Prior to their recent success in the business of remakes, Capcom had already reinvigorated the Resident Evil franchise with its seventh mainline entry in the series. Following middling reviews for 5 and 6, Resident Evil 7 ultimately changed up some franchise norms; Making the switch from third- to first-person as well as reverting focus back to puzzles and inventory management draw praise from players and critics alike, leading fans to anticipate Capcom’s next release.
Although a shiny new Resident Evil 3 was released just days ago, possibly concluding Capcom’s slate of remakes, insider Dusk Golem just revealed new details about the development status of Resident Evil 8.
According to this new information, what is now being called Resident Evil 8 was originally Revelations 3, a sequel to the two prior Revelations spinoffs. Constant throughout its development cycle has been the return of RE 7 protagonist Ethan Winters, featured once again through a first-person perspective. Apparently, early impressions of Revelations 3 were so good that Capcom allotted its developers an extra year to rework the game into a mainline entry in the series.
Dusk Golem previously reported that a Resident Evil 8 release wouldn’t happen for years. However, that game was an entirely different project at the time, originally intended as the eighth entry into the franchise. Now, what was Revelations 3 is supposedly being repurposed, already much further along in development under its previous name. The source also mentioned that “Capcom didn’t want a huge gap between RE 7 and RE 8,” so using the guts of Revelations to further things along only makes sense. Whether or not the previous version of RE 8 will turn into RE 9 (or be scrapped entirely) remains undetermined.
Earlier leaks claimed that the game would feature a snowy village setting with supernatural enemies like werewolves, rather than simply a variety of zombies. While Dusk Golem confirmed that these claims are true, they may not remain so as the game gets retooled into something more mainline. He did state that occultism and trustworthiness will play into its story.
Resident Evil 8 was originally going to be revealed at E3, so like the now-canceled trade show, first official word of the game has presumably been delayed indefinitely.
Source: Wccftech