Resident Evil Requiem just came out a few months ago but one of the game’s producers is already dropping hints on where future titles could be set.
Japan could be the home of a future resident evil game
Setting has always been important in the Resident Evil franchise, but it’s arguably become even more important post-Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, as its surprising introduction of a first-person perspective offered a new level of immersion the series hadn’t seen yet at the time. As such, the game’s setting needed to envelop players, and Biohazard‘s dark and damp Louisiana swamp house location enthralled players through the first half of the game. 2021’s Resident Evil Village took an even more wild swing and brought fans to a wintry Romanian village complete with a decadent castle filled with monsters and horrors never before seen in a Resident Evil experience.
This most recent mainline entry, Resident Evil Requiem, didn’t entirely focus on a single setting but rather hopped around to different places, like the rainy city streets of Wrenwood, a remote care center, and, finally, the gray, desolate ruins of post-nuke Raccoon City. Requiem‘s locations felt far less fantastical than Village‘s and were more in line with what fans have come to expect from classic Resident Evil settings.
a Japan-set Resident evil makes perfect sense
Although the next mainline Resident Evil is a long way away, that hasn’t stopped Requiem producer Masato Kumazawa from talking about what he’d like to see next in the series. In speaking with Futaman, a Japanese publication, Kumazawa mentioned that he and some of his team have thought about setting a future Resident Evil game in Japan. After all, Capcom is a Japanese company made up primarily of Japanese developers, so Capcom going with its home country as the setting of a new entry in its most popular franchise sounds like a no-brainer.
“I think a Japanese setting is something every Japanese Resident Evil fan has thought about, and I’ve also considered it myself. Since the development team is primarily based in Japan, I think every member has given it some thought…it might make an appearance at some point in the future.”
Fellow survival horror franchise Silent Hill finally arrived in Japan late last year when Silent Hill F brought players to a fog-filled 1960s Japanese village for the first time in the series’ almost 30-year history. All of the franchise’s biggest entries have been set in a fictional American town, so seeing Silent Hill F tell its story in Japan was a big moment for what’s considered to be just as important a survival horror series as Resident Evil is. Many fans would likely agree that it would be amazing to see Resident Evil follow the footsteps of Silent Hill to the Land of the Rising Sun.
If a new Resident Evil game were to come to Japan, it seems more likely that it would be set in the modern day rather than Silent Hill F‘s approach of going back to the 60s. Kumazawa mentioned his belief that modern-day settings can often be more immersive for players than turning the clock back, and seeing how almost all mainline Resident Evil games are primarily set in the modern day or close to it, that’s likely to be the case for a potential Japan-set entry.
It’s important to note that this isn’t a full-blown confirmation from Kumazawa, just a musing on where the series could end up in the future. With the next mainline Resident Evil game being at least three or four years away, fans have their eyes set on the long-rumored remakes of Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil Code: Veronica as Capcom’s next big releases in the series. Nothing official has been confirmed yet, but with Requiem out the door, some feel like an announcement could happen at some point sooner rather than later.
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