I feel bad for RE9

I honestly feel bad for Resident Evil 9.
Capcom keeps talking about “a character’s journey” and “growth through fear,” but if you look at how Resident Evil campaigns actually work, that idea doesn’t really fit.

These stories usually take place over a single night or day of chaos. You can’t go from terrified civilian to hardened survivor in a few hours and expect it to feel genuine. Other series do character growth right — real growth takes time. You don’t turn from Ethan into Chris in six hours.

Look at Leon example. Leon between RE2 and RE4 is textbook earned growth:

• In RE2, he’s a rookie cop on his first day, completely unprepared.
• Between games, years pass — he trains, joins government service, becomes a professional.
• By RE4, that development shows — his confidence, skill, composure, even humor all come from experience, not a single night of trauma.

That’s why his transformation feels believable.

Capcom says the story will focus on the protagonist’s transformation, but based on how short RE campaigns are and how vague the marketing’s been, that “journey” probably just means she stops tripping while running away.

On top of that, we’re less than four months from release, preorders are live and we still haven’t seen any real combat footage. The demo didn’t show a single fight, which is insane for a franchise literally built around combat mechanics. You don’t call a feature action-oriented third-person gameplay and then show zero action.

And you don’t spend time creating a full distraction mechanic for a five-minute teaser unless it’s a core part of the game. Does that mean most of the campaign will end up being hide-and-seek, padded with the same slow, scripted sequences we’ve already seen? The demo feels more like a stealth-horror test than the foundation of an action-horror game.