Summary

• Resident Evil 9 may feature an open world inspired by Monster Hunter, expanding the survival-horror franchise in a new direction.
• Leaker AestheticGamer suggests Capcom greenlights new initiatives in groups of 3, signaling an exciting future for Resident Evil 9.
• While an open-world Resident Evil may sound strange, past franchise elements like Resident Evil: Village's hub world could pave the way.

A new report alleges that Resident Evil 9 be bigger than ever as it may incorporate a popular mechanic from another massively popular Capcom game. After the successful revitalization of the survival-horror franchise with 2017's Resident Evil 7, the series has jumped back and forth between new releases that advance the overall narratives and remakes of older games. Given that the most recent title was the Resident Evil 4 remake, the community is confident that Resident Evil 9 should be announced in the near future.

Per leaker AestheticGamer on X (formerly Twitter), Resident Evil 9 will feature an open world inspired by the Monster Hunter franchise, most notably Wild, the most recently announced entry.

This will be achieved by expanding on how Dragon's Dogma 2 used the Reach for the Moon Engine to create a massive, detailed world map, with the leaker suggesting that this system will be further iterated upon in the next Resident Evil without sacrificing the series' core DNA. It's worth noting that while the report has yet to be confirmed, AestheticGamer has a decent track record when it comes to Capcom.

Would Resident Evil Work In An Open World?

While the idea of a full-blown open-world Resident Evil may sound strange to fans of the franchise, it's worth noting that the series has dabbled in similar concepts in the past. Resident Evil: Village, the eighth game, allowed players to explore a hub world that housed plenty of secrets, hidden paths, and equipment-gated locations while also branching off into several distinct levels. While the map wasn't gigantic, the slow pace of the game made trekking from one end of it to the other a tense experience which, coupled with the various enemies encountered on the way, never became boring.

It's worth noting further that Resident Evil and Monster Hunter are two fundamentally unique concepts with wildly different design principles. Were the former to incorporate an open-world system, it would need to make some major adjustments to the core gameplay loop to accommodate for wide open spaces rather than tight interiors and isolated locales that the franchise generally leans upon. Whether or not this comes to is still unknown so fans will just need to wait for an official update from Capcom.

Capcom's Latest Open-World Game Is A Huge Success

While Resident Evil 9 may not have been officially announced, Capcom recently found major success with Dragon's Dogma 2, an open-world fantasy RPG that received glowing reviews from critics. One of the most lauded aspects of the game is its surprising inclusion of microtransactions but if a similar open-world map is created for Resident Evil 9, fans should be pleased with the outcome.

Source: AestheticGamer/X