Resident Evil 6 dev feeling the pressure to live up to RE4

Capcom's Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi and Eiichiro Sasaki have admitted the development behind Resident Evil 6 is still feeling the pressure of living up to the high standards set by the genre-defining Resident Evil 4.

Released in 2005, RE4 was responsible for reinvigorating the franchise via a more action-oriented direction, featuring an over-the-shoulder perspective and laser targeting. Directed by Shinji Mikami, the game went on to influence countless other third-person action games in its wake.

Unsurprisingly, Capcom is feeling the heat a little as RE6’s release edges ever closer, given that so many fans hold the fourth game in such high regard.

“As you said, RE4 is a critically-acclaimed game and there is always the pressure to live up to that,” the trio told AusGamers.

"It was very well-recieved,” they added, “But then if you look at RE5 it was actually our biggest Resident Evil game ever. So in that sense we were able to get the game into the hands of more players out there – probably a lot of new players as well.”

“So there’s a lot of expectation from fans of both games really, so we’ve tried to listen to the feedback about what people liked about [Resident Evil] 4, and what they liked about 5, and follow up on that and try and incorporate that into the production of Resident Evil 6 and make something that really is appealing to all the fans.”

Resident Evil 4 was re-released in high-definition on PS3 and Xbox 360 back in September 2011. Resident Evil 6 meanwhile is scheduled for release worldwide on October 2, 2012.