Interview: Resident Evil 6's Director and Producer on Giving Their Game Global Appeal from 1UP.com

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF OCTOBER 1 | A DARK DESCENT INTO RESIDENT EVIL

Interview: Resident Evil 6's Director and Producer on Giving Their Game Global Appeal

Cover Story: Eiichiro Sasaki and Yoshiaki Hirabayashi on Capcom's move from survival horror to entertainment horror.

s the times change, so does Resident Evil. What started as a dark-and-creepy throwback to PC adventure games like Alone in the Dark has since changed into a globetrotting, full-octane spectacle that bears little resemblance to its 32-bit roots. Just a few days before the release of Resident Evil 6, we sat down with director Eiichiro Sasaki and Yoshiaki Hirabayashi for a discussion about their horror roots, the unpredictable path of the Resident Evil franchise, and the difficulties of making a game for a global audience that still keeps fans of the original happy.

1UP: Have you had played Sweet Home, or any of the older survival horror games for the Famicom, and did you enjoyed them in any way? We were interested in your history with horror video games.

YH: I wasn't allowed to have a Famicom, so I didn't get to play any of those games when I was a kid. I did visit some scary places, though, like lonely mountain retreats and things like that. I was a deprived child.

ES: I played a lot more PC games in the past, especially text-based adventures. I played some games... I don't know if these are the proper English titles, but "Pennsylvania" was one, and another one was "Mystery House." The horror games I played weren't your grotesque, bloody types of games. They were more atmospheric kinds of games.

1UP: What are your three favorite horror movies?

YH: I don't know if I can give you the top three, but I can tell you that my favorite is "28 Days Later." And I don't know if this counts as a true horror film, but the American title was "Dead Alive." It's maybe not a pure horror film, it's a B-movie, but I liked that.

ES: One of my favorites is the Bruce Campbell movie, Evil Dead. I also liked the original Friday the 13th, and the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. In fact, in high school, we had a school festival, and my class did a haunted house. I dressed up as Freddy Krueger, with the sweater and the claws and everything.

1UP: We wanted to know what your goals were at the start of the Resident Evil 6 project, and what was the scope of the game early on in development.

YH: To answer the first part of that question, one of our original goals was to create a horror game, of course, but we wanted to create what we're calling "horror entertainment." We realized that there's a segment of the population out there that likes entertainment, but not necessarily horror. They're put off by horror. So how can we combine the two in a way that would bring in people who usually have an aversion to horror-related things? How could we bring them in and allow them to enjoy it? That was the first goal of the game. And I know that when I explain it like that, it seems like those ideas are contradictory, and that it would be hard to achieve something like that. I don't necessarily disagree. On paper, it sounds hard, and I knew it would be hard. But I thought that just because it sounds hard or impossible, it doesn't mean I shouldn't give it a try. We should see if we can combine these two segments into one thing and see what we can do. I think that because we gave it a try, we were able to do it.

ES: As far as the scope of the game goes, I guess you could say that we originally intended the scope that the game has now. From the very beginning, I wanted to have an ensemble cast, with these different protagonists. The only way to do that was to split them up and give them their own stages where they could really shine. That's where I realized we'd need a section set in America, one in Eastern Europe, one in China, and just go big with this game. Because of what I wanted to do originally with the cast, that's how the rest of the game came about.

YH: Yeah, once we decided on that, trying to make it such a big production... We didn't think it was going to be as difficult as it turned out to be. It was really overwhelming at times.

1UP: When exactly did development start on Resident Evil 6?

ES: About three and a half years ago? It was around July of 2009 when we started work on the game.

1UP: Resident Evil 2 had two characters whose stories crossed over with each other. There were some issues with continuity, because fans of the series are going to comb over every detail looking for mistakes. Did you have that in mind when you were developing a story with so many characters? The fact that you had to keep so many details consistent. Or were you not so worried about the minor details, knowing that if people were entertained, they'd overlook those kinds of flaws in the continuity, if there were any?

ES: Well, we did our best to make sure that those problems wouldn't arise. We sat down at the beginning with the scriptwriter and the designers and we tried to look for plot holes and other things that didn't make sense. Just tried to knock those off one by one so that the end result was something that held together throughout. In the game itself, as you know, the campaigns cross over at different points. Then you have the two partners from each campaign fighting together at different points in the game. That's a big point where the stories intersect. But there are some minor points where the stories cross over as well. For example, when Leon and Helena are on their way to China, when they're ready to get on the helicopter to go to China, there's a TV screen in the background, and on the TV is the news. The scene you see on the news is the scene from Chris's campaign, when he goes to China and the journalist comes up to interview him and he pushes her out of the way. Those types of little things... I want people to look at it carefully and pick it apart so they can find all those little details. We try to make sure that there are no discrepancies there. But there are lots of places where the stories overlap.

1UP: There's one minor area in the campaign where something in Resident Evil 6 felt a little strange. The opening of the game is the prologue, which takes place about three-quarters of the way through the story. You're playing as Leon and helping Helena through... I realize it's a tutorial, but it also shows you some of that co-op mechanic. When you revisit that moment later in the actual story, Helena's fine. She's basically holding her own. Why did that happen? It's only one moment where I saw something specific like that, but it stood out.

ES: That was intentional on our part. We wanted to do that. At the simplest level, we wanted to show something cool for the prelude scene. But also, when you play it in the main game, we didn't want people to have to do the exact same thing twice. It was more just a question of practicality. But in terms of continuity, if you want to think about them as both happening in the game, I realize that it takes place about three-quarters of the way through the story... You can think of it as a camera keeping a record of all the events that happen in RE6. What happens in the prelude also happens in the game, but the camera just didn't pick up on it at the time. The camera was only looking at the parts where Leon and Helena were at their best. It doesn't show the scene there where you have to help her up, carry her, set her down, and she does the "go on without me!" sort of thing. When you play through the campaign proper, you just didn't have that scene in there. That's how I like to think about it.

1UP: Did you ever consider just flashing through that scene quickly and picking up when the monster drops in?

YH/ES: At the end of the day, if you put it in, it would still be the same thing twice, even if you could just sort of skip past it quickly. We wanted to just present that in a different light, try and show something different. While it does stand separately, we feel like it's all part of the same story. You're just experiencing that section of the game in a different way at that time. That's how we prefer to think of it.

1UP: You mentioned earlier that you knew from the beginning this would have an ensemble cast. Can you tell us about the process of selecting those characters? Was it always Chris and Leon from the beginning, or were there other characters?

ES: Before we had anything decided for the game, before we had any gameplay elements, before the script itself, before the story, anything, what I had was concept art of Leon and Chris. That scene of them facing off with each other. That was the very first thing I came up with for this game. Once we got the okay to use Leon and Chris in the game, it was a matter of building a supporting cast around them, finding who would be a perfect fit for that.

YH: One of the things we did for this game is we had a kind of retreat with all the core staff of the game. The director, the cutscene director, the scriptwriter, the lead designer, the producer, everyone. We went away together, so we weren't at the office. We were off-site together for three or four days, sleeping in the same place and trying to hash out ideas for the game. What characters would work in this type of setting? That was where we came up with this idea of pairing up the characters. "If you pair up these two, then what happens to these two?" "This pairing doesn't work, so we need to find someone who can replace this character." Those types of things. Basically, we were trying to find a good, fun balance for the game and make it interesting for people who play it. That's something we're accustomed to doing, trying to hash out so much of the game right at the beginning. We just tried to find a balance.

1UP: The past three or four Resident Evil games have all had co-op play as a major feature. We've had Revelations, 5, Operation Raccoon City, and now 6. Do you feel like co-op, having a partner, is essential to the Resident Evil experience now? And do you feel that helps add to the "entertainment horror" aspect you're trying to create? Does having a second player make things less scary or easier to handle?

YH/ES: I don't think it is necessary for horror entertainment to have co-op as a salient feature. It's just something that came about in the development of this game. It was one of many options on the table when we started planning. It became the right option for what we were trying to do this time out. Who knows what we might do the next time we make an RE game? Because I already did it once, I don't know that I want to do it again... [laughs]

YH: We don't know what kind of hand we'll be dealt next time we make a game. It depends on the needs of the game.

1UP: In America, obviously, the game is called Resident Evil, and in Japan it's called Biohazard. That was a name that made sense in the first game, but as the scope of the series gets bigger and bigger, the name itself is becoming idiomatic. It doesn't really mean anything, except to people who know what the series is. Is that at all a concern for you as Japanese developers, given that you're probably more comfortable with the name "Biohazard"? Does that matter at all to you, or is it something that you just don't think about much?

Personally speaking, it'd be much easier for me if they just all had the same name. [laughs]

YH: Personally, I think "Biohazard" is a better fit for the series now. But "Resident Evil" is still a strong brand for the franchise. It says a lot to the fans, especially. There have been a lot of games coming out with the Resident Evil branding, and so maybe the contents of the games themselves may not exactly match what that title says anymore, but if you tell someone, "Hey, close your eyes. 'Resident Evil.' What do you think of?" they'll come up with something that's usually like what we're trying to do with our games. So it is its own branding, in a way. People recognize what a Resident Evil game is. I hope that people who are new to the series will come to recognize that and appreciate the naming convention of the franchise. I've been working on Resident Evil games for 10 years, so I've come to really appreciate the title, "Resident Evil," as a naming convention. We'll see from here on out. If there were enough people who said, "'Resident Evil' is just a really daft title, it doesn't make sense" then maybe we would talk about changing it. For right now, I think it's something that everyone can appreciate.

ES: Personally speaking, it'd be much easier for me if they just all had the same name. [laughs]

1UP: The work on the characters, specifically the faces, in Resident Evil 5 and 6 is amazing. The detail and the spectrum of emotions they can convey. How do you keep characters looking consistent over two decades worth of games? Especially when you consider a situation where technology is always changing.

YH: That's a very good question. It's not one with an easy answer, either. To a certain extent, you have to use something that's not as realistic as what some people might like. You need something that's a little "fake" in your presentation, so it's not full-on realistic. That allows us to keep using these characters through such a long history, by not having them tied to realistic-looking animation and presentation. By doing it a little off from what's 100 percent realistic, that allows us to keep on using these characters. That's a little abstract, so let me give you an example. Take Leon and his hairstyle, the part he has in his hair. If you put that on a real-life character, it would look kind of ridiculous. But we can make that look cool in the Resident Evil world, because we try to remove it a bit from real life. We're not using real actors. We're doing something slightly apart from reality. We can add our own sensibility to that and make it consistent across all the times that we use Leon, adding something to it each time. It feels cool, the way we're faking it a bit with reality, so to speak. It's not like we're trying to create 100 percent reality. We're just trying to give some verisimilitude to this world.

That's a challenge throughout the production overall, this balancing act of how close to reality you want to make it, and how far from reality you remove it. Where do you find that balance between them? I don't think, for Resident Evil, that a 100 percent realistic portrayal would work. But by the same token, I don't think players would want something that looks completely unrealistic either. You have to find that balance. Going forward, as far as how technology progresses and the ways we can present these characters consistently in future iterations with better technology, that's a wait-and-see situation. We'll have to see what kind of technology is available to us when we do that. We'll try to go for the same level of consistency in the presentation of the characters. But we really do have to see what's available to us before we decide on that. That's not just true of the characters, either. It's true of the backgrounds and everything else. We have to preserve a certain degree of the Resident Evil world throughout each iteration of the game. If you go too far, then you'll lose what everyone recognizes as being Resident Evil.

1UP: Did you take a similar approach in the Resident Evil remake, balancing the real and unreal elements?

YH: That was good of you to notice that I worked on that game. I worked on Resident Evils 4 and 5 as well, as a designer on those games. For 6, though, I'm the producer, not a designer. But when I was working as a designer, I was working closely with Mikami-san on these games. He always said that the key to presenting the world of Resident Evil was this balance of real and unreal. You mix the two together and it creates this verisimilitude of a realistic world, even though you have all these fantastic elements that are a part of it. That's something that I've tried to pass on to the next generation of designers. This is something that we discuss a lot when talking about Resident Evil 6. Trying to lead that next generation of designers and showing them that this is how you have to balance it. This is how you have a good mix of the two. Trying to take Mikami-san's knowledge and impart it to the new generation is my task now. As I said, Resident Evil has always been about that balance between what's real and not real, trying to mix those together. You don't always have a perfect match of the two. Sometimes you skew in one direction more than the other. But I think that, as a guiding vision for creating the world, that's where we need to go.

1UP: I wanted to know, what lessons have you learned from some of the other games you've developed? I guess we could talk in terms of Resident Evil games -- what does and doesn't work, what fans want to see, what they don't want to see, what you know now that you wish you could have known back when you were working on older games.

ES: All the past games I've worked on, of course, inform my current development. I joined Capcom in 1995, that was when I first joined the company. Right from the outset, I was working on polygon-based games, 3D games as they were called... All that experience informs the way I work now. I worked on the Resident Evil Outbreak series, and one thing those games were known for was the network play. You could go online with them. Those were some of the first games that could do that. Even now, one of our programmers says to me, "Yeah, the matching in Outbreak was really good." So we're always trying to live up to the standard of making it as good as we did on Outbreak. That's a key experience from my development. Something I wish I had known then that I know now, or that I wish I could have done then that I can do now, is... Talking about matching, what we can do now is that when we're matching players, we can match people who are on different difficulty levels in the same game. That's something we couldn't have done back then. Now we're not beholden to the difficulty level anymore for matching people together. They can play the game they feel is right for their abilities and play with someone else who wants to play on a different level. For us, that's a positive development as far as what we can do now. Actually, we haven't even talked about it that much when we were promoting Resident Evil 6, the way the matching has developed and what we can do now.

1UP: Sasaki-san, we noticed that you directed Zack & Wiki for the Wii. We wanted to know if you had any desire to use those characters again. Also, are there any references to Zack & Wiki in Resident Evil 6, or any other games you've worked on? Easter eggs, maybe, or other little hidden things.

ES: Yeah, I love the characters in Zack & Wiki, so I'd love another opportunity to use them again at some point. I love puzzle games, personally, like I said earlier. I played a lot of those text-based adventure games back in the day, and those had a lot of puzzle-solving. Using your brain to figure out solutions. I like that kind of thing. You can see that reflected in Ada's campaign in RE6. There's quite a few puzzles in there. All of them are things that I'm interested in, the types of puzzles that I like. The Zack & Wiki puzzles, they were just great fun. If I had my way I'd make a Resident Evil that was nothing but puzzles. But Zack & Wiki, you could put it in the Smithsonian of puzzle gaming. I don't know that there's a lot of fans out there for that type of game, but if there are fans of puzzle games, that stands as one of the better ones out there. Something everyone can look to that was really well-done.

1UP: Why haven't puzzles been as prevalent in the modern Resident Evil games, up until 6? You didn't see as many... I mean, I'm really glad that Ada's campaign has that section. But that was something we'd seen scaled back. Why do you think that's happened?

There's a part of RE6 that really recalls a part of Zack & Wiki. I won't say what it is, but it's in there.

YH: A lot of that, to a degree, comes back to fan reactions. There is a certain group that's fond of the puzzle elements in Resident Evil, there's still a vocal element that's against them. That's the part of Resident Evil they dislike the most. When we were testing RE5 with our North American play testers, a lot of people got hung up the most on the puzzle-solving aspects. So maybe there's a silent majority out there that doesn't enjoy that aspect of Resident Evil. I personally do like puzzle elements in games, though, and I want to see them as a part of a Resident Evil game. A challenge for us this time out was seeing if we could make the puzzles more enjoyable, so that even people who don't normally like puzzles could have fun with the ones we have in the game.

ES: Going back to the question you asked earlier about Zack & Wiki, there's a part of RE6 that really recalls a part of Zack & Wiki. I won't say what it is, but it's in there. If you think you can figure it out, let me know.

1UP: One of the things I admired very much about Resident Evil 6 is that in combat, the player has many options to express themselves. They can just go with the standard shooting, aiming for the head. They can run around and use melee. They can even slide into enemies and set up some very cool moments. How do you approach designing monsters when there are so many options for the player as far as combat goes?

ES: Discussing this can get pretty technical at times, but I guess you could boil it down to... What do you want to force the player to do? What kind of situations do you want to force the player into? That's what you have to think of when you're designing enemies. For example, you have zombies. You can shoot them anywhere and you hurt them and you can beat them. Everyone knows that. That's what you do with zombies. So you have to think, "Okay, what if we design an enemy that has only one spot that you have to shoot?" Now you're forcing the player to fight in a way that they're not used to, because they can only shoot at that one spot. It's basically action and reaction. The enemies react to what the player can do, and vice versa. Your first job is to come up with the actions that the player can perform. Then the enemies are going to try and force the player to do different things. If you have an enemy force the player to do something that's not available to the player, then you've put the player in a situation where they don't have a chance to survive. You have to still give them an option to survive. You have to make sure that when enemies force players to do something, they can successfully counter that in some way. It's about action and reaction.

1UP: In hindsight, what's your biggest takeaway from the learning process of putting together Resident Evil 6? What are the lessons you feel like you've learned from this title?

YH: For me, I don't know if I can say that I've learned anything until the game goes out on sale and people play it. Then I get to hear their reactions to the game. Once I hear their reactions and see what people say about the game, then I can tell what I've learned. It's hard for me to answer that now, but it would be a great question to ask me after the game comes out.

ES: I guess if I've learned anything, it's about universality, if I could use that word... It's difficult to think about games in terms of global appeal now. It can't be just about the Japanese market or the North American market or the European market. It's the whole world now. Trying to find that commonality that bridges all these cultures and creates an entertaining game, that's where the challenge lies. I learned that on this project. There are all different aspects where we had debates about what things we could do. One thing we argued over was whether we could use the "F-word" in this game. The main characters in this game, are they allowed to say that? Does that fit with this world? Things like that. Another one is, we wanted to make the game have a really cinematic feel to it. During the cutscenes, the Japanese designers on our team put those black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, because they thought that made it feel more movie-like. But then we showed it to the localization team, which is comprised of people from around the world, and they were like, "What are you guys doing? That's crap." It's something that I learned. Everyone has a different design sensibility. Trying to come up with that universality is difficult.

1UP: You mentioned earlier about enjoying difficult games. Do you have any anecdotes from Resident Evil 6's development where maybe something was too hard, and the feedback you got shaped your approach to developing that?

ES: Oh, yeah, there were definitely some places like that in the game. There probably still are a few...

ES: This is just me personally, but I don't mind having to rethink how I'm going to take down an enemy each time. How I'm going to fight or how I'm going to shoot. That's what I like. I like that challenge. But I'm sure that the average person doesn't want to have to put that much thought into an enemy, 100 times in a row. That's just the way I want to do it. With boss fights as well. I don't mind if they're difficult, but if they're too difficult from the outset, people can't get into them. Sometimes we need to be slapped around a few times, like, "Hey, wake up, what are you doing? Who are you making this game for? Are you making it for yourself, or are you making it for the people out there?" It's a constant battle to keep that in mind.

YH: We're going for a certain degree of believability in the game. I don't want players to feel stressed out by certain parts of the game. If they die... When even if they've been trying really hard, they keep dying, that doesn't feel satisfying to me. That's something I discussed with Sasaki-san. At a number of places in the game, people have to work hard in those parts... They shouldn't have to feel like they're being punished. It might be realistic for them to die there, but again, I think that's where you go for believability over realism. There were a number of areas where we went back and forth on that.

Comments (10)

The term "Entertainment Horror"...
Posted: Oct 07, 2012 12:00AM PST by orient

...makes me want to vomit. The games are following in the footsteps of the garbage movies.
So the director wants puzzles in a Resident Evil game, but because RE5's puzzles didn't play-test very well, they've hidden them deep within an unlockable 4th campaign that you can't actually play until you've completed the three others?
The entire game was designed by committee -- full of compromises and half-baked ideas in an attempt to please everyone in the world. Mikami's games were good because he stuck to his vision. I hope to hell that Capcom grow some balls by RE7 and make a game that sticks by its convictions.

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- Tell me about it..
  Posted: Oct 07, 2012 12:00AM PST by smokeyflea
  
  As if Horror on it's own is somehow NOT entertainment.
  
  Well I really dislike the direction this game, and all games have gone. I guess it's just the process of mainstreaming everything for today's larger audience of gamers.
  
  Flag

lol
Posted: Oct 06, 2012 12:00AM PST by Shadow_Hunter

you would think humans would know how to kill off zombies and the infection by now. yet there is stil RE 6. haha

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Thoughts
Posted: Oct 06, 2012 12:00AM PST by BrokenH

I think capcom had a bit of an oversight. Yes, RE 5 may have sold the most copies but it was also one of the few RE games to release on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 at the same time. Most other RE games were exclusives and the few of them that got re-releases on different consoles only brought in those additional profit margins much later. For example, had RE 4 released on the Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2 at the exact same time its' number of sales probably would have been just as impressive as RE 5's. (If not moreso)
Still, I feel for Eiichiro and Yoshiaki. We may sneer at them and rage over the fact RE 6 comes off as the newest Michael Bay flick but let's be honest, the majority of gamers seem to eat that stuff up. If you asked any none die-hard RE fan what they thought of RE 6 many of them would say they enjoyed it for what it is.
Eiichiro and Yoshiaki are stuck with the precarious task of pleasing both the old supporters of RE and the younger supporters of RE. It might as well be an impossible job because "fan rage" will spark & ignite either way.
Still, I wish Capcom would have followed RE: Revelations, Lost In Nightmares, and RE 4 alittle bit more closely. They still have the ability to mix fear and atmosphere with the action. However, judging from the plethora of set piece moments and quick time events in the game trailers it's as if they wanted RE 6 to be more like GI Joe, Gears Of War, Arkham city, and Uncharted as opposed to letting the franchise preserve its' own identity.
In this case the phrase "The best artists steal" falls flat on its' face. RE 6 comes of as a cluttered yet enjoyable "decent game" that could have been great had it borrowed more from its' past than from the contemporary influences around it.
I'm not saying to return to tank controls and randomly placed bat-shit insane puzzles that make no sense within their environments. Truth be told, I've enjoyed the evolution of RE's gameplay. However, I do miss the suspense and the slower,sinister,and more methodical build up of tension it used to excel at in spades.
For the record, I don't think it's wrong if other gamers love RE 6. I know I'm talking from the methuseleh alcove of the grumpy ancients. lol. Maybe I'm simply no longer "hip" and "up to date" with the times.

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gets boring after awhile
Posted: Oct 06, 2012 12:00AM PST by DRxSlender

they need to stop making resident evil games already...they are always the same..the controls are similiar and the whole 3rd person view is kinda old. the story of it doesnt seem to go anywhere either.

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One could say...
Posted: Oct 06, 2012 12:00AM PST by mousseng

They were going for complete... global... saturation.

Sorry, I thought it was appropriate.

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The answer to the 3rd question explains a lot
Posted: Oct 06, 2012 12:00AM PST by Keefman -X-

I can't help myself from still wanting to acquire this game though. Gah. Old habits die hard. Must stick to principles...

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- I would just buy it off amazon in a couple months for $20 or so.
  Posted: Oct 06, 2012 12:00AM PST by Azel2020
  
  You would still be buying a new copy but at 1/3 the price!
  
  Flag
- Actually
  Posted: Oct 06, 2012 12:00AM PST by Pookiechan!!!
  
  it's a great game. Stop listening to people who simply band-wagon in with one-man reviews from reviewers who wear nostalgia goggles.
  
  Flag
- Actually
  Posted: Oct 06, 2012 12:00AM PST by ol'guy
  
  I'm playing it now and yes it's on the sucky side. Wait for the bargain bin special and save a big chunk of change. There's nothing here that you can't wait a few for.
  
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