Resident Evil: Revelations 2

On paper, Resident Evil: Revelations 2 is a competent entry in the series, getting a lot of the basics of survival horror right. The problem is that, just like its many monsters, the game lacks a soul: its design choices and storyline are so bland and uninspired that, even though Revelations 2 is far from being the worst entry in the franchise, it’s certainly one of the most forgettable Resident Evil games.

Revelations 2 opens with a commercial about the dangers of bioterrorism, warning that politicians and big pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t be trusted. People in Resident Evil are finally learning, it seems, better late than never. The ad is made by TerraSave, the multinational human rights agency Claire Redfield works for, assisting victims of bioterrorism. Appropriately, since this is a Resident Evil game, the commercial ends with a very goofy moment:

One night, during a party with other TerraSave employees, Claire is kidnapped alongside Barry Burton’s daughter, Moira, and put inside a sinister, dilapidated prison: there are dead people hanging from the ceiling, blood splashed on the walls, and spikes coming out of covered bodies. To make matters worse, Claire and Moira soon find out that special bracelets were put on their arms to monitor their feelings: the bracelets will respond to fear, triggering a horrible mutation if the wearer ever becomes horrified by something.

It’s a tense, effective opening. The prison makes for a great setting, being appropriately claustrophobic and nerve-wracking in its design: we see monsters locked up inside cells and we just know that they will eventually get out, which provides a constant source of anxiety. Meanwhile, fear becomes something to be feared itself, becoming the mind-killer, the little-death that brings total obliteration: if they’re afraid, they die.

Revelations 2, however, doesn’t take long to abandon all these great elements. They get out of the prison in less than two hours – and the other locales never come close to matching this setting in quality – and we quickly realize that Claire and Moira are, well, fearless: they look at all the grotesque monstrosities in front of them, butchering everyone, and the color of their bracelets remains as steadfast as the quality of Paul W. S. Anderson’s movies.

The issue here is that the game refuses to delve into the subject: it could have linked Claire’s lack of response to her history and trauma, discussing how she became desensitized to the horrors she often witnesses, for example. But no, it prefers to just brush over this point, with the characters very rarely stopping to question why they’re not afraid of the monsters and becoming one themselves.

A big problem with the narrative in Revelations 2 is that it doesn’t seem too interested in anything in particular. The climax focuses on Moira’s overcoming a specific fear, for example, but the game never bothered to weave a convincing web of events to lead to this climactic moment. So, as with most things in the story, it just happens, with little to no build-up.

Take the intro about TerraSave as another example. Since the game opens with a commercial about the organization, it suggests that it’s important for the story, even though it’s actually just an afterthought: there’s a small twist about one of its employees, but it’s just Revelations 2 copying its predecessor – TerraSave itself is irrelevant.

Characters, themes, and even the general plot of Revelations 2 are all so severely under-developed that they make even the first Revelations feel like a deep character study in comparison. It doesn’t help that there are very few twists and turns in store for us here, and that the few ones that exist don’t work: one of the last revelations (hehehe), the one regarding the fate of a major character, manages to be both predictable and nonsensical at the same time – which is certainly a feat.

As you can guess by now, thematically, the game doesn’t have anything to say about anything: Revelations 2 is just a collection of ideas its predecessors developed better. Like the first Revelations, it wants to tackle corruption and terrorism, but sidelines the issue until it’s time for a twist, which, of course, doesn’t land as it lacks a proper build-up to it. It wants its own Wesker, but believes the name is all there is to the series’ iconic villain, and hopes it’ll be enough to make the new one interesting.

There’s also a problem with pacing. The game is divided into four episodes, each split into two parts: first, we play as Claire and Moira, then as Barry and a mysterious girl named Natalia. This leads to some repetition, as Barry traverses a good chunk of the same environments that Claire visits in the same episode, usually taking a new path only halfway through the level. To make matters worse, Barry rarely discovers anything new, making his part of the chapters feel like a chore most of the time.

Repetition can be a big problem in Revelations 2, especially since the environments outside the prison are mostly bland and uninspired: we usually move from one dilapidated building to the next, which will offer the same poorly lit, blood-spattered walls. Most environments in the game look like this:

When Revelations 2 finally decides to offer interesting places to explore, they’re still copying what its predecessors already did way better. There’s a coastal village at the beginning of chapter 2, for example, which tries to harken back to the beginning of Resident Evil 4, but the level design doesn’t allow the player the same level of freedom and experimentation, quickly locking Claire inside a single house. At least, there’s this great moment that plays with our expectations, making us hear the buzzing sound of a chainsaw before showing the object and who is wielding it.

It may lack a distinct flavor, but Revelations 2 at least gets most of the basics of its genre right. The environments are dark and gory (if not memorable or creepy); ammo is sufficiently scarce to make the monster encounters more tense, and the game also offers an alternative to combat through stealth: it actively encourages us to avoid being seen to save ammo. The only problem here is that the stealth mechanic is too basic, with our character being virtually invisible as long as we stay outside the creatures’ limited cone of vision, which can lead to some very goofy moments, such as when a monster is unaware of Barry’s presence even though he is standing right behind it… coughing nonstop. His luck that zombies are apparently deaf.

There’s also a focus on co-op, but here one player is the “support character”, while the other has to do all the work and take the monsters down. The player with Moira has a flashlight that marks hidden loot, for example, and can use melee attacks on weak enemies, while the one controlling Claire gets to have all the fun handling every type of gun to defeat the big creatures on their path. With Barry, things become a bit more interesting, as Natalia can sense hidden enemies in the environment, pushing players to at least communicate with each other.

Playing solo, however, means that we’ll rarely switch from Claire to Moira, ignoring the girl for most of the game, while with Barry and Natalia, we have to keep switching between the two of them constantly, especially against some invisible enemies that show up now and then: if we don’t switch to Natalia, she will give us general directions when we miss our shots (“more to the left, up, up!”), which means we’ll lose precious ammo in the process.

When the campaign is over, there’s Raid mode, which offers an almost endless supply of shooting galleries, loot, and RPG mechanics. With the number of unlocks, skills, characters, and enemies (it’s not afraid to get silly and put bizarre effects on them), this mode can become addictive and is certainly more enjoyable than the main story.

At the end of the day, then, Resident Evil: Revelations 2 is not a bad game, but it’s certainly not a good one either: although it gets some things right, it copies too much to really stand out. And Resident Evil deserves much more than that.

September 17, 2026.