Resident Evil 6 Wouldn’t Have Sold If It Focused Only on Horror Elements, Dev Says

Resident Evil 6 needs to deliver a blend of horror and mainstream action elements if it hopes to succeed, at least according to the game’s producer, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, who believes that going too much into the horror genre will only result in niche appeal.

Resident Evil 6 has just been released this week all over the world and, as we saw yesterday, the initial reception is quite negative, as both professional reviewers and regular players are unsatisfied with this new entry in the long running series, as it practically forgets the franchise’s horror roots.

According to Capcom Producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, the title needs to combine horror with action elements as the core goal of any game is to sell and, if the company focused only on horror elements, it would end up a niche experience.

"I believe you can do it - you can make a horror game with mass appeal," Hirabayashi told 1Up. "I think you can create a really great form of horror entertainment, but if [Resident Evil 6] were the quintessential horror entertainment, it might not have mass appeal. It'll have very niche appeal, unfortunately."

"We're making games and we need to have mass-market appeal in order to survive. It becomes an issue of tracking one way or the other. How far do we go into horror before we lose the support of the average player? How far are we going to lessen the horror elements at the risk of losing core fans, including Resident Evil fans? Where's the Venn diagram that shows the happy medium of those things?”

According to the producer, he and his team tried to push the envelope in both areas in order to attract as many customers, both veteran and new ones.

"The challenge is trying to push it as close to the edge either way, so that we can satisfy both groups of people. I think we can do it. Personally speaking, I really do like horror. I like it as a genre. I'm fine with pushing it up to 11 in terms of horror. But maybe that's not what we can do and still be saleable."

This attempt to attract as many people as possible has seemingly backfired, at least judging by the initial impressions of players, so Capcom should’ve probably focused only on one target demographic.