Capcom’s latest spin-off of the popular Resident Evil franchise comes in the form of an asymmetrical survival-horror game called Project Resistance. Project Resistance is a 4v1 multiplayer game in the same vein as Friday the 13th and Dead by Daylight, where four-players must work together against the Mastermind to make their way through a variety of locations that are filled with hordes of zombies, lickers, traps, and Resident Evil 2 Remake’s unstoppable Tyrant. Game Rant was able to go hands-on with Project Resistance in a 10-minute demo at Microsoft’s X019 Xbox event.

Project Resistance is being developed using Capcom's RE Engine, which surprisingly isn't named after the Resident Evil series, the same engine used for the Resident Evil 2 Remake and Devil May Cry 5, two recent Capcom games that were praised for their visuals. Despite featuring a single-player mode, the playable Project Resistance demo was purely a showcase for the multiplayer where we were able to play a full match as one of the Survivors that was trapped in what looked like a section of the Raccoon City Police Department, although not any of the sections found in Resident Evil 2 Remake.

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A full-length match lasts roughly 10-minutes and has a total of five players, four playing as the Survivors and the fifth playing the role of the Mastermind. Trapped in Raccoon City after being captured and imprisoned by Umbrella, the Survivors are a group of teenagers described as “youth with different backgrounds” that need to escape the facility before the timer runs out. We managed to play one of the survivors, a Damage class character by the name of Samuel Jordan who excels at close-quarters combat due to his past as an up-and-coming professional boxer.

For the survivors, the match began in a dimly lit car park in the middle of the night with little more than a single street light and street fire to light the way. The level was full of tight corners and long hallways meaning that the environment quickly began to get claustrophobic once enemies started to pour in. The car park was the first of multiple areas that we had to make our way through to get to the end of the mission, each containing an objective that needs to be completed before the survivors can progress. Progression usually involves finding three hidden puzzle pieces either in the environment or attached to enemies, before everyone gathers at the door to the next area.

Starting off with nothing more than a wooden bat as a weapon, items are scattered all over the environment including ammo and Resident Evil's traditional herbs, and players are able to equip items, hold them in their inventory, or drop them on the ground for another player in the party using the D-pad. We quickly moved out of the first room to another section of the car park that led to a locked-door that was preventing us from getting into the nearest building.

Getting inside the building was fairly simple. There were only a couple of Zombies and they're slow in getting up from the ground which means that 3-4 hits can take them out before they're even standing, and the objective was to find three puzzle pieces, which again, wasn't too difficult considering the size of the environment; the door was open before the zombies were killed. It was in the second room where things started to get interesting as this was when the Mastermind started to get involved. The Mastermind's goal is to prevent the Survivors from escaping at all costs and in order to do so, they have a variety of tools at their disposal.

The view of the Mastermind is similar to Five Nights at Freddy’s, where the player can view each area through security cameras or an overhead view of the map with each survivor highlighted. The Mastermind has the ability to place down different traps including Bear Traps, place enemies in a specific location, and turn any security camera into a remote turret. Almost immediately upon entering the main building, we were attacked by multiple dogs that are faster and more agile than regular Zombies. That was soon followed by a combination of zombies, dogs, and turrets that were all standing in the way of locating three puzzle pieces that had to be combined to unlock the next room. If enough damage is done to a survivor, they get knocked down and will need to be revived by another player before the group can progress.

In the fast-paced moment-to-moment gameplay, it's hard to get time to appreciate the beauty of the RE Engine. Each of the areas felt fully-realized and had an impressive amount of detail, however, the character models felt a little pale in comparison. When it comes to performance the demo actually ran very well with little to no hiccups throughout. The only real problem was the controls which felt pretty clunky in the same way the original game did, only in a multiplayer game, clunky controls makes for frustrating gameplay rather than “survival-horror.” Unfortunately, the third room is where the demo ended as the Mastermind was able to overpower the survivors quickly once the Tyrant was introduced.

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Project Resistance Mastermind

Despite needing updates to performance and how the game controls, Project Resistance is sure to please fans of the asymmetrical survival-horror genre. It will be interesting to see how Project Resistance compares to games like Friday the 13th and Dead by Daylight, the latter of which has a strong fan base and just recently added the Demogorgon from Stranger Things.

Resident Evil is a beloved survival-horror franchise that will always sell very well, as evidenced by Resident Evil 2 Remake's 4.7 million units sold since January. The problem is that the franchise has had a significant number of less than stellar spin-off games that have left a pretty bad taste in the mouths of fans and Project Resistance has a long way to go before it changes anyone's mind.

Project Resistance is in development for PS4 and Xbox One.

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