Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Couldn't Be Further From The Survival Horror Game Fans Are Clamouring For.

Mysterious plots, brilliantly executed jump scares and resource management have all been replaced by a heavy action flavour. For fans, the franchise's change of direction can be epitomised by Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City — a tactical third-person shooter with more in common with SOCOM than Resident Evil.

But in an interview with Gamasutra, series producer Masachika Kawata has defended Capcom's decision to explore a variety of experiences, explaining that the publisher just wants to make the "best use" of its massively popular brand.

"At the core, basically, we want to make the best use of our brand," he said.

"Resident Evil is an IP, and a franchise, that people have loved for a long time. It's still very, very popular and we're very, very happy about that, and we want to basically answer all the requests that we get about the series.

"People want to see a lot of different experiences within the Resident Evil universe, and so we've been fortunate enough to be able to answer those requests with a lot of different experiences, in different forms, in games."

Furthermore, Kawata believes that the decision to experiment with Operation Raccoon City will not dilute the brand.

"All these different Resident Evil games that are coming out are focused on very different things. I'm thinking that if we would have brought out all these Resident Evil titles, and they were all focused on survival horror, absolutely I think people would be really sick of Resident Evil.

"But in my mind, we've got this online shooter game, we've got other things like Mercenaries that are even more action-focused, and some other games. And by going in a lot of different directions, I'm pretty confident that people are going to still be enjoying Resident Evil for a long time."

We think we're ok with the series going in different directions, as long as it takes the time to explore what made the series such a mainstream success in the first place. Fingers crossed Resident Evil 6 is a real return to form.

[Thanks Gamasutra]