New Resident Evil 9 information leaks following Capcom’s announcement
Capcom recently held its Capcom Next Summer 2024 event, which gave us a detailed look at the upcoming Resident Evil 7 iOS port, as well as Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, which launches on September 19th, as well as Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess which hits stores two months sooner on July 19th. But, the most exciting news came at the end of the event as it related to the upcoming Resident Evil 9.
During the Capcom Next event, Resident Evil 7 director Koshi Nakanishi spoke about the development of the 2017 title that brought the series back to its survival horror roots. “When we first started development Resident Evil 7, if I’m being honest, as a brand, we were off track. The action element had been expanded and fans reacted much more negatively than expected. In the end, an RE game has to be scary, so we took another look at it and the general consensus from fans of the series was that a Resident Evil game is one that should scare the hell out of you that was the starting point for Resident Evil 7,” he said.
Nakanishi then spoke about his history with the series and how it influenced the design choice for the soft-reboot of the franchise saying,
“I played Resident Evil from the beginning and those early games were terrifying I was excited to try and make Resident Evil 7 into a game that would live up to the RE name. Many elements of the game had to be re-evaluated from scratch like the setting, characters, the game system, anything that didn’t induce fear had to change and sometimes we threw the whole thing out and in order to make it scarier.”
“We decided to go with a first-person point of view. Up to that point, RE had been third-person perspective with the character on the screen but when you’re viewing the world from a safe distance behind a character it’s not as immersive and frightening. First-person forces you to be up close
and personal and that’s exactly what we were trying to accomplish.”
To wrap up the interview, Nakanishi then confirmed what many had believed for a while, that a new Resident Evil game is in development saying,
“We’re making a new Resident Evil it was really difficult to figure out what to do after 7 but I found it and to be honest it feels substantial I can’t share any details just yet but I hope you’re excited for the day I can.”
Many have known this to be the case for a while, but with Nakanishi heading up development, it does look like the series could continue with the first-person style. Although it makes sense from a trilogy continuity sense, games such as Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4 Remake have shown that over-the-shoulder third-person is still the best way to play Resident Evil. Check out the full interview from the Capcom Next event here.
I was going to embed the video, but you need to keep reading because this story is just getting started.
Dusk Golem, a prominent Resident Evil leaker, took to X following the announcement by Capcom that the next entry is in development, to share some details on the conclusion of the trilogy, and some plot points from Village now make a lot more sense.
“At Capcom Forward, they low-key confirmed K?shi Nakanishi is the director of RE9. K?shi Nakanishi was lead designer on Resident Evil 5, & director on Mercenaries 3D, Resident Evil Revelations 1, & Resident Evil 7. Also talks about how RE9 was conceived after he worked on RE7. I’ve talked about RE9 starting dev back in 2018 originally as RE8 before becoming RE9, and all that in the past. I can summarize if people want a refresher on things I’ve said before.”
“Resident Evil 9 was first conceived in 2018, at the time RE7 had missed their sales goals at launch. There was an RE8 concept that was a direct sequel to RE7 in Village, but it got sidelined a bit after RE7’s original lower than expected initial sales & a middling received vertical slice demo.
A more ambitious RE8 that was to be open world using advancements to the RE Engine they were developing for Dragon’s Dogma 2 (such as being open world) was greenlit, but there came concern with the amount of time this title would take as Capcom didn’t want there to be a 6+ year gap between RE7 & RE8.”
“Village had been doing well internally in its development, so in 2019 it was decided to re-plot their course, Village became RE8 again, what was RE8 at the time became RE9. At the time, RE9 was an open-world style game set on a Southeast Asian Island. They thought of dropping numbers from future entries, & having RE9 be a “closing chapter” for several plot threads in the story, so could move onto something new, with RE9 innovating also as a new beginning for things gameplay wise.”
“A bit after RE8 came out, & it got delayed from a Q1 2025 release to a late 2025/2026 release as of earlier this year. Original plans were to reveal it last month, but been delayed for now. At this point in time I don’t have a good grasp on the level of reboot RE9 went through, RE games get rebooted in dev often but can vary from a soft-reboot to a hard-reboot in scale. This is hardly surprising, but they’re hoping RE9 is the first non-remake RE to get the critical & fan reception that RE:2 & RE:4 got, but while innovating the franchise.”
As with any leaks, we always need to take them with a grain of salt until the news is officially revealed by Capcom. But, Dusk Golem has been incredibly accurate with past leaks including revealing the Village name long before the game was even announced. These leaks also make a lot of sense and answer some questions that the community has had since Village launched in 2021.
Since it has now been three years since Resident Evil Village was released, I am going to assume you’ve already had your fun staring at Lady D’s…assets, but if you haven’t then there will be some spoilers in the remainder of this post.
Towards the end of the game, Ethan Winters is tragically killed by Mother Miranda, and it is revealed that he is part of the Mold and his human self was killed at the start of Resident Evil 7 by Jack Baker. Despite not having a heart, he somehow manages to kill Mother Miranda and gives his daughter, Rose, to Chris to take to safety.
Having Ethan die in the second game of the next trilogy, as well as stating that the Winters’ story is over, left a lot of players confused as many expected that they would be the focus of all three games. This led many to speculate that Rose would be the protagonist of Resident Evil 9, but after the Shadow of Rose DLC was released it seemed like that wouldn’t be the plan.
Now, it all makes sense. If Dusk Golem is correct, Village was supposed to be Resident Evil 9 and conclude the Winters trilogy of games, which then would make Ethan dying make more sense. It will be interesting to see what direction Capcom goes in for Resident Evil 9 now as it ties up stories and events, presumably from entries before Resident Evil 7. Will Chris die? Will Leon finally marry Ada? Is Barry still alive? What happened to Billy? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z, I mean Resident Evil 9.
