Resident Evil 6 Is Coming

After wowing attendees and those watching over Xbox Live and Spike TV, Resident Evil 6 wasn’t done. No, the team had more tricks up its sleeves for their behind closed door showings of the upcoming Survival Horror title. Specifically, they were ready to show off the multiplayer cooperative play modes. 

During the course of the game, players will be playing one of three teams: Leon and Helena, Chris and Piers, or Jake and Sherry. At predetermined points during the story for each duo, you can interact with one of the other teams of two in order to take down a big boss. 

During these times, Capcom is setting up something different that has never been seen before in a Resident Evil game–random pairings with other players over the Internet. For Xbox 360 users with Gold, this will go off of your friends list, then other XBL users. For PlayStation 3, this will also go off of your friends list and then PSX for other users. 

As you reach these predetermined story points, the  game with all if you want to play with just friends or anyone. However, there is no way to ensure 100% that you will connect with your friends. I could see this being problematic in the West due to the fact that people like to cause others grief–especially when there is no accountability. Capcom responds to this by saying that users can choose friends list or just let the AI control the other characters.

For the purposes of this live demo, we have just one player and 3 AI partners. The monster they are fighting is absolutely huge with great strength and a backpack that he places our allies in and crushes them. He also has an arm attachment he uses to crush you and your allies with. As four players are here, Capcom intends this mission to be tough. There is plenty of weapons and ammo lying around but this should change in the final release because they want to increase the challenge of these parts.

As we are fleeting for our lives, we got a quick look at the surroundings. We are in some type of abandoned warehouse in a China area. As we greatly reduce the health of this boss, he runs off. Certain story elements can appear, when paired off with another duo of players, that lets you change up the game. In this case, we see Leon and Sherry getting paired together for a few minutes while the remaining partners are paired together and continue fighting the returning monster. This gives players a reason to go back and replay these areas with other groups so they can see the story unfold from their perspective. 

After a few minutes, Leon’s team finds their way back and all four players are facing off against Mr. “Arm Tank Backpack.” You are then reunited with your normal partner. Upon returning, the monster rips off his metal arm and puts a new attachment on there. The big, burly, monster can now throw grenades out. And if you thought he was tough before, wait until you see him with range too! Finally, after some damage, he is defeated.

As the demo concluded, we were given a bit more information about Resident Evil 6. There is no longer an inventory system like in previous Resident Evil titles. There will be limits in place but you don’t need to pop in and out of a menu, to swap guns, and worry about space for guns and ammo.

We were also told that once you beat each chapter, you can start a new game at any point you have passed. This means that if you want to start a coop game with a friend, they can only join up to the highest chapter either of you have successfully completed.

Resident Evil 6 is really shaping up to be a great title. We are looking forward to getting our hands on this title when it is released on October 2, 2012.