Miguel Corti, a former manager at Capcom, has revealed in a series of now-deleted Blue Sky posts that Resident Evil — CODE: Veronica was largely to blame for the bombastic, over-the-top nature of Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6, describing the 2000 title as having a “direct, negative development” on the horror franchise.
For those who haven’t played CODE: Veronica, the game takes place three months after the events of Resident Evil 2, and sees Claire Redfield capture by Umbrella and taken to Rockfort Island, which suffers a T-Virus outbreak. Throughout the adventure, players explore a prison complex, mansion, the Ashford residence, military compound, and sprawling Antarctic base. Indeed, it was definitely on a bigger scale than any previous Resident Evil game, and for Corti, was the catalyst for the more action-oriented direction the series would take.
“Everyone always mentions the first 3 RE games and they seem to forget about Code Veronica,” he said. “There is a direct line from CV to RE 5 and 6; CV is the game where the series went off the rails by trying to cram as many locales and plots as a Dreamcast disc could hold.” He added that one of the main problems is that “many of the devs consider CV the best of the pre-RE4 titles,” but Corti argued “RE2 is much better.”
“No shade on CV fans, but seeing how it had a direct, negative development on the franchise means I am pretty biased against it,” Corti added. “Take my bias with a grain of salt.“
Originally released on the Dreamcast, CODE: Veronica would later be ported to the PS2 with additional cutscenes featuring Albert Wesker, and also came to the GameCube and later PS3 and Xbox 360. Back in June, Capcom officially announced that a remake, Resident Evil: Veronica, is coming to PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S in 2027.
[Source – Miguel Corti on Blue Sky via GamesRadar]