Resident Evil 2 Director Believes Capcom Is Overdoing the Horror in Recent Titles

In a recent chat, Hideki Kamiya, the mind behind the original Resident Evil 2, made a bold claim: today’s Resident Evil games are just too terrifying. Despite his history with the franchise, Kamiya admitted that he’s never been a fan of horror.

“I don’t like horror, and I don’t like scary things. I can’t sit through scary movies, and that was true even back then,” he shared.

This perspective makes sense! The earlier Resident Evil titles, which Kamiya helped shape before his journey with Platinum Games and Clover, leaned heavily on atmosphere for their scares. While there were certainly monsters to battle, the real horror stemmed from the eerie environments rather than the grotesque foes themselves.

However, with advancements in technology, Kamiya notes that developers can now create monsters with an unsettling level of realism. “The amount of crazy, horrifying things that people can put on the screen is absolutely insane,” he remarked. “Anyone working on the Resident Evil team at Capcom must be completely desensitized to how frightening their creations are.”

He raises a valid point. The creatures in Resident Evil 9 are genuinely disturbing, and the visual enhancements in the violent world of Grand Theft Auto VI can make its brutality feel uncomfortably graphic. But Kamiya has a potential fix for this dilemma, reminiscent of the arachnophobia mode introduced in Grounded. “I genuinely wish Resident Evil Requiem would feature some sort of non-horror mode for people like me.” Here’s hoping he gets his wish, as it’s unfortunate that a game creator of his caliber can’t enjoy the very games he helped bring to life.