RUMOR: Resident Evil 8 Reveal Soon, More Big Series Departures

There’s a lot of rumor-mongering going on lately, and it makes sense. After all, a lot of plans have been thrown out of whack due to the current global situation. This next rumor is another one that seems to be corroborated by multiple reputable sources. The rumor of today is about what’s next for Resident Evil, which makes since considering Capcom is on such a tear lately. What makes this rumor more interesting than just “Resident Evil 8 exists,” are a number of fascinating background details on how Capcom arrived at the project it did.

According to this rumor, which came from the familiar internet tipster Dusk Golem, and “verified” by Video Game Chronicle, this Resident Evil 8 wasn’t supposed to be Resident Evil 8. Instead, it was originally in production as Resident Evil Revelations 3, a sequel to Capcom’s scrappy, but reasonably well-liked, spinoff series. Another project was in the works as Resident Evil 8, but the time gap between core entries would be too long, and the Revelations 3 project was testing more positively internally anyway. So some adjustments were made, and now it’s the next core title. [Thanks, VGC!]

While things have been changed around to fit the (admittedly dubious) core Resident Evil timeline, Resident Evil 8 will reportedly be even more of a departure than 7 was. This includes parts of the game referred to as “insanity segments,” as well as occult and hallucination elements along with new fantasy-like enemies (werewolves being a provided example).

One of the details changed by this alleged shift includes changing the story to star Ethan Winters, the protagonist introduced in Resident Evil 7. For some additional fun, you can draw parallels between this rumor, and the story behind Resident Evil 3 (which just saw a coincidental remake released this month). RE 3 also started as a spinoff, until the actual Resident Evil 3 idea was cancelled, and the next game (Code Veronica) was too far off for Capcom’s tastes. So Jill Valentine was added to the story, and thus became the third core game.