If you’d told me in 1998, that the Resident Evil franchise would fall off to the extent Capcom needs to create something entirely new in that universe, I’d probably have a good laugh. There were times when Resident Evil was held up as the pinnacle of game design, both during the late 90’s and again with the release of RE4 in the early aughts, but the series has become rather stagnant in recent years. So it wasn’t a big surprise when Capcom announced plans to bring Umbrella Corps to PlayStation 4 and PC.
What was a surprise, as one of the millions of gamers who don’t particularly enjoy competitive shooters, is how much fun I had with Umbrella Corps. It’s pretty damn good, you guys.
Umbrella Corps is a third-person shooter where players assume the role of mercenaries from rival corporations. Hilariously enough, the in-game Umbrella Corporation – progenitors of the virus that nearly wiped mankind off the face of the earth – is no longer in business. But that doesn’t mean the defunct company’s presence isn’t still felt throughout the game. In fact, Umbrella’s collapse is the basis for Umbrella Corps’ thread-bare plot. Thankfully, the narrative isn’t the primary focus this time around.
In the wake of the Umbrella Corporation’s collapse, top-tier mercenaries have been hired by a variety of competing pharmaceutical companies, each of whom hopes to secure the various sites that Umbrella’s dirty work managed to destroy over the years. Naturally, this is where conflict arises. Thankfully, actual artifact collection never factors into the equation.
Each round of Umbrella Corps begins in much the same way as most competitive shooters. Teams begin the match at opposite ends of the map and are given a few seconds to make a plan for the upcoming round. If you’re at a LAN, or in Party Chat, you can obviously talk amongst yourselves. The game also includes a handy radial menu that lets you non-verbally communicate your plans to your allies. The goal is to take down all of the rival mercenaries before your team is defeated. But there’s a twist: zombies roam just about every corner of the map.
Now, to be clear, we’re talking about Dead Rising-esque crowds of zombies, standing shoulder to shoulder in crowds so thick it would be impossible to move from room to room. There are a few shamblers here and there, along with some strange, heavily deformed zombies that seemed to spawn from random piles of goo. The good news is that each mercenary is equipped with a zombie jammer; a small electronic device worn on one’s back to keep the zombie’s from attacking. The bad news is that jammer can be broken. And it turns out bullets do-so pretty effectively.
Of course, you can always just shoot your opponents in the head/body for the kill. Mercenaries bleed just like any normal person. But the zombie jammers add an interesting mechanic to the game because it actually makes it possible for players to use the undead against one another. There were numerous situations during my five-round demo when a player’s jammer would get damaged, forcing them to retreat deeper into the complex, only to have their position given away by the hordes of undead now chasing them around the facility. In one case, my team didn’t even have to kill the final mercenary from the other team. The zombies finished the job for us.
There are other mechanics in the game that emphasize teamwork, too. The abandoned facility being shown at PAX South included a heavy shutter door which must be lifted by a player in order to pass. Attempting to open the door leaves you exposed to who/whatever might be waiting on the other side, which could mean instant death, but having a teammate standing nearby ready to fire into the doorway can mitigate that risk while simultaneously giving your team a new route through the map.
Right now, Capcom is only showing one game mode from Umbrella Corps; a three-on-three match that doesn’t feel entirely dissimilar from Counter-Strike - if Valve’s iconic competitive shooter had zombies roaming the map and an actual cover system. Players each have one life and teams battle it out in a best-of-five series to determine who successfully claims the site and who returns to their employers empty-handed. And it turns out those are exactly the changes needed to rejuvenate the traditional Counter-Strike formula. I can’t spend more than 20-30 minutes with CS before I get bored and move on. But I felt like I could have played Umbrella Corps for hours. And there was only map in the demo.
In the current build, players battle it out inside a long-abandoned (and undead-infested) research complex. It’s a two-story facility, with plenty of nooks and crannies that can be used to get the drop on your opponents. But that won’t be the only battleground included in the game when Umbrella Corps debuts later this year. Capcom has plans to add the village from Resident Evil 4 and a building owned by Tricell, the company responsible for the Plaga outbreak in Resident Evil 5. And there’s more on the way.
Obviously, it’s a bit early to know where Umbrella Corps will fit into the grander scheme of things when Capcom’s new shooter makes it. But I can say I saw more than enough during PAX South to justify spending a few hours with the launch build of Umbrella Corps when it heads to PC and PlayStation 4.
Umbrella Corps is being developed for PC and PlayStation 4. The game is currently scheduled to debut, exclusively as a digital download, sometime in May.
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