'Resident Evil 9' Apparently Already In The Works At Capcom

Okay, so this is one of those posts, where you should totally take what's written as a possibility, and not as anything remotely close to facts. Strictly rumour territory this - but also, rumour territory underpinned with a healthy dose of, sure, why wouldn't they be doing that, already?

According to Comicbook, who cite a relatively well-regarded leaker of horror-centric games stuff, Capcom are already working on a ninth mainline Resident Evil game. To which I say: cool? With Resident Evil Village, the eighth main-series title, out this year (on May 7th, to be exact), there's no doubt in my mind that its makers will already be planning its successor. That's how the AAA games business works.

When you've a surefire thing like Resi - which has combined sales of well over 100 million units, making it Capcom's most successful series ever - you're not likely to wait on the performance of one game before beginning work on the next. Also, large studios always have a wealth of projects in the planning stages, at any given time - most of which never see the light of day, some of which get altered along the way and morph into something else, and a few are franchise entries that are green-lit with confidence. A ninth Resident Evil? Can you imagine it not happening?

Anyway, back to this fresh rumour - which isn't really saying anything that anyone with an understanding of video games couldn't already assume. Comicbook writes that Twitter user AestheticGamer has posted that Resident Evil 9 is in the works and could release as early as 2024.

Now given that Village's development began around 2017, giving it a good four years from its first flickers of creative life to release, it's completely fair to assume that Capcom's next game in the series could take a comparable length of time, or even less (same engine, same target platforms, maybe it'll be quicker). And with Village now wrapping up, with work focused on squashing bugs and refinements over core design pillars, the Resi-focused team at Capcom is almost certainly well into whatever comes next, be it a continuation of Village or a fresh approach.

So, 2024? Seems a fair guess. Or maybe 2025 if the ninth game replicates the gap between the seventh and eighth, as Resident Evil 7: Biohazard released in early 2017. As for the record of AestheticGamer, who's a game developer themselves, they've previously posted plenty about the as-yet-unconfirmed Silent Hill reboot/revival, and has been on the money regarding Village, too. But if we take a step back from the excitement of the idea of a new Resident Evil already being in development, and consider how games are made: yeah, of course a new game's likely to be on the go at Capcom. In addition to the next remake they absolutely have up their sleeves.

In other Resi-related content, check out this Unreal Engine 4 take on the all-timer that is Resident Evil 4.

Topics: Resident Evil, Capcom