It won’t be.

Capcom promises Resident Evil will return to its roots with each new installment. Revelations got my hopes up, only to disappoint me with its lackluster effort. And when Revelations 2 was announced, I felt a brief burst of excitement, thinking that surely Capcom would fix the flaws of its predecessor and bring us a true survival horror experience.

No.

Resident Evil: Revelations 2 is raising red flags left and right.

First, it’s going to be episodic. I often complain about how Revelations was a disjointed experience (complaints I also level at Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, by the way) that didn’t let me explore at my own pace or really get to know the Queen Zenobia setting. With episodes spaced out, Revelations 2 has the potential to be even more disjointed, and if that’s what it’s designed for, I can’t imagine playing the episodes all at once will be much better.

Second, it stars Claire Redfield and Moira Burton (Barry Burton’s daughter). These two characters will be together most of the time, kind of like how Revelations often forced you to take on an AI partner for no good reason.

Moira takes a support role, operating the flashlight and using a crowbar to help with obstacles and take out downed enemies, while Claire is the duo’s shooter. Players can switch between the two, and a second person can also join for co-op gameplay.

This is not inherently bad. Resident Evil Zero had two characters (no co-op), and it worked for survival horror. You could split the characters up and switch between them, or set one to be controlled by the AI. Swapping between Rebecca and Billy was essential for certain puzzles, and it added a unique element to that game.

On the other hand, Resident Evil 5 had a co-op partner that just made the game even more action-oriented.

How will it work in Revelations 2? So far, it looks kind of strange. Claire is your combat character, but you need to control Moira in order to find items. On one hand, that’s good. If a character is designed around the idea of finding items and hidden stuff, there should be a lot of stuff to find–in other words, key items for classic puzzles. Recursive unlocking! Woohoo!

…Right?

On the other hand, if handled improperly, it could become really tedious to switch characters whenever you want to look around a room.

And let’s not forget that Revelations was a successful 3DS game. It was later ported to consoles, where it did quite well on the Wii U. So of course, Revelations 2 is being released for the PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Yep, just ignore where it started, Capcom…

Enough speculation. Let’s take a look at some gameplay, which I originally watched during a TGS livestream (though I was mainly interested in a much better game).

Gameplay looks very fast. Again, this isn’t inherently bad, but I associate survival horror with a slower pace (except for chases, of course). It’s also very bloody. Blood fits with the genre just fine, but Revelations 2 runs the risk of splashing blood and gore in the hopes of making the game scary. Grossing the player out isn’t the same thing as scaring them, which is why visceral horror is often the weakest type.

Combat looks like it could very easily be the action style seen from RE4 onward, but the player did have some ammo difficulties, which could point toward less of an emphasis on fighting. At this point, it’s hard to say.

As for recursive unlocking…. well, there was a key. It still seemed pretty linear, though. And overall, it was just unimpressive and uninteresting.

So far, I’ve seen nothing that suggests Resident Evil: Revelations 2 will be survival horror. Do you agree? Disagree? Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Let me know in the comments.

In the meantime, I’ll be looking forward to Resident Evil’s REAL return to survival horror…