Resident Evil multiplayer title doesn’t have enough players to fill a lobby
While Capcom has an acclaimed legacy of delivering thrilling single-player games, its multiplayer history is a little more checkered. Now, another Capcom title has risen and fallen almost as quickly as it was released. Alas, Resident Evil Re:Verse, we hardly knew ye.
The long-running Resident Evil series has been taking a bite out of the competition since 1996, and in 2023, it is still one of the biggest horror IPs out there. Up there with Mega Man, Resident Evil is one of Capcom's longest-standing franchises, so it stands that not every title will be a chart-topping success.
Resident Evil Re:Verse is in trouble
Click to enlargeIf you haven't heard much about Resident Evil Re:Verse, it sounds like you aren't alone. The third-person multiplayer was announced as part of the franchise's 25th anniversary in 2021, and although it was supposed to launch alongside Village, it slipped into the abyss.
By the time Re:Verse was released in October 2022, most had given up being excited about it. A well-stocked roadmap was supposed to keep us coming back to this Resi-inspired take on the Dead by Daylight formula, but instead, Re:Verse has limped toward the end of 2023.
As noted by PCGamesN, Re:Verse has been struggling to pull in enough players on Steam to fill a lobby. Re:Verse requires six players to fill its Deathmatch lobby, and with SteamDB confirming it regularly dips below the minimum, it could be time to take a shotgun to this shuffling zombie.
At the time of writing, Re:Verse has nine players, but if you look at the bigger picture, it's dipped to a low of just four players on November 30 and December 5. December 2 had a peak of 18, meaning yes, three games were able to run at once. Even then, an all-time peak of 2,115 hardly makes it the next PUBG.
What's next for Resident Evil?
Click to enlargeThankfully, for every Re:Verse, there are a slew of games making up for this rare miss for Capcom. Alongside the pricey mobile phone ports of the Resident Evil 4 remake and Village, there's the terrifying VR version of RE4. Capcom has promised more remakes, naturally pointing to a Resident Evil 5 remake next.
Still, there are hopes that the overlooked Code: Veronica will earn its rightful place among the rest of the developer's acclaimed remakes. Looking to the future instead of the past, there's also the eventual release of Resident Evil 9.
Following the success of the series since RE7 took the Resiverse back to its horror roots in 2017, RE9 will mark the end of another trilogy - although we've heard it likely won't focus on the Winters family. We're hoping that Capcom will be throwing a kitchen sink of characters at us, after all, it's about time Jill Valentine returned.
For now, Resident Evil Re:Verse is confined to the franchise's archives with the likes of Resident Evil: Resistance and Operation Raccoon City. Unless it's Mercenaries, maybe Capcom should stick to delivering those beloved Resi single-player stories.
