Resident Evil: Resistance Developers on Tackling an Original Multiplayer Experience

Resident Evil: Resistance developer Neobards took part in an interview where staff members talked about how they came to be the developers of Resident Evil: Resistance and how they tackled making a completely original Resident Evil multiplayer experience. [Thanks, Bahamut!]

Here are the highlights:

• Neobards itself was only established in 2017, making it a very young development studio. However, the staff members themselves are quite experienced in game development. Many of the staff had already worked together with Capcom previously in various other projects and, as such, Capcom quickly gave the green light for Neobards to create an online multiplayer Resident Evil game. Soon after the studio’s formation, it received the project proposal.
• For Resident Evil: Resistance, Neobards was essentially the “developer” to Capcom’s “publisher.” Everything from the gameplay design, direction, visuals, and dialogue were handled by Neobards. Development began in 2017 was handled by the company’s two development offices in Taipei and Suzhou, which have around 120 staff members combined. While Capcom sent over a creative director to supervise, Neobards weren’t particularly restricted in terms of creativity or design.
• Why asynchronous multiplayer? It has all to do with the IP being handled—-Resident Evil. There’s always a mastermind behind the events of the games, such as Albert Wesker or Umbrella in the early games. Furthermore, Resident Evil isn’t about humans fighting other humans—-it’s about humans vs zombies. As such, even if the mastermind is player-controlled, the enemies fought by the survivors are plain zombies sent out by the mastermind. The idea of the mastermind using security cameras to view the survivors was inspired by the fixed camera angles of earlier Resident Evil games, but with a more modern take.
• Capcom sent over some key visuals, but it was Neobards who expanded upon the world of Rsident Evil, especially as it didn’t want to set everything in Raccoon City. There was some crossover with Resident Evil 3 development, as concept art would be sent over to make sure they matched up.

Resident Evil 3 is available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and Resident Evil Resistance comes with it. Recently, Nikolai Zinoviev was added to the game.