Early thoughts on Res Evil chapter

I am really happy with the character choices, and there will definitely at least be one legendary skin for Jill and Leon from the start! I don’t need those though.. (well if it’s gonna be Carlos..)

Nemesis power seems interesting, I like the idea of killer-specific survivor items (had that in one of my concepts as well), I guess the tier up especially when survs don’t use the vaccine needs some refinement otherwise I liked what I saw on the PTB

I feel like I'm the only one who's a tad disappointed with this chapter...

Nope. I hate indoor maps and I was expecting alot more from Nemesis.

Same.

You're not the only one, obviously, but I do find it curious that there isn't a larger voicing of discontentment with the chapter. Well, maybe that will come once the chapter actually releases, but given the PTB and what we've seen of it, and given that most of the time most of the things don't change much at all from PTB to live initially, certainly not in substantial ways, I think there is plenty reason for disappointment.

Visually I think the chapter is completely competent and of good quality. Leon is pretty much identical to his remake model, as is the map from what I can tell, and I like the "Entity's touch" on it well enough. The corrupted statue in the main hall looks really cool particularly, it's a sort of symbol for the iconicity of this collaboration. Jill's model is fairly different from her remake model, and I suspect this is due to the fact that her remake face was modelled after a real person. I prefer Capcom's Jill, but I don't dislike her BHVR face, it looks just a bit odd perhaps, not necessarily in a bad way however. Her posture and outfit are not completely polished, but eh, good enough I guess. Nemesis is actually also fairly distinct from the remake model. I don't know why they did this (his face is not modelled after a real person, or at least I hope it isn't, lol), but I have to say that I surprisingly even like their Nemesis model. I would say it's equally as good if not even better than Capcom's. One interesting difference I noticed in particular is that while Capcom's Nemesis has a completely white eye that is embedded in a surrounding structure consisting basically entirely of scar tissue, BHVR's Nemesis' eye area is more defined, as is the eye itself, with an iris and even pupil. This allows to see the human origins behind Nemesis more clearly, and with the nose that Capcom had given the remake model they already wanted to show this humanity more, presumably to play on this disparity of human and monster. Especially in the trailer BHVR's Nemesis looks really cool. For trailers the artists always touch up the models (and sometimes so extensively that they are very distinct from the actual in-game models, such as in Yui's case), but his in-game model is still fairly similar to the trailer one.

The audio design is also good for the most part and might even still be improved upon - as far as I know that's one of the last things BHVR works on and in PTBs it's usually not finalized.

But other than that, the chapter fails to hit the heights of expectations that come with a collaboration of this magnitude. Resident Evil is the biggest and most prominent franchise in horror game history, the characters are iconic even well beyond horror fans, and I think their gameplay implementation in DbD does not do them justice. To begin with, the perks pretty much all fall within the range of bad to mediocre, none of them are true metagame-changers by much of any stretch. Now while that unfortunately has long come to be expected with new releases in this game, these characters are known to be fighters that are particularly notable in their strengths and resilience. It was already going to be strange and a bit of a letdown to have Resident Evil without guns, so at the very least these characters could have come with notably strong perks that pay tribute to their prowess in fighting back, or of course on the other side to how relentless and imposing of an enemy the Nemesis is. And the thing is, even guns could actually have been implemented as well, there's a variety of ways in which they could work, be it by them merely being able to slow killers down for a moment, or even by only ever being in play against Nemesis. BHVR did say in a press release that this chapter would come with new ways to sacrifice and survive, and while that is obviously not the case, imagine if it actually did introduce a new gameplay loop, such as one where Nemesis is completely overpowered and survivors thus get these guns to fight back, or one where survivors are basically guaranteed to die but can win by achieving other objectives, or yet one where survivors have to survive by hiding from and evading Nemesis until a timer runs out. These just as ideas for how interesting such new ways to sacrifice and survive could be, and how even guns could play into that. This is the type of exciting stuff that I assumed RE fans would expect or at least hope for from an RE chapter in DbD, so that there isn't a new gameplay loop nor even any particularly gameplay-changing perks should already be a huge letdown.

And then there are Nemesis' abilities. Or ability, I should say. The AI zombies are a fairly fun and cool and certainly a new thing for the game, and while there are still issues with the AI that will become all the more apparent once the chapter is live (zombies getting stuck, not reacting properly, being able to be evaded around gens, etc.), my issue with them is that they are not a reliable or engaging part of Nemesis' kit - they are a glorified passive ability that can randomly benefit the killer but overall is not something the killer can proactively make use of. That leaves us with the tentacle strike, or more accurately, the tentacle whip. I can't see how this ability isn't strictly worse than Pyramid Head's Punishment. From what I've seen and experienced, I would say it puts Nemesis around the upper mid to lower high tier in comparative strength, and that's just not cutting it for such an iconic and conceptually "overpowered" character. But even regardless of its strength, the ability is pretty boring. It's just another ranged hit ability with slightly changed mechanics. Nemesis in the original is a crazy package of powers that literally blew people away, particularly the ability to use weaponry. They could have used a wide variety of special abilities, even without necessarily introducing a flamethrower or rocket launcher (which could however also totally work in DbD), even the ability we see in the trailer would be a lot more impressive than the whip we got. Between those weapons, the various uses of the tentacles such as throwing people and slinging himself around, the dashes and jumps, the screams, the infecting of zombies with the tentacle parasite to turn them into more dangerous creatures, there could have been so many exciting and engaging abilities to equip Nemesis with that the whip is just such a painfully lame excuse for. It doesn't make him nearly oppressive or intimidating enough to face, it doesn't make him all that engaging or exciting to play, it completely fails to translate his imposing persona of a brutally relentless and over-equipped super soldier, the tentacle strike with its literal whip noises is actually pretty silly.

What's also silly is the tentacle whip's range, hitzone, hit mechanics over obstacles, and the laughably lackluster ways in which it changes with the mutation tiers. Being able to break pallets with the ability is certainly neat, but since it takes about the same time as a regular pallet break and merely allows Nemesis to move very slowly during this time, it's basically akin to a Quality-of-Life feature more than an actual powerful ability - an ability that a variety of other killers have available at base, at that. And then at the final tier the range increases by the enormous amount of one meter... and that's it. The entire tier system is pretty silly to be honest. It is certainly integral to Nemesis in the original that he mutates and gets more powerful as the game progresses, and so this is what I suspect BHVR tried to replicate with the tier system, but it is again a lame excuse for as much. Nemesis does not get noticably more powerful with the tier-ups, and the "mutation" is just his forearm growing some pest bubbles.

Nemesis should have a much more enagaging and compelling ability set, that also makes him more uniquely impressive and threatening. I can't see how any RE fan can look at this Nemesis implementation and not find it to be a fairly sad one. (And I mean, RE: Resistance exists, an asymmetrical arcade-style multiplayer action game by Capcom that also features Nemesis, and his gameplay implementation there is just objectively better.) More than that, any fan of exciting and unique gameplay should be disappointed with this Nemesis implementation. Yeah the zombies are unique and can make for some pretty funny or cool gameplay situations, but for the most part that's a novelty gimmick that will wear off pretty fast since it isn't player interaction. Nemesis himself with his whip is not an interesting and exciting killer to play or face in much of any unique way. That doesn't mean he isn't at all fun or engaging to play as and against, ranged abilities always make for fairly fun and engaging gameplay, but he is not out-standingly exciting or engaging to play as and against, not particularly cool or fun in doing so. And again, not out-standingly strong either, which also inherently makes him more forgettable, not least due to the fact that he will just not be played that much and therefore not seen all that frequently, after a few weeks and months.

I had hoped for much more of a bombshell of a chapter given the scale of the collaboration as well as the fact that the previous two chapters had already been fairly lackluster in terms of gameplay design, so I do have to say I'm disappointed with what we're set to be getting. I will still most likely buy the chapter, play Jill and Nemesis a good bit, and it will not be "unfun" or boring to mess around with some of the new perks, with Nemesis and the zombies, with the new map, but yeah, it just won't be anything too special or remarkable either.

I like the survivors an their perks.

No opinion really on nemesis, but I absolutely adore the zombies.

The map looks like a beautiful disaster.

I can't wait.

Yeah, your previous post in essence already captured most of what I wanted to express. But as opposed to you I'm not so impressed by the perks of the chapter either, at all. I really don't think they will have a notable or lasting impact on the gameplay, and that is precisely what these characters' perks should have, and of course, what most of any good perk should. They also didn't bring any new items with them, like guns, or something for survivors to break breakable walls with, or just anything to yield new and exciting gameplay. Well, there is the perk-based flashbang grenade, but that's actually just a glorified firecracker, so again nothing new, nor particularly interesting. That it doesn't give the killer as obvious a warning before it goes off is neat, it will make for some fun insta-blind plays, but that's also what it mostly is, a fun perk. It's far from a strong perk, it has no real hope to lastingly affect the meta.

Plague's ability is actually better than Nemesis' tentacle whip. It has a much longer reach, can be curved over a wide variety of structures, obviously has a much larger hitzone, can hit multiple targets at once, she moves faster while holding it, can charge and cancel it faster, loses less distance on missed and successful hits, ... But of course, it's only really stronger if it is Corrupt Purge, and so given that she needs surivors to cleanse at fountains for that and to then manually activate Corrupt (ignoring add-ons of course), I do agree that Nemesis is pretty much a rather-similar-but-overall-slightly-better Plague, a rather derivative, uncreative and uninteresting gameplay design. Plus if we include add-ons, I would say Plague might actually have a slight edge. Nemesis' add-ons are almost all lackluster, and most notably, he does not have a single add-on that affects his active ability whatsoever. Plague on the other hand has a bunch of add-ons that consistently make her notably more dangerous and lethal. On indoor maps the zombies could actually prove to be pretty oppressive, but that's obviously situational. I guess Nemesis + indoor map offering might be comparable to Plague + good add-ons, then, lol.

He's definitely far from the spectacle I and I would assume many RE fans hoped he would be. And same for the perks, on both sides. I hope they will at least buff the tentacle strike significantly, also giving it more tangible power-ups with the mutation levels as well as add-ons. More than that, I hope they will at some point also add a secondary active ability, for which there is obviously a wide variety of possibilities for crazy, cool, engaging and compelling stuff to choose from even in the source material. I also hope they'll improve his sound design a little, for that matter - I want to hear him scream across the map, for him to scream the iconic "STARS" more often, and perhaps to have some of the more intimidating sound effects we can hear in the original. And I hope they'll also significantly buff all of the perks, which I however know they won't.

I do wonder what they meant with "novel ways to sacrifice or survive inspired by the renowned franchise". I guess the wording could be stretched to be talking about the zombies?... Whatever it was, it obviously didn't actually work out, the gameplay loop of the chapter is the same old through-and-through, but it would be interesting to know what their working concepts for this were. That could have potentially made for some really exciting stuff. Alas, we'll have to make do with another fairly unremarkable release that doesn't bring much of anything riveting new with it and will drift into "obscurity" as the weeks and months pass and the perks and killer will be seen less and less often. Which is pretty sad for an RE release.