Resident Evil 6

Capcom pulls back the curtain on its biggest production yet. 

The President of the United States is dead. His corpse lies crumpled in the middle of a dimly lit office, blood splattered across the floor and walls. A half-eaten victim sits just feet from where the politician collapsed – shot in the head as he lurched towards the agents sworn to protect him. As blood pools around the president's decayed, rotting flesh, the weight of what has been unleashed rests upon agent Leon S. Kennedy's shoulders – there has been another outbreak. The zombies are back.                                                 

As Leon comes to terms with the fact that he has just put a bullet through the skull of the undead president, the agent by his side, Helena Harper, mutters that this is her fault. She offers to help Leon uncover the conspiracy behind this latest bio-organic attack – but first they must make their way across the city. 

Darkness envelops Tall Oaks University, creeping down every hall, invading every room. Only the moon, peeking out in the midst of a stormy night, allows the two to make out vague silhouettes in the overwhelming void. What once was some sort of celebration, perhaps a rally for the president, now looks more like a morgue – albeit one without bodies. Balloons and streamers betray their once jovial intent, instead potentially masking terrors in the pitch black of night. 

There is no mistake that Capcom intends to return to the bombastic, overwhelming action that has come to define modern Resident Evil games. For nearly a decade, the publisher has found increasing success in shifting away from the roots of its 15-year-old series. Resident Evil 5 stands as the best-selling entry in the franchise's history – and it is also the brightest and least frightening of them all. With Resident Evil 6, however, Capcom is subtly pulling its franchise in a different direction, taking the blockbuster scale and drama of its last couple titles and marrying them with a tone and gritty sense of horror that has scarcely been seen since the series could still find its identity in the survival horror genre. 

Capcom has always excelled at crafting textured, storied worlds that feel as twisted and off-center as the creatures that inhabit them. Creating a sense of unease has rarely been the problem. A few mauled animals later and the effect is achieved. What Resident Evil has lacked for years is tension – the kind of breathlessness that comes from what isn't being shown, from what might not even exist. The imagination runs wild when the unknown is overwhelming. What lurks in that shadow? What happens when this last bullet is fired? Why is it so quiet? Where are all the people? 

Resident Evil 6 embraces this concept, at least in its early moments. Leon and Helena's search for a way out moves quickly. Capcom has certainly sped up the movement of its characters, who will seamlessly knock over chairs or raise their hands to shift around narrow corners. Yet despite the increased mobility, the crushing darkness – and accompanying silence - is formidable. Every so often lightning streaks across the sky, and its haunting, blue light fleetingly reveals the contents of a room. Shadows momentarily scatter and ripple off every surface, every object, every solitary, silent object. A glimpse so haunting that even the brief relief from the darkness proves no more reassuring. 

Leon and Helena's search bring them across a man. He's not a zombie, but his isolated presence is unnerving. Why, in a facility clearly designed to accommodate dozens, if not hundreds, is only this man still here? His frantic, desperate behavior reveals his intent – he is looking for his daughter. 

And then he coughs