned another cool feature: Chris can counter enemy melee attacks, stunning them and dealing tremendous damage. He demonstrates this ability against a machete-wielding enemy, knocking the weapon away and sending the enemy spinning. It looks like the melee system has been vastly improved since RE5. The demo ends with Chris and Piers making a valiant defense outside the objective, but ultimately Chris goes down and the demo ends. It’s worth noting, however, that the downed system from RE5 makes a return here; your partner can revive you after you’ve been downed.
Definitely some exciting stuff on display here, and it looks like RE6 will have a gameplay style to appeal to just about anyone, from Leon’s RE4 horror crawl to Chris’s third-person action approach. We’ve yet to see what Jack can do, but given what we’ve seen from the trailers,he may be somewhere inbetween the two styles. Stay tuned as Capcom continues to build hype for the upcoming survival-horror-action title!
