According to a reliable Resident Evil leaker, the ninth mainline game has been internally delayed at Capcom. Per Dusk Golem (and shared from a Discord message by ResetEra user Blackbird), Resident Evil 9 was reportedly set for a 2024 reveal before a 2025 release, but this has been pushed back. In the screenshotted message, Dusk Golem also states that a different Resident Evil game (the rumored RE5 Remake maybe?) could take its place.

A Delayed Game Is Eventually Good...

It’s a cliche at this point to trot out Shigeru Miyamoto’s famous, but unfortunately fake, take on game delays — “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad” — but it’s a cliche for a reason. The sentiment is true enough that many other industry figures have said similar. Valve’s Gabe Newell, for instance, said, “Late is just for a little while, suck is forever.” He definitely said that one, too, it’s on video.

Players may get frustrated when they have to wait for an anticipated game, but they’ll be furious if a game they’ve salivated over, saved up for, preordered, and taken off work to playlaunches in an unfinished state. Imagine how different CD Projekt Red’s reputation would be now if it had launched Cyberpunk 2077 a couple years later, with the improvements that were eventually added with the Phantom Liberty expansion, rather than hitting the 2020 deadline it clearly wasn’t ready for? CDPR has gone through a redemption arc in the years since, but it wouldn’t have needed one if it had given the game time to cook.

In that same post, Dusk Golem says that internal delays aren’t unusual for the Resident Evil series, and that other games in the series have hit similar rough spots in the middle of development. It’s normal, and it especially makes sense given what we’ve heard about the kind of game Resident Evil 9 will be.

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...A Rushed Game Is Forever Bad

Reportedly, Resident Evil 9 will be the first open-world game in the series, and as a fan, that’s exciting. I loved Resident Evil 7, but it felt like the first-person iteration on the series was running out of gas by Resident Evil Village. More than most franchises, Resident Evil needs to be reimagined frequently. The action-adventure gameplay that worked so well for Resident Evil 4 had worn out its welcome by Resident Evil 6. RE7’s stripped-down FPS horror was a needed corrective to get the series back on track. These things tend to work out over three game arcs (Resident Evil through RE3, RE4 through 6) but as development cycles have swelled in recent years, it wouldn’t be surprising to see that reset happen after two games instead.

As much as I think the series needs a change, moving to an open-world format comes with such a host of challenges that it may well take the team at Capcom some time to become equipped to handle. A team that has largely made linear horror games is going to need to figure out how they can apply what they know to an open-world format. How do you make a wide open space as frightening as a tight corridor? How do you scare the player when, instead of a dead end, you give them room to run? What's the proper ratio of dopamine to adrenaline in the open-world horror cocktail? How do you give the player a checklist, then convince them that "Run!" is the only objective that matters?

So, a delay is welcome in my book. I want Capcom to take the time to get this right. Especially because, if history is any indicator, we’ll get at least one more game in this mode before Resident Evil lumbers on to the next hot-blooded genre.

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