Is Resident Evil really one of the pillars of game franchises?

[YUPPIE]

more than once have I seen it said over the years the Resident Evil franchise is one of the most important/significant video game IPs. Do you think that's true? And why is this said? In what ways has this franchise impacted the gaming industry than just making nice games once in a while?

[Malkiah]

more than once have I seen it said over the years the Resident Evil franchise is one of the most important/significant video game IPs.

... to the people for whom RE is an important/significant game, is the part of that statement which they are leaving out.

Do you think that's true?

generally no, but honestly i could be ignorant of how RE set the norms for certain gameplay elements long term.

And why is this said?

because humans are, generally speaking, utterly retarded.
they lack the capacity to understand there is a difference between "i like a thing" and "the thing i like is objectively significant in the grand scope of the physical universe" - therefor anything they like has to be the best of that thing that ever was, otherwise they have a pants-shitting temper tantrum.

In what ways has this franchise impacted the gaming industry than just making nice games once in a while?

now here is the good bit IMO, because there's an objective criteria we can use here to assess this claim - lots of things can be extremely influential without impacting certain people, so you just need to look at the environment before and after and see what the subject brought into the mix.

IMO there are 5 vitally important pillars by which video games are fundamentally based:
1. narrative structure and delivery (this is all aspects of story/plot/setting, including how it gets told within the game: ie, cut scenes or in-engine dialogue, etc)
2. gameplay mechanics (combat, physics, interaction with the world, tension and release, difficulty, how good it feels to get gear, all aspects of what it means to play the game)
3. interface mechanics (menus, inputs, HUDs, markers, everything that is related to the act of inputting to the game or interfacing with it in order to play it)
4. visuals (not just graphics power but the overall aesthetic, art choices, cinematography, color palettes, size perspectives, all that stuff)
5. sound (this one is simple enough i don't feel i need to go into detail)

IMO for a game or franchise to be accurately called significant or important, it must meaningfully define one or more of the 5 things above for that type of game.
doesn't mean it has to be the best at it, or the first to do it - it means that the way in which a given game did something set the standard for how other games in that genre did the same thing.

has the RE franchise contributed to any of the 5 core pillars of video games, or set the tone for how other games would utilize that aspect of game design in the future?
i think the answer is no... RE has never been a trend setter, it's always been a franchise that has lasted as long as it has because A. it's familiar, and B. it has changed its design over the years to match the trends set by other games.

[Maljinwo]

It did spawn a lot of copycats (Silent Hill among them)

Sure, alone in the dark was first, but RE put horror/survival horror in the map
And RE4 popularized the whole over the shoulder camera

The previous poster seems kinda salty with it for some reason tho

[Khaza-R]

I guess I would agree.

A pillar to me is a game that helped define a genre or was the basis of the genre itself. I think RE fits that criteria. I guess technically survival horror games existed in the SNES era in the likes of Clock Tower but it was nothing like what RE did for the genre once it hit the PS1 and went 3D.

[Zuben]

I mean, does any game franchise deserve such a status if we don't give it to one that's been consistently going on for three decades and kick-started a popular genre (if we ignore Alone In The Dark, which did it first but didn't popularize it)? It's like Zelda in that sense.

[Malkiah]

The previous poster seems kinda salty with it for some reason tho

not at all, just being pragmatic about it - if it can be objectively classified as such, it should be.

[Zenfoldor]

Well, RE on PS1 is the first real "scary" video game I played besides Phantasmagoria on PC. It was legit great with b movie feel and real survival horror, no wonder it popularized the genre. First feather in its cap right there.

As far as impact, iirc didn't Cliffy B state that RE4 influenced gears of war?

Also, yes, they do make really good games every once in a while. OP skims over that like it is not significant, but few companies can actually claim that as a reality.

As far as extra game modes, imo, mercenaries in RE4 is still the best one that has ever been added to any game(that I have played), and one of the main reasons RE4 stands above so many other games(so many people don't get RE4, but they never played mercenaries...).

[Maljinwo]

(so many people don't get RE4, but they never played mercenaries...).

How can you NOT play the mercenaries in RE4? It gives you the handcannon which is, arguably, the best weapon in the game

[Koriani]

I think that - objectively - historically - yes - Resident Evil would be considered a big "genre defining" game series when looking at its launch back on the PS1. I don't know that you could argue every game (individually) in the series is historically important, or even well done, but that the series itself is a "genre defining one."

As others have pointed out - it really was the first BIG hit in Survival Horror, even if it wasn't the first game to ever be created in the genre (or necessarily someone's favorite, or best, game in the genre). It really broke the genre out into the popular mindset of gamers (rather than niche games), proved you could make money off the genre, and established the 'norms' of what made Survival Horror - Survival Horror.

I mean even if you think Pong is the stupidest game ever designed - its still historically significant and a 'pillar' of gaming because it was the FIRST home "console", mass produced, game available. Regardless of how simplistic or 'boring' it would be seen as today, its historical importance can't be denied. And that's where I think, absolutely, you can say the same about RE and its place in gaming history.

And I can acknowledge all that while also saying I, personally, never enjoyed playing RE because I don't enjoy playing survival horror. I like watching others play them - but I'm too frustrated by the limited ammo/save points/constant dying to enjoy playing anything in this genre myself without cheat codes =D. I can remember renting several editions of the various RE releases (don't remember which ones specifically now) and barely getting an hour into any of them before giving up in frustration - despite how much I wanted to see the game story play out. But my personal preferential experiences have nothing to do with being able to acknowledge that RE was a "pillar" in defining the genre when it was new.

Wether one can say it remains a "pillar", or quality example of the genre now, 20+ years into its evolution is up for others (or yourself) to decide or discuss. I would have no clue if it still is or isn't, as I don't play them (for the reasons above). But it doesn't have to remain a pillar in the genre now, to have been one historically.

[Tojara]

You could use other examples for RE games prior to 4, but 4 alone pretty much revolutionized the game industry, especially when it comes to over the shoulder third person perspective. Lots of game developers praised it and since copied that design. If you look to prior games nothing like RE4 existed, but if you look after it's creation it inspired dozens upon dozens of pretty critically acclaimed games (with it being insanely popular itself).

Others would probably cite the game as being one of the first main stream popular horror games to hit the market, but the big one is the perspective introduced in RE4.

[Itisamuh]

Definitely. It created a very popular sub genre of games in survival horror, is by far the biggest success in the zombie craze, and remains successful after many years and games. I personally lost interest when it switched from zombies to crazy people, and strayed from survival horror into action, but either way it definitely left its mark in gaming.

[Wondercrab]

RE1 and RE4 were very influential titles in the industry. As a franchise as a whole it's had a lot of misfires, though. Like a lot of popular IPs, it's mostly a few stand-out titles that define its popularity, while the series as a whole is more of a mixed bag.

[Hotmail]

You know a game is influential when it spawns a ton of clones; some were notoriously garbo like Countdown Vampires or Clock Tower II, while others turned out to be surprisingly good. Avalanche Reviews posted a retrospective on Youtube not too long ago, it's worth a look if you're interested in the history of the genre.

For my part, I haven't cared much about an RE title since the 4/5 era. 4 needs no introduction while 5, despite the boulder punching memes, was quite an enjoyable co-op experience. RE2 Remake was also quite impressive from a 3D artistry standpoint; I think the most realistic video game gore award definitely goes to that game.

So is RE a pillar of game franchises? Certainly, it doesn't really have a competitor in the Horror genre since other series such as Silent Hill or Fatal Frame have long since dropped out of the race. Even Capcom's own titles like Onimusha or Dino Crisis were dropped because nothing sold better than RE.

[Grinning Serpent]

RE is a "pillar" in that it has substantially affected gaming as a whole in some ways. Resident Evil 1 produced a lot of "firsts", not just one of which was being a scary game on a major new console. Resident Evil 4 had even more "firsts," and probably has more impact on gaming than other titles in the series.

I would put Resident Evil in similar company as Warcraft, Diablo, Baldur's Gate, Half-Life, Super Mario 64, and so on. These are each titles or franchises that dramatically altered the gaming landscape in the future, although sometimes their biggest effects aren't felt much outside of their core genres. Resident Evil took a lot of action game concepts (inspired heavily by games like Alone in the Dark, The 7th Guest, and so on) and added in meaningful, real-time action and controls and it turned out to be a gameplay format that players went bananas for, even moreso once the Dual Shock was developed and a DS-compatible version of the game was produced.

In terms of being lucrative, Resident Evil is definitely one of the most valuable IPs. The fact that it pulls in numbers as large as it does, while being a niche genre like horror, proves how incredibly valuable it is. That would certainly make it a "pillar," as well.