It’s remarkable how well-loved Resident Evil: Revelations is when you sift through fan sites and user reviews. Unfortunately, that response probably had a lot to do with external factors. Revelations initially released on the Nintendo 3DS in January 2013, three years after the divisive (yet commercially successful) Resident Evil 5, and nine months before Resident Evil 6, a game that was following the same action-oriented formula as the fifth. It would be praised for returning to its survival-horror roots and would gain an even larger fan base upon receiving a proper HD remastering for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in May 2013.

I can understand fans of the classic games enjoying elements of Revelations but it’s still far from the best Resident Evil title and struggled to balance classic survival-horror gameplay with more action-packed encounters. If you were a fan of the original and are looking to complete your collection on the current generation consoles, be aware that Revelations on the PS4 and Xbox One is a simple port, for better and worse.


You never go long without triggering an in-game cutscene or CG cinematic. These cinematics still look great upscaled but show a strong film grain effect.

The best part of Revelations is the absurd plot. Camp protagonists, with dialogue that fluctuates between serious and irreverent in the same scene, go up against a new bioweapon-wielding villain, who spouts the usual malice for humanity while quoting crap poetry (Ed - The Vogons would be proud). Set over the course of a (videogame) night, you alternate between protagonists Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield as they attempt to discover the secret behind a year-old terrorist attack and a resurgence of mutated creatures. With the classic Umbrella vs. S.T.A.R.S. conflict a distant memory, Revelations introduces the player to organisations like the B.S.A.A. who play a big role in the increasingly convoluted plot of the numbered titles. Revelations was released as a full package but breaks up the story into a dozen chapters, each with title, rating system, and a “previously on” cinematic, much like its episodic sequel.

Revelations kicks off with Jill and her new partner, Parker, boarding the luxury liner, the “Queen Zenobia”, one of two ships used in the terrorist attack a year before. In true Resident Evil fashion, the protagonists are always the last to know what’s going on and quickly find themselves knee-deep in hordes of ocean-themed slime zombies. Chapters then jump around, recounting the terror attack on a floating solar-powered city of Terragrigia and the discovery of information that led to the location of the luxury liners by Chris and his new partner Jessica. The timeline eventually converges and Chris teams up with Jill to take down the latest villain and a myriad of increasingly large bioweapons that stand in their way. After a fairly slow start, the plot picks up in the second half and I once again found myself motivated to push forward. There are double-agents, triple-agents and ridiculously contrived plans for vengeance; Resident Evil storytelling at its finest.


Naturally, every Resident Evil game has to end in a laboratory. Chances of it self-destructing and the protagonists having to flee while a timer ticks down? 100%

Gameplay-wise, the survival-horror mechanics fail to gel with the action-oriented combat. There are, of course, plenty of Resident Evil staples present: spatially dubious interiors, a fondness for oddly-shaped keys, resource management, supporting characters popping up in the strangest of places, monsters in closets, and bioweapons that seemingly metabolise air to achieve massive size in seconds.

Unfortunately, combat is pushed to the forefront in many chapters and the clunky movement, combined with imprecise gunplay, results in frustration rather than tension. Landing precise shots, essential to preserving resources in the other third-person Resident Evil games, is nigh on impossible unless you’re dealing with large enemies with obvious weak spots. The classic laser pointer is replaced with an unwavering crosshair, yet enemy animation is erratic, making a close range shotgun blast the most reliable attack. All weapons, with the exception of the iconic rocket launcher, feel pitifully weak as enemies are bullet-sponges that display little to no reaction to being shot.


Even on the "casual" difficulty, it's amazing how many bullets it takes to put down a basic slime zombie. It only gets worse on higher difficulties and bosses (shown above) can absorb an incredible amount of damage.

Clunky movement only compounds the combat issues and it often feels like you’re playing a first-person shooter with the camera pulled back behind the character model. Your character floats over the ground, strafing efficiently yet incapable of turning rapidly and never able to move at more than a slow jog. This is fine for general exploration and puzzling, but there are several enemies (including the final boss) that charge at your character to inflict massive damage. When facing these foes, you either need to keep a considerable distance away, which is rarely possible in the confined spaces of the ship, or you have to rotate your character and hope you jog off perfectly perpendicular to their charge. The game offers a dodge function that I eventually got to grips with but it rarely works on these charging foes.

All these issues are only emphasised during boss fights in which I often found myself running, awkwardly, in circles around an arena, collecting ammunition and healing supplies, as I pumped round after round into the mutated foe. You could argue all Resident Evil games have similar encounters but at least in classic titles this was offset by careful resource management (i.e. whipping out your magnum and hoarded ammunition), or by landing precise shots on weak points in modern titles. When it comes to combat, Revelations fails to make either option viable.


Swimming features prominently in certain chapters and the controls are unexpectedly good in comparison to normal movement.

If you can stomach the opening hours of the game, the experience improves considerably once you’ve obtained better weapons and collected enough mods to enhance or alter their stats. Sure, you’ll encounter frequent boss battles or waves of enemies to remind you of the shortcomings, but you’ll eventually find time to appreciate the level design that takes inspiration from the early survival-horror games. You navigate each location one room at a time, dispatching or avoiding foes while scavenging for clues and supplies. Doors are locked with keys hidden on the far side of the level and any simple activity requires you to pull at least a few levers (or push a few buttons). It feels contrived and you backtrack through some areas more times than any developer should have allowed, but it remains engaging thanks to documents scattered around the ship and frequent cutscenes that progress the plot at a steady rate. Revelations' notable addition was the ability to scan the environment and enemies for items but this adds little to the gameplay, outside of one late-game puzzle.

The bulk of the game puts you in control of Jill and her campaign progress is persistent; there are weapons and mods to collect, with the ability to swap out and modify weapons at item boxes. You can backtrack to many areas of the ship, and a few optional areas, to access rooms full of loot. All other playable characters start with a fixed inventory and follow a linear path through chapters that are designed to push the plot forward. Although a single player game, you have an AI partner to “assist” you 80% of the time. Unlike Resident Evil 5 and 6, they don’t require weapons or ammunition and they don’t die; however, they do minimal damage and serve mostly as a distraction.


Chapters starring Jill feel most like classic survival-horror; you navigate sprawling, interconnected environments while scavenging clues, weapons and supplies. The map is a bit rubbish however.

Unfortunately, the use of checkpoints impacts the survival-horror mechanics. If you trigger a checkpoint before a boss encounter and want to stock up on ammunition in the area before engaging, there’s no way to trigger that checkpoint again. Die, and you’ll have to repeat the same looting process every time or try to collect everything while being pursued around the area.

Upon completing the campaign, you can restart using the “New Game Plus” mode (ideal for offsetting the early combat frustration) or suffer through “Infernal” difficulty, in which enemies and items are switched up and dropping a basic zombie requires even more ammunition. If, for some masochistic reason, you want to experience the clunky combat in all its infuriating glory, you can access Raid Mode to take on increasingly tougher waves of enemies while using points to stock up on supplies and upgrade your weapons. Content for this mode is unlocked by completing campaign chapters and earning “BP” points based on your performance. The problem is that Raid Mode has already been done better in the subsequent games and that makes its inclusion redundant, unless you’re trophy or achievement hunting.


There are times when the environment, lighting and some atmospheric effects come together to create visually impressive scenes. Unfortunately this is the exception rather than the rule.

Now onto the most important part of this review for many; what does this current generation release bring to the table over the previous HD remaster? Almost nothing.

Revelations was far from the best looking game on the last-gen consoles but a lot of effort was put into remastering or recreating character models, environments and textures from the 3DS version. On the current-gen consoles, Revelations is simply upscaled to 1080p and the framerate improved. This makes aiming feel less sluggish but the framerate is nowhere near consistent and you can often feel dips in controller response and stuttering camera movement. Character models look sharper and lighting can look great but simple geometry and low-resolution textures are a constant eyesore. The low-resolution shadows and limited dynamic lighting also make the transition from last-gen 'unenhanced'. That said, it also doesn’t help that bulk of monsters in the game are just variants of grey slime.

If you’re desperate to complete your remastered Resident Evil collection, and have never played Resident Evil: Revelations before, the low price point is appealing. The game is certainly worth experiencing for Resident Evil fans, if only for the ridiculous and entertaining plot. However, if you own the game on PC or on a last-gen console, this is a simple port and it's hard to justify spending another R400 just to have the game running natively on a current-gen console.