Umbrella Corps Review

Looking back at past Resident Evil games, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City could be deemed as one of the most poorly executed Resident Evil games to date. It was a team-based third-person shooter that seemed to have it all but ultimately failed to live up to anyone’s standards. You’d think that Capcom had moved on with their attempt at launching another game along the lines of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, but I think most were taken by surprise with the announcement of Umbrella Corps. Let’s just say, whatever uneasiness and foreboding feelings you got when the announcement was made, your gut was giving you a grave warning.

Umbrella Corps is set two years after Resident Evil 6 that follows mercenaries sent by various corporations trying to recollect and scavenge Bio Organic Weapons (BOWs) – basically zombie creations – created by Umbrella, the epitome of evil in the Resident Evil franchise. Thus, with various corporations trying to get their hands on the secrets of Umbrella, it sets the stage for a 3v3 team-based battle that the game tries to fuel and sell on.

Aside from the two main modes, there’s a tutorial portion you can play through that does go through battle mechanics but is extremely brief. Additionally, it isn’t very different from just checking out the button functions and layout in the controls section. However, there are some key features and gameplay mechanics to point out. While Umbrella Corps is quite similar to Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City in terms of being third-person, and team-based, Umbrella Corps does add some nifty features that does give it spice.

One of the interesting mechanics is the utilization of the melee weapon the ‘Brainer’. The Brainer allows players to climb up walls to reach ledges, ‘brain’ people, and destroy barricades to get into rooms and other areas within the map. There’s also the new cover mechanics that kind of works but is mostly a hindrance. You basically get stuck or lock-on to a place that you can cover from enemy fire, but getting off of there tends to be quite slow and makes it open for enemy fire. Another feature is the Zombie Jammer which makes zombies oblivious to your presence and repels them so you can focus on attacking enemy mercenaries. That is until it’s shot at, in which case the zombies will have at you. In addition, the maps in the game include areas from past Resident Evil games like Kijuju from RE5 and the Village from RE4.

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“Unfortunately, single-player does not hold up well on its own as it’s an empty and dry attempt to create a story from gameplay that is repetitive and uneventful.”

Aside from the above peculiar features, everything else is pretty straightforward. The Weapon set isn’t too shabby as you’ll have a main weapon, handgun, Brainer, grenade, and various attachments to play around with. In addition, you can also customize your mercenary’s outfit, helmet, decals, and even gun as well as Zombie Jammer colors. So, in terms of the customization side of things, Umbrella Corps does it pretty well.

Moving on to the two main modes in the game, Umbrella Corps offers Single-player named ‘The Experiment’ while online multiplayer gets straight to the point by being named ‘Online’. Unfortunately, single-player does not hold up well on its own as it’s an empty and dry attempt to create a story from gameplay that is repetitive and uneventful. It’s a ‘rinse and repeat’ process of completing objectives without dying whether it’s collecting a certain amount of drops from defeated zombies or as many in a given time limit. It’s basically horde mode or PvE where you (in this case) mindlessly fight off zombies. The only time when single-player actually gets challenging is when you start to doze off or become careless, in which case you get sloppy and don’t play the game properly because the BOWs/zombies are just lifeless (yes, I know) and are really only effective in large numbers, but even then they drop herbs that allow you to regain health constantly so death feels like a pretty distant thing.

I wish I could have multiplayer mode save single-player mode from the depths of staleness, but I can’t when multiplayer is stuck in the depths of chaos. Within multiplayer there are two sub modes – One Life Match which is where you have one life per round in eliminating your enemies and Multi-mission where you respawn as long as the timer is still ticking during various different objectives per round. From the get-go, matchmaking is absolutely horrendous. It has honestly eaten up more of my time than actually battling it out with others. You’ll get into a lobby with four others and are waiting for one more player, but more often than not that last spot doesn’t get filled. In other cases you’ll keep getting into an empty lobby and suddenly on the odd chance you’ll get into a room with other actual players. It’s really hit and miss for matchmaking which makes even attempting to play multiplayer a real pain. Playing through the 3v3 matches itself is quite the chaotic mess. There’s an abundance of framerate drops, damage inconsistency, glitches, and animation mishaps. To top it off, there isn’t really strategizing or planning out needed most of the time, just wildly running at the enemies with the Brainer weapon works as the recoil and shakiness while aiming down the sight is pretty whack. What could have been a neat function actually became such an annoyance is the Zombie Jammer. Unfortunately the zombies are extremely inconsistent that they may or may not attack you, or either go absolutely berserk or become way too easy to rid of. Chaos…chaos everywhere I’m telling you.

Graphically the game is still sub-par. Not so much how it looks itself, but the animations are what really ruin the experience. Whether it’s the animation of eliminating a player with the Brainer, getting killed by a zombie dog or even ducking in or out of cover, there are framerate spikes and cuts throughout. This extends to shooting while aiming down a sight mentioned above as the animation for the recoil can just be too unstable.

Looking at Umbrella Corps from afar may be nice, but seeing it in action is a whole other issue. The idea was there, but the execution of the final product is a confused and chaotic mess. It’s unfortunate to say, but Umbrella Corps has taken the title of being the most poorly executed Resident Evil game to date. Ouch!

***A PS4 review code was provided by the publisher***