Resident Evil Re:Verse - Don't Waste Your Time.

There are games that, for all their greatness in single-player, do not fit in with multiplayer mechanics: The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim pulled many people in for dozens or even hundreds of hours, and when the game got bored, the community has finalized the balance of the game itself, only in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim pack of 800 simultaneously active mods is considered something normal; no matter how many dithyrambs S.T.A.L.K.E.R., the inherent leveldesign of the game puts sticks in the wheels of the simplest Death Match; before the release of Resident Evil 5 and the series was considered solely single-player entertainment, but the co-op was to the liking of many. But the success was a fluke. Next came Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, which confirmed the series' inability to boast any significant online presence.

This text is not a review, there's not much to review in Resident Evil Re:Verse. This text is an essay on "Why Resident Evil can't multiplayer, and why it's not bad". And we'll start...

A gift horse in the teeth not look

Capcom came up with an interesting marketing ploy: when you buy Resident Evil: Village, you automatically get Resident Evil Re:Verse in your library. In fact, the game is distributed in the Free-to-play model, but from the famous developers who gave us a unique universe with its own lore and colorful characters. The very same characters that Resident Evil Re:Verse players will be playing as.

Resident Evil Re:Verse comes in the form of fanservice and doesn't shy away from it at all. Short six-player matches, a cozy battle royale in a familiar setting. What could have gone wrong...?

Remember when I said Resident Evil couldn't play multiplayer? Resident Evil Re:Verse clearly proves that with its own example. The thing is that Resident Evil has never been a game about clamping the gat, Resident Evil is about saving ammo, about the joy of finding a pack of nine-millimeter babies. Resident Evil is about proper resource management, about slowness, and a little bit about staging.

All of this in Resident Evil Re:Verse is not and can not be. A multiplayer shooter can't afford to be too slow. How would the game look like if the players were aiming at each other for five seconds? Capcom found a specific solution - as in all Royal Battles, the map is generously scattered with ammo, weapons, and a symbol of the series - pots with healing green grass growing only in Raccoon City. All as in PUBG or Warzone, only the map is not narrowed over time, and the weapons have no rarity and quality...or do they?

And there's no place to sit out in Resident Evil Re:Verse, the maps are too small. Normal Battle Royale, but with one difference - after death your protagonist doesn't fall to his knees waiting for the last bullet, but turns into an infected person. Having played the survivor not too well, you have every chance to play back as Nemesis, Super Tyrant, or Jack Baker...

On paper it sounds appealing, but in fact the deliberately complicated shooting system played a cruel joke on Resident Evil: you can't shoot from the hip, and because of the pace here it's not always advantageous to aim from the shoulder. All semi-automatic weapons are phenomenally accurate, the automatic ones hit the target only with the first round, after which the scatter pattern is subject only to the God of Random. The most advantageous strategy in these circumstances is the anticipation game - the prefaires and clips at point-blank range to help. The shotgun is effective at a distance of up to two meters, and Ada Wong's crossbow was positioned as a kind of analog of the sniper rifle for the game fathers, but it works only against inexperienced, sedentary players.

The characters of experienced players are objectively stronger. Balancing shooters is a painstaking business, and Capcom has failed. Not only does the total amount of health increase with each match, but some abilities are objectively stronger than others. While one skill requires filigree precision, the other is exhaustively described by the phrase "Press X to win".

For all the variety of abilities and perks, Resident Evil Re:Verse even manages to boast a coherent build build. Some perks are unremarkable increases in health, stamina, or damage. Such perks are needed to acclimatize in the game, you can't go far with them. But it is worth a little depth and experience, as you notice the synergy between the perks. This element of enticement would work flawlessly if your success in matches didn't depend on abusing the gap in the game.

The shooting system for Resident Evil Re:Verse is taken from Resident Evil 3: Remake, but in the remake of the three Jill was moving too slowly, it's not suitable for multiplayer. Capcom found an ingenious solution - to speed up the motion animation in about 2 times. The result: the animations lost their smoothness and became twitchy, and rolls are the only winning strategy against the Infected. Besides, not only are the animations twitchy, they can also be knocked down with any stun weapon. It's one thing to get hit animations knocked off for survivors, but it's another thing to get jacked up with a pair of chainsaws and some nimble player literally slips out from under your feet.

Free, non-free game

Resident Evil Re:Verse managed to step on the same rake as Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, but the game is full of monetization. We have to hand it to Capcom, they did the DLC for the free game without affecting the balance. They sell images, victory counters (Fortnite, unlogin!), and other trinkets.

Of course, they shoved all the fun stuff into the Combat Pass - there are twice as many rewards, and the rewards themselves are brighter.

If you've reached this point, I'll ruin your Resident Evil Re:Verse fun with this final argument: the online presence in the game is zero, even if you splurge on the Battle Pass and skins, you'll have no one to brag about. And Resident Evil Re:Verse is probably long gone by the time I write this article.

Is it worth it?

I wrote the conclusion in the title of the article. Fortunately, Resident Evil Re:Verse is a free add-on to Resident Evil: Village, so you only risk wasting your time. The only way to get from Resident Evil Re:Verse is to get your friends to keep you company in the game for two or three nights. Longer than that, you won't want to play it yourself.