Resident Evil 9 used to be an open-world co-op shooter but Capcom cancelled it

Capcom revealed that Resident Evil Requiem was originally intended to be a live service title, but scrapped the idea mid-development.

The Resident Evil series is one of the most iconic in gaming history, but it’s also gone through a number of massive changes over the years, going from a survival horror series to action and then right back to horror again.

For longtime fans of the pedigree survival horror franchise, it’s no doubt reassuring to hear that they stuck to their roots Considering the IP has traditionally always been a single-player, offline affair, completely upending Resi’s genre was always going to be a tough sell.

So, Capcom decided that, despite having some interesting ideas, that Resident Evil should stay a survival horror series.

RE9 was once a co-op open world shooter

While RE4 and RE5 were well-received upon launch, they skewed more toward being action games than true survival horror. RE6 was the real tipping point, and it’d take several years of development to get the iconic series back on track with RE7.

Capcom

RE9 Game Director Koshi Nakanishi explained that there were rumors around the latest series entry being an online co-op game, and he confirmed that those rumors were true – at one point, anyways.

“You might have heard some of the rumors, things like an online Resident Evil or an open-world Resident Evil, which we spent some time experimenting with,” he confirmed in a video on Resident Evil Portal.

“But in the end, although we had some interesting concepts, we realized that it wasn’t what fans wanted to see or play. So, we went back to the drawing board and created what led to Resident Evil: Requiem.”

Only a few short gameplay clips were shown of this early, pre-alpha version of the game, but there’s a lot of info that can be taken from these short snippets.

The screenshot show co-op gameplay where they have to help each other out in order to make it through levels. Anyone familiar with RE5 or RE6 will recognize this type of gameplay. Additionally, one character had healing abilities binded to the R1 and L1 shoulder buttons, while the other had a shield and a sledgehammer.

This is pure speculation, but the footage appears to show that one character is more support-oriented while the other is more oriented around offense.

It’s not as if the concept of a multiplayer Resident Evil could never work, but Capcom has tried multiple times in the past to take this series into the online sphere to little fanfare.

RE:Verse, a multiplayer-only title released in 2022 to celebrate the franchise’s 25th anniversary, closes its doors permanently on June 29, 2025, peaking at just over 2,000 players on Steam.

Likewise, Operation Raccoon City and Umbrella Corps, multiplayer-focused spinoffs released in 2012 and 2016, respectively, were received poorly.

Whether a mainline Resident Evil entry will ever feature multiplayer remains to be seen, then, but at least as Requiem is concerned, Capcom’s sticking to what it knows best.