Early this month, it was reported that Japanese members of the Resident Evil Ambassador program were invited to test a new game. The official Capcom sanctioned group of insiders is a fan club that gets special access to new games and events. Last week, American Ambassador members were invited to test a new Resident Evil game in Los Angeles and New York City later this year.
Twitch affiliate and streamer Patrick Copeland tweeted an image of the invitation sent to Ambassadors to test what is presumably a new Resident Evil game currently in development. The test event test event is scheduled for September 20th or 21st in LA and September 23rd or 24th in NYC.
We know a new Resident Evil game is in the works, but still don't know what exactly it is. Here's a couple educated guesses we have as to what the game could be and when its coming out.
Resident Evil 8
The timing is just about right for a follow-up to Resident Evil 7, which launched in January of 2017. The first-person take on classic Resident Evil revitalized the franchise and paved the way for the success of the Resident Evil 2 remake. Those games were developed by two separate teams within Capcom, so its likely RE 7 director Koshi Nakanishi is working with his team to ready the next sequel in the main franchise. Some major spoilers for Resident Evil 7 follow.
If you stuck with Resident Evil 7's post game content you know that the DLC hinted at what could happen in the next game. In the final moments of the Not a Hero DLC, Chris Redfield is told by his Umbrella handler that there is a top secret phone call he needs to take. We've speculated that since the characters introduced in 7 are mostly dead or got their happy ending, that RE 8 could star Chris off on a new mission for the newly reformed Umbrella corporation.
Even for players who didn't check out the DLC, this theory still holds some water. The end of the base game employs the deus ex machina trope as Chris swoops in to save the day, connecting the events of the game to the greater Resident Evil cannon. This can't be for nothing. Surely Chris and other classic characters are set to make a return appearance in the sequel.
Another equally plausible possibility is that the next Resident Evil game is just not as far along as we think. If it's being shown to insiders for the first time this fall, Capcom could spend 2020 marketing and hyping up the game for a late 2020 or even January 2021 release. They seem to have that time slot dominated right now following RE7 in January 2017 and RE2 in January 2019. Falling into an every other year release pattern won't oversaturate the market and gives alternating development teams four years to work on each installment.
Resident Evil 3 Remake
A bit more unlikely, but still rumored, is a full-on remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The original game came out in 1999 on the Playstation and was very much in the style of the first two games, only this time players had to deal with the nearly indestructible Nemesis stomping around and trying to kill them at the most inconvenient of times. The Resident Evil 2 remake took this idea and ran with it to create the terrifying meme machine Mr. X.
Resident Evil 3 is not remember with the same fondness as games like the original or Resident Evil 4, but after seeing the first two games get such loving remakes it only makes sense to round out the original Playstation trilogy of games. It would makes series fans happy if Capcom was to officially bring RE3 back for a modern audience.
Ultimately, this doesn't seem like the game that is going to be played at the end of September. Capcom had a positive response to fans clamoring for another remake in the style of Resident Evil 2, but that game was only just released in January. Eight months is a short turn-around time for any game, especially a full next-gen reimagining of a classic game. It's likely a Resident Evil 3 remake is in early stages of development, but fans will have to wait another couple years before it sees the light of day.
A Mysterious Spinoff Game
A third possibility is that Capcom is showing Ambassadors an entirely unrelated spinoff game. Action heavy spinoffs like Darkside Chronicles and Operation: Raccoon City are quite common, but don't usually review as well as the main entries. Still, that hasn't stopped Capcom from continuing to make Resident Evil spinoffs .
Of Capcom's most popular series Resident Evil is the easiest to graft trendy genres onto. The lackluster Umbrella Corps was their last attempt to make a multiplayer shooter and that didn't quite work out. It would not be surprising to see a take on the battle royale genre. It would be a bit contrived, but that genre doesn't appear to be losing any steam.
A more interesting approach would be to make a modern sequel or remake of Resident Evil: Outbreak. The experiment in taking survival horror online could learn a lot from asymmetrical multiplayer games like Left 4 Dead that pit teams of humans with objectives against teams of zombies trying to take them down. This type of game would be exciting and let fans finally play as their favorite monsters from the series' decades worth of games.