It sounds a lot like a single-player horde mode, which is fine with me – though I'd prefer co-op support as well. From what we know of it, solo players will be able to visit some or all of the multiplayer maps and battle against waves of AI-controlled zombies and monsters. Umbrella Corps is an online multiplayer focused game, but it also includes a minor single-player component in The Experiment mode. Modes and mapsĬapcom hasn't announced how many maps or modes Umbrella Corps will consist of yet, but here are the ones we know about so far. Matches consist of multiple rounds, though, so nobody will complain if you finish up too quickly. Our mercs have very few places to hide, resulting in a brisk pace – rounds can last as little as a minute. With small stages (called 'compact battle zones') and small 3-person teams, Umbrella Corps becomes a truly fast-paced first- or third-person shooter. The farther they lean out, the greater their accuracy as they fire. But Umbrella Corps' cover system, called 'Analog cover,' is a bit more advanced than Gears.' After taking cover, players can lean out to varying degrees. You'll be hiding behind more than just zombies here – combatants can take cover against walls and behind objects à la Gears of War. Hey, the zombies are unlikely to complain. This lets them grab a zombie, which can then be used as cover. Mercs also wear an arm-mounted Tactical Shield. For close quarters encounters, they wield the Brainer – a powerful melee axe designed to penetrate enemies' skulls. Naturally, the mercs pack guns from the RE series. Other Resident Evil elements include the arsenal of weapons our protagonists carry into battle. The mechanic of shooting someone's pack to entangle them in zombies lends some welcome RE authenticity. If someone shoots your backpack (and they will), the zombies will quickly attack en masse.
No one is truly safe from monsters in the Resident Evil series, though. Initially, the zombies won't attack our players – there's a good reason for that.Įach merc wears a Zombie Jammer backpack that renders him invisible to the undead creatures. The Umbrella Labs stage we played at PAX South simply features groups of zombies that would emerge from the ground at various intervals. Two teams (Alpha and Bravo) of three players will compete against each other in close quarters environments based on locations from throughout the Resident Evil series.Īlthough the general objective is simply to kill the members of the other team, both teams must deal with zombies and other BOWs (Biological Weapons) as well. In Umbrella Corps, you and your team will play as mercenaries sent to recover Umbrella's research and samples. But the places with this valuable data are infested with all manner of deadly creatures… Mercs takes on other mercs (and monsters) These corporations wage war against each other for the remnants of Umbrella's research. Powerful corporations still exist, though. In the president day, much of humanity has been wiped out by zombies and other genetically-engineered monstrosities. The Umbrella Corporation officially ceased to exist in 2003, and yet its legacy of bioterrorism lives on. In-universe, the evil pharmaceutical corporation known as Umbrella started the zombie plague thanks to its nefarious and illegal genetic research. Umbrella Corps features only minor single-player elements and won't include a single-player campaign, but still boasts a premise that fits right in with traditional Resident Evil storylines. Capcom hopes it will become an esports fixture, not unlike CounterStrike: Go. It's also the RE series' first and only competitive shooter to date. Although Resident Evil has been done as a shooter before in the Slant Six-developed Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, Umbrella Corps marks the first pure shooter developed by Capcom's own RE development team in Osaka, Japan.