Capcom's hallmark franchise Resident Evil is one of the most well-known survival-horror series in video game history. While the newer games have seen success on their own, equally successful have been the stellar remakes Capcom has released of Resident Evil 2 and 3.
The approach has clearly worked for Capcom, and it seems to be influencing the future of Resident Evil as well, with a potential Resident Evil 4 Remake in the works. Capcom even put out a survey in 2020 asking fans if they would like to see more games remade.
Despite Capcom's enthusiasm with remaking games, there are certain titles in the Resident Evil franchise that will likely stay stuck in the past. Here are a few Resident Evil remakes that are unlikely to ever happen.
Resident Evil 6
Resident Evil 6 is one of the more divisive entries in the series, known for pushing the franchise too far into the action game side of things. The biggest problem with Resident Evil 6 is that it's a game that feels like it doesn't know what it wants to be. One second it's the typical survival-horror experience, the next it's an adrenaline-fueled shooter or a melee-focused brawler. Resident Evil 6 is all over the place, and it doesn't do anything exceptionally well. That's not even mentioning how convoluted the story feels, or the lack of a compelling villain. Capcom would likely rather forget Resident Evil 6 happened than bring it back, evidenced by how wildly different the series has been ever since. Because of that, and it being a more modern entry, it's unlikely that Resident Evil 6 will ever see anything beyond a simple remaster.
Resident Evil Survivor
Resident Evil Survivor is a game from a bygone era, a first-person rail-shooter-style game that isn't actually on rails. The strangest thing about Survivor is that it tries to stick to the slow, methodical pacing of the series, even while focusing on shooting. To make matters even worse, the game has a wholly-forgettable story and a graphical presentation that doesn't even live up to the other Resident Evil titles on PS1. More than anything, Survivor felt like a half-baked spinoff idea that wasn't given the time it needed to really coalesce. Resident Evil returned to the rail-shooter idea later on with Umbrella Chronicles, and, of course, the newest entries, Resident Evil 7 and Village, are first-person shooters. There's no way Capcom would return to remake Resident Evil Survivor when they can simply carry on the current first-person style of the series.
Resident Evil Outbreak
Resident Evil Outbreak is another spinoff title that has some interesting ideas, and even features some ridiculous new enemies, like the zombie elephant. Ultimately, however, Outbreak fails to live up to the heights of the mainline series. The game takes place during the initial days after the T-Virus outbreak in Raccoon City and follows eight different characters in five different scenarios trying to survive. The stories start together before splitting off and then coming back together again at the end.
Outbreak was an online game, but the game's systems didn't give players a good way to communicate, due to a lack of voice chat. This made it easier to play Outbreak in single-player. More than other spinoffs Outbreak feels closer to the mainline Resident Evil games, but it simply fails to be as memorable. The story feels a bit lackluster and the gameplay suffers from a lack of interesting objectives. While it was interesting to see other people and locations in Raccoon City, it seems highly unlikely that Capcom would ever return to Outbreak, and instead choose to put its efforts into something new for Resident Evil.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and Umbrella Corps
Resident Evil has had a less-than-successful run in the world of multiplayer, with both of its major experiments falling completely flat. Operation Racoon City was the first of the two, developed by Zipper Interactive, the team behind the SOCOM series. In a twist, the game casts players as a group of elite soldiers working for Umbrella, offering twelve different class-based characters. The biggest problem with Operation Raccoon City is that it simply feels underdeveloped - like something is ultimately missing. It's simply fine in pretty much every regard but doesn't do anything to stand out from the mess of other competitive shooters. The same thing can be said for the game Umbrella Corps, which feels totally unrefined in every sense.
Past the problems in gameplay design, both titles were total flops in terms of sales and success. To this day Capcom is still trying different multiplayer formats with Resident Evil, but the publisher probably just wants to forget about Operation Raccoon City and Umbrella Corps.