If it weren’t for Leon and the rest of the S.T.A.R.S., I think the entire world would have eaten its own brains at this point. I mean, c’mon, even the President is a zombie in Resident Evil 6. I’d say the world has pretty much ended, at least the world as we know it.
That won’t stop Leon, Chris, newcomer Jake (who is actually Wesker’s son!), and their cooperative partners from fighting the good fight against the zombie hordes, whether it’s in Europe, China, or at home in America. It’s really okay if you’re lacking any idea as to what’s going on, you’re not alone.
Truthfully, though, you’re not alone. Resident Evil 6 carries over the cooperative mechanic as seen in Resident Evil 5. But with three separate campaigns to choose from, you’ll be crossing over with other pairs of zombie hunters throughout the campaign. It sounds more confusing than it is, and allows for the main story to unfold in different ways.
At E3 2012, producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi detailed a crossover system that will allow four players to fight off the undead together. Think of it like the multiplayer system in From Software’s Souls series. You won’t necessarily be teaming up with another pair of players from your friends list. Instead, if you’re playing a section of the game that features a team-up in the story, Capcom’s network will find another pair of players in the appropriate campaign section. Replacing the AI protagonists in one of these challenging campaign sections makes the fight for survival mean something.
Each campaign intersects at different points within the main ongoing story, and can be played at any time—meaning you don’t need to progress to any certain point to trigger another character’s story to begin. And while each branch has its own flavor, you may revisit certain areas as other characters, which make all of your decisions have possibly negative (or positive) implications who ever shows up to the party second. A weapon or other vital item may be missing, making that fight for survival all the more difficult.
With three campaigns of varying horror, action, and intensity, Hirabayashi said that Resident Evil 6 will feature roughly two and a half times as much content as found in RE5‘s campaign. That’s a lot of zombies to punch with Chris Redfield’s massive, bulging biceps.
Resident Evil 6 releases on October 2nd, 2012 for the PS3.
