Well, for this stand-alone “Horror Videogames Series“, I thought that I’d talk briefly about why the very first three “Resident Evil” games from 1996-1999 don’t do the modern indie horror game thing of giving the main character a low-capacity pistol at the beginning of the game. I’ve probably talked about this before, but I seem to have writer’s block.
Typically, in more modern indie survival horror games which allow fighting, the main character’s pistol will only be able to hold a few bullets – typically between six and eight, maybe enough to defeat just one or two weaker monsters – in order to allow for lots of suspenseful in-game reloads and to push the player to make every shot count. This, along with things like scarce ammunition, helps to set modern indie survival horror games apart from action games. It makes each battle feel more like a tense struggle for survival than a thrilling action sequence.
But, in the first three “Resident Evil” games from the 1990s, the pistol you get at the beginning of the game holds a surprisingly large amount of bullets. The pistols used by Jill and Chris each hold fifteen bullets, Claire’s pistol holds thirteen and Leon gets one that holds eighteen of them. But why do these games do this?
The most obvious and likely reason is that, in the first three “Resident Evil” games, many of the weapons were directly based on real-world military and/or police weapons. With the exception of Claire – who is a civilian – the three other characters are police officers, and both Jill and Chris are also ex-military as well. So, these wepaons make sense in context. And, for the sake of realism, the characters’ pistols hold exactly as many bullets as they would in real life.
In both the second and third games, there are also situations where you can be swarmed by large groups of zombies. As such, these high-capacity weapons give the player a bit more of a fighting chance, whilst still making them overwhelmed and outnumbered. Not only that, there is still game-balancing as well. Even with the extra bullets, you can maybe only defeat two or three zombies before you need to reload.
And, unlike many modern indie survival horror games, the classic “Resident Evil” games allow instant inventory-screen reloads. Yes, you can reload in-game but this only happens if you run out of bullets. This rewards players who keep track of how often they have fired and reload in the inventory screen before their gun runs empty. And, by increasing the capacity, this means that the player really has to pay attention in a way that they wouldn’t if they only had to count to six or eight. It’s a way of getting the player to pay attention and think.
There’s also the fact that these three games were all fairly early survival horror games. Although all three games are regarded as important classics, they were made at a time when developers were still learning and working out the “rules” of the genre. Modern indie games in the genre are often made by fans who have played all of the classics and studied the genre carefully. On the other hand, when the very first “Resident Evil” game was made in the mid-1990s, literally the only other game like it was the original “Alone In The Dark” from 1992.
Whilst modern developers have the benefit of hindsight and a lot of research, the people working on the first three “Resident Evil” games had to learn the “rules” of the genre as they went along. As such, it makes sense that these games might not do some of the small things – like low-capacity pistols – which are standard in modern indie survival horror games.
Again, though, the most likely reason is simply that the developers were trying to “be realistic” with the weapons in these three classic games. Still, although it’s unusual by modern standards, it still works surprisingly well in context. Even if survival horror game design has moved on slightly since then.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
