When Resident Evil Outbreak released in 2003, I thought that the series had reached its highest point in immersive entertainment with its diverse four player campaigns. Finally, I could play the horror franchise I loved with my friends, and they could share in my endless nightmare of zombie madness. Fast-forward to over thirteen years later, I was once again stoked for the upcoming Umbrella Corps and my hopes were high that it could recapture some rare moments of Outbreak's fun multiplayer gameplay.
Umbrella Corps saw some delays and finally released on June 21, 2016. After several hours of playing through Umbrella Corps, it is definitely a game that should have been delayed a little longer, and the released version feels more like an arcade game than that of a full-fledged release.
The Resident Evil series was a staple in the gamer that I later became and defined my choices in games over the next decade. I was always looking for that next game that was similar in nature to the gameplay found in Resident Evil and was like a junkie looking for my next fix. I was drawn to series that could put me into an everlasting state of fear like Silent Hill, Parasite Eve, Fatal Frame, F.E.A.R. and the like--but nothing ever compared to Resident Evil.
After years of waiting for a game similar to Outbreak, Umbrella Corps managed to disappoint in so many ways that I literally put down the controller after an hour of gameplay and curled up into the fetal position to cry myself to sleep.
Umbrella Corps puts players into the role of a mercenary looking to make some extra moola off what remains of the Umbrella Corporation. There is no real storyline here and gamers battle it out in 3vs3 matches across varied environments from the Resident Evil universe. The multiplayer portion, if you can call it that, literally lasts mere minutes before you are annoyingly back in the lobby trying to find more people to play with. These death matches have no respawns and leaves little to be desired in the fun factor segment.
The next game mode in Umbrella Corps is the Multi-mission that has five rounds with a random game being chose at the start of each one. There are around eight match types and you do have respawns--which gives gamers a little more replayability than the 3vs3 deathmatch. Some of the game matches have you defending your VIP, collecting DNA samples, securing points and collecting items. While there is a lot of varied gameplay here, it isn't anything you haven't seen before in every other multiplayer game out there today.
The third-person shooter does throw in some zombies--which are scattered throughout the various multiplayer maps. These flesh eaters practically ignore you unless you poke them with a stick. The first game I jumped into--I ultimately was trying to kill the zombies around me and while being distracted--was then took out by the enemy team.
If you get fed up with the multiplayer portion then don't expect much from the game's single player campaign--because it is just as boring, or maybe a tad bit more so then the multiplayer segment. You are basically tasked with killing countless zombies and collecting DNA samples over and over again until you literally want to shoot yourself in the head. If you play enough levels, you can eventually unlock a new objective to continue the journey of everlasting boredom.
In the end, Umbrella Corps is a very disappointing game that has very few redeeming moments to bring it back from the pits of “subpar” hell. Killing zombies in new, brutal ways with the "brainer" combat axe was some of the few entertaining moments of the entire game.
I never in my lifetime thought I would say a Resident Evil game sucked and feel that this moment will forever change how I view survival horror and shooter games from this point on. Now I must go on and question the whole gaming industry and life in general. Thank you Capcom for destroying the beautiful nightmares that I could have had. Fingers crossed that Resident Evil 7 will be nothing like Umbrella Corps.
Reviewed for PS4