Umbrella Corp Free Demo July 22-23 (PS4)

[Drem]

Repel zombies using your Zombie Jammer. Shoot your opponents’ Zombie Jammers to have them get attacked by zombie crows.

Use your Umbrella standard issue axe Brainer to smash enemies and climb walls.

Use your Tactical Shield to block bullets or use a zombie as a body shield.

Pop out of cover at whatever height you want. You have full analog control of how much you pop out of cover or even open doors and lift shutters.

Dress your Umbrella Guy like a lunatic.

Everyone looks like they are skating on ice or gliding across the ground. In fact, the entire game looks like it’s running at 2x speed.

The game itself is a 3v3 shooter by Capcom themselves (not outsourced) using Unity and releasing tomorrow at a budget price of $30. It’s got a ton of match types but they all have rounds lasting only a couple of minutes long due to a low time-to-kill, small maps, and quick movement. The most common comparison I have read is Counter Strike. This is a really weird thing to come out Resident Evil! I have no idea how this kind of thing comes out of a franchise like this.

I think the zombie jammer is a legitimately compelling concept and is an interesting way of integrating AI enemies and the spirit of Resident Evil zombies into the typical shooter dynamic. I am curious how it fares alongside the low TTK but it potentially makes even getting grazed by bullets a large deal if your jammer ends up going kaput. It adds an additional ever-present elemental hazard in the map. The tactical shield on your arm is also an interesting idea since you can not only use it to create a zombie bodyshield but you can also hold it over your face while shooting your sidearm or using your axe. This gives you some ability to rush down enemies for one reason or another if you have enough health to take bodyshots since you are blocking headshots with the shield.

Analog control of how you utilize cover is interesting but I am curious just how effective it will be in practice. I can see popping out from a wall at different heights being useful to avoid return fire but I have no idea how much the fine tuning of how much you lean out of cover provides tangible benefits.

[creep]

this is super weird, like some kind of fan mod. Is this an experiment in reusing assets for smaller budget releases?

[notbov]

All of this is nice but I’m still not buying this and playing with the sb Discord crew

[GlamGrimfire]

I’ll take this bullet

[Mikey]

That sure does look like a nice cover system, perhaps I’ll get over my weird online multiplayer anxiety one day, but probably not.

[Drem]

@GlamGrimfire

I’ll take this bullet

Just be prepared for this game to be DOA.

@creep

this is super weird, like some kind of fan mod. Is this an experiment in reusing assets for smaller budget releases?

Yeah, it’s a weird release and I don’t know what the motivation behind this game was. The only thing I can guess is that this was a push into e-sports based on just one of the gameplay videos released last year. It was a five minute match with some cringeworthy e-sports style commentary but I don’t recall seeing anything like that since and it doesn’t feel like the game has had much presence in the US sphere of game advertising. The official JP RE channel on YouTube has had a steady flow of dev streams and in-house competitions so maybe this is a more Japan focused released?

I think some shooters sell well in Japan, like Call of Duty, but on the whole you don’t see something like this from JP companies often. It feels like a standlone Metal Gear Online where it has weird idiosyncratic qualities but anyone can tell from a mile away it won’t gain much of an audience.

There was a new trailer today that showed off some of its mechanics in an actual match and I like the parts where the guy goes prone to dodge bullets and sweeps the enemy of their legs and when that other guy with anime eyes cancels his emote into a melee counter-attack. Seeing something like this and Resident Evil 6 makes it seem like Capcom has some cool ideas for third person shooter mechanics but they don’t know how to build a good game around it.

[GlamGrimfire]

I already play a ton of Asian shooters, so I’m used to small lobby’s and playing the same six people over and over again

[Drem]

I played this for a few hours and it’s actually pretty fun! The players count capped at around 400 people on release date (for US, anyway. Other regions are getting to today I think) so it’s most definitely dying a swift death. It also looks like everyone else on the internet not just dislikes but actively reviles this game so I may just be a weirdo. I can write up some detailed impressions of the mechanics if anyone wants but I’ll try to keep it brief for now.

I like how fast paced this game is, with quick rounds, quick movement, quick kills, and small maps. The main game type is a one-life per round deathmatch, first to three wins in 3:00 minute rounds, so it has a suitable level of intensity for the brevity of it. Three player teams keeps teamplay manageable with randoms since it’s easier for groups to stick together, especially with the quick communication icons that let you convey simple strategies or directions to your team mates. You can see icons of your teammates through walls so you can always keep track of your team and improvise things like flanks.

While I think the comparisons to Counter-Strike apt in regards to the general feel of the game, UC’s idiosyncrasies create interesting dynamics that I think give the game a recognizable identity. The zombies and zombie jammers create a really interesting dynamic where even brief firefights where you just get grazed can be dooming if you lose your jammer since you now have to contend with an army of zombies always on your tail. You can pick up a new jammer from dead players if theirs was functioning, so it’s not necessarily a permanent ailment, but due to the low time-to-kill it’s a bad situation to be in. It’s also great for finding enemy players since you just have to look for the swarm or zombies or listen for them.

Sound plays a big part in this game since every action makes clear audible noises to help you pinpoint people nearby. The map on your HUD is displayed from a skewed perspective so it can show red cone shoot up representing the loudness of sounds there from both players and zombies so to find enemy players it’s important to look and listen for irregularities.

It’s got some weird stuff going on with the way it varies your movement speed and aiming speed based on your “stance” (neutral, aim-down-site, “Melee Stance”), Most games don’t differentiate those values nearly as much as this game does but it does add some extra advantages and disadvantages based on whatever stance you’re taking at a time. Melee Stance has you pull out your axe and raise your shield to your face- this let you run at an absolutely blazing speed but also lets you move your reticles far faster than you do from standard gun hipfire stance so it’s actually good for map awareness as well. You can also move your reticle faster when sprinting with your gun, so both of those are good for movement and map awareness (they also let you do parkour stuff like slide on desks or burst through doors) but they are also louder.

On ResidentEvil.net you can look up detailed stats and visuals showing where you have been dying on maps, where you have been getting kills on maps, where you usually get shot on your body, and lots of other stuff. You can also create custom decals with an online editor and use those creations in game.

Welcome to the Miku Corp.

You can also choose goofy laser sights.

Edit:

@Drem

but I’ll try to keep it brief for now.

[Father.Torque]

Man that customization is tight as hell.

Too bad I’ll never play another multiplayer shooter again in my life.

[jodeaux]

Agree with your analysis, but the maps are too small and the action is too fast-paced to get a grip on all of the systems at this point. As soon as I ditched the tactics and the cover system is when I started racking up kills.

I just run around like a mad man with a charged up brainer and that seems to make me competitive at this point, which is a shame considering all the smart/creative decisions made as far as the combat.

I think given time the people who stick with this game will turn it into a truly unique experience. Also, it’s just nice to see Capcom capitalizing on the promise of the multiplayer in Operation Raccoon City, which was one of the great underrated multiplayer experiences of last gen.

[Drem]

If you want to make people rage quit counter their brainer attacks. If you attack right when they attack with a brainer you’ll counter them and do an instant-kill, regardless of what weapon you have equipped. I know this works with the melee button but I think I just now did it with the regular shoot button as well. Running around brainer blazing will be the go to strat until people start countering. Running around guns blazing can still be viable if you happen to flank people but if your opponents are sticking together as a group that strategy can deteriorate.

There are a lot of little things in the mechanics that the game doesn’t teach you and I’m trying to pick those up from the trailers, like countering. I need to remember to try dropping prone in the middle of fire-fights more since you still move stupidly fast but will probably dodge bullets for a couple of precious seconds. Do you know how to do emote actions? I know you can do quick communications with the I.C.O.N. button but it didn’t make my character do any special animations like seen here.

Like what you posit in your last paragraph this will probably be a Capcom version of Metal Gear Online. ORC was by the SOCOM spin-off games guys though, right? I thought it was just a psuedo-SOCOM game.

[lasa]

I want this to be wildly successful so that a budget Mercs game reusing assets from 4, 5, 3D & 6 with a few extra characters, weapons, move sets, enemies and maps thrown in happens.

[Raziel]

Is playable with KB/M?

[Drem]

Nope. The mouse just emulates a joystick input and feels terrible. It’s really weird and Capcom should fix it but I don’t know if they will (I saw a post somewhere mention one of the RE Revelations had this same problem and it was patched eventually. I have idea why this has the same problem right out if the gate). This game is very much designed for a controller.

@lasa

I want this to be wildly successful so that a budget Mercs game reusing assets from 4, 5, 3D & 7 with a few extra characters, weapons, move sets, enemies and maps thrown in happens.

A standalone mercs game is the spin-off that would naturally come from this franchise but maybe the 3DS one didn’t do well enough? I think with RE6 they had some pretty good mechanics to make something like that again. I couldn’t get into RE6’s map design and enemy spawn rate but the gunplay and movement was good.

[Father.Torque]

@Drem

I need to remember to try dropping prone in the middle of fire-fights more since you still move stupidly fast but will probably dodge bullets for a couple of precious seconds.

This is where we are: dropshotting is a tactic in a Resident Evil game.

[Drem]

Wasn’t this already a thing in Resident Evil 6? That game was filled to the brim with a ton of cool but unnecessary mechanics like that.

[Drem]

Something else I read was that when prone you are immune to standing brainer attacks so that’s yet another usage of prone movement. And while prone you can do your own brainer attacks so all of those things, alongside it’s incredible movement speed, makes is actually a very useful and common stance to utilize.

Some random stuff:

You can charge up your brainer to make them extra strong. This makes a consistent loud and distinct sound so people can hear it but if you smash it in someone’s head molten lava keeps pumping out of their head like a volcano. That’s from the brainers that get red hot- I noticed some get electrified but I haven’t seen what those do yet.

When you die you splay on the ground with incredibly goofy posture. When zombies come to eat your corpse it inevitably ends up looking like they’re eating your butt or 69ing you.

When you’re dead you get a real-time overhead view of the action. It’s very cool and good for getting a high-level understanding of how people are moving around.

And here’s an EXCITING, NAIL-BITING clip showing how to utilize zombie jammers. There is one person left on the enemy team but then I am the only one left on my side right afterwards. I notice zombies scrambling in specific directions so I know that the other guy’s jammer is destroyed and I just have to listen for the noises and following the zombies to find him. I keep tracking him while playing it safe, hesitant to run or even lift a shutter, and you can follow this BREATHTAKING game of cat and mouse as it reaches the SHOCKING conclusion.

[Victor]

That map thing looks pretty cool.

I’ve decided to pretend this game is a contemporary Outrigger reboot.

[jodeaux]

Trashed by Polygon, I’m actually incredibly pissed about it, so I’m going to wait a while before I post any hate spew about how horrible/unimaginative the writing is. I just don’t understand why games making an attempt at originality are always trashed.

Umbrella Corps review

[Raziel]

Got it, played one match. It’s pretty cool and I like the pace. However, couldn’t they tone the HUD down a bit? What’s up with all the cyan weapon drops, jeez?