Resident Evil: Revelations 2 preview

Fright-seeking gamers have had a great few months. There’s been the looping nightmare of P.T., the twisted The Evil Within and the ‘I want my mommy’ scary Alien: Isolation.

And now there’s Resident Evil: Revelations 2 on the way to keep the playable chills keep multiplying.

Like its Nintendo 3DS predecessor, Revelations 2 harks back to the days when the Resident Evil series meant scarce ammo, a drought of health-giving green herbs and fear over action.

But this is more than a nostalgia trip for Resident Evil golden oldies. There’s an abattoir’s worth of new monsters, TV-inspired episodes, and a souped-up take on the fantastic multiplayer Raid Mode from the original Revelations.

More of everything

The first Revelations was a pocket-sized terror-inducer but its sequel is coming out on PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC and PS Vita. All of which means Capcom’s developers have had many more computing horsepowers to play with this time around.

The result is a better looking and far better sounding experience, packed with creepy sonics and suitably grimy environments. But that’s not all.

While the 3DS incarnation of Revelations was meant to be played in short bursts on the bus or train, Revelations 2 is promising to pack in hours of play into each of its four episodes and boasts not one, but two separate but interrelated campaigns to savour.

The campaign

Set on a mysterious island, Revelations 2‘s main campaign is divided into two parallel stories.

The first story stars Resident Evil fan favourite Claire Redfield and her friend Moira Burton. The duo have been abducted and now find themselves trapped in a run-down prison as guinea pigs in some sadistic experiment. The second strand of the campaign follows Moira’s father Barry who has set out to rescue them with help from Natalia, a strange girl who he meets along the way.

In both campaigns players get to switch between the two characters in each story. While Claire and Barry’s abilities are geared towards dispatching zombies, Natalia and Moira have less combative but no less crucial role to play. Natalia, for example, can sense where enemies are allowing you to pinpoint where trouble lurks.

After that it’s Resident Evil gameplay – unsettling environments, a few puzzles, some herb-gathering, plenty of gore and many panicked encounters with ghoulish beings.

Sick monsters

Revelations 2 doesn’t scrimp on the monster count either thanks to new additions to the series like the Afflicted. They aren’t zombies but the violently insane and gruesome result of extreme torture. And since they aren’t brain dead, they are more than capable of chasing you up ladders and arming themselves with blunt weaponry. Yikes.

Then there are the Revenants (pictured above). Stitched together from spare limbs and full of extra pus, they make you worried about what goes on in the minds of Resident Evil developers. And that’s before we even get onto the Rube Goldberg-esque torture contraptions to be found in the game.

Episodes

Inspired by TV hits like Breaking Bad, Revelations 2 is being released in four weekly instalments starting on 25th February. Capcom hopes the approach will give Resident Evil fans plenty of water cooler (or angry internet forum) moments where they can dissect each episode and debate what might come next like grisly Whovians.

Each episode will also add new maps and content to multiplayer Raid Mode. The only downside is that Raid Mode won’t go online until the boxed version containing all four episodes arrives on 20th March, although you’ll still be able to play it offline while you wait.

Raid mode

Raid Mode was the surprise highlight of Revelations on the 3DS and it’s not been neglected this time round either. Revelations 2 offers a revamped version that, in stark contrast to the main campaign, delivers plenty of action-packed zombie blasting and loot grabbing.

The bullet-ridden action and thumping soundtrack give it a very different feel to the campaign but it’s huge fun and the kind of experience that will have you coming back time and time again as you seek to become an elite zombie hunter.

You also get to choose to play as one of 15 well-known Resident Evil characters once you’ve unlocked them all.

Co-op

Playing with pals features big in Revelations 2. As well as being able to enjoy the thrills of Raid Mode online, you can also play with a friend in split-screen mode.

The couch co-op option extends to the main campaign too so that you can share the scares. In this mode one player takes charge of the combat-ready Claire Redfield or Barry Burton while the other player gets to play as Natalia or Moira and help out by cracking puzzles, scanning for enemies and finishing off monsters with brick blows to the noggin.

About

Tristan is a podcast script editor, and former freelance journalist, and contributor to Stuff magazine and Stuff.tv