The reveal of Resident Evil Requiem and the fact that Alyssa Ashcroft is playing a major role in the story has given me new hope that we may one day see the Outbreak games get another chance in the spotlight. Resident Evil Requiem is the next main series installment in the long-running survival-horror franchise. The new game will move the franchise forward while also taking it back to its roots, as Raccoon City will be one of the featured locations.
Raccoon City most famously appeared in Resident Evil 2 and 3: Nemesis, but it has been featured in other RE games as well. Notably, Raccoon City was the location of Resident Evil: Outbreak and the sequel Outbreak - File #2. The Resident Evil: The Outbreak games were co-op adventures where players could team up with others online to fight the franchise's iconic monsters, solve puzzles, and more using a cast of memorable characters. One such playable character was Alyssa Ashcroft, a journalist living in Raccoon City at the time of the titular zombie outbreak.
Alyssa Ashcroft is the mother of Resident Evil Requiem's Grace Ashcroft, who is one of the playable characters in the new game. Unfortunately for Alyssa, she apparently died years before the events of Resident Evil Requiem, murdered in a hotel that Alyssa has to investigate for a different case. It seems like a very random choice to bring Alyssa Ashcroft back to the forefront of the franchise's lore, but it does show that Capcom still has the Outbreak games in its thoughts. Whether this means that the Outbreak games will ever make a comeback remains to be seen, but it would be a massive missed opportunity to leave them in the past.
Resident Evil: Requiem Features One of Outbreak's Main Characters
For one thing, Resident Evil Requiem featuring Alyssa Ashcroft means that there are fans who may now be way more interested in playing the two Outbreak games, but don't have a convenient means to do so as both games are trapped on the PS2. Not only are they trapped on the PS2, but their online support shut down nearly two decades ago at this point. The Outbreak games were released right before online multiplayer really took off, and so remastering them for modern consoles would really let the games shine in ways that they weren't able to originally.
Capcom loves to remake and remaster its Resident Evil games, and with most main series installments already done or rumored to have remakes releasing within the next few years, it seems like a good opportunity to bring Outbreak back. Outbreak wouldn't even need to be a full remake. A remastered collection would be the best case scenario, but even releasing the games through the PS Plus Premium library would be better than nothing. Unfortunately, Capcom has given no indication that it plans on bringing the Outbreak games back, so fans should keep their expectations in check.
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