I really wasn’t expecting much from Umbrella Corps. It had been delayed, the fan backlash seemed like it spoke for itself, and it seemed barely connected to the world of Resident Evil and its style. Based on the few hours I have played so far, Umbrella Corps is a decent, but rather unspectacular, foray into something slightly different.
Allow me to address one of the biggest criticisms about Umbrella Corps. Yes, it isn’t really Resident Evil; it’s more like a multiplayer shooter with a Resi hue. However, Capcom’s newest spin-off certainly isn’t Call of Duty either, YouTube commenters. As an aside, criticising anything with quick action and bullets as a CoD clone is a tired, ridiculous barb.
Umbrella Corps wishes it was as refined as Activision’s giant, though. It tries to accomplish a lot, despite being quite simple overall, but doesn’t seem to do one thing particularly well.
A lot of fun can be had with Umbrella Corps despite its rough edges. Taking part in 3V3 combat, you can expect quickfire rounds that will punish the lackadaisical because the game is damn unforgiving. Fail to spot an opponent first and you’re probably dead or worse, running around the map with a broken zombie jammer trying avoid the undead hordes. Adding in familiar foes from the main Resident Evil series along with a few memorable locations repurposed for multiplayer maps works well for the game and does a lot to distract from its many shortcomings.
Of the modes available, I have only explored the multiplayer so far as The Experiment, the game’s only real single-player, doesn’t seem to offer enough. One thing that might deter many is the long waiting time between matches as it struggles to find people for you to play with, which will only get worse the more the weeks go by with the inevitable drop in active players. Umbrella Corps doesn’t exactly scream longevity, even though it has free DLC and new modes coming in the near future.
Once you’ve played a couple of matches, it becomes clear that Umbrella Corps has shown you its hand already – it becomes a little stale all too quickly. Be sure to only bother with the Multi-Mission mode as the other one is so forgettable that I legitimately cannot remember what it’s called. All I know is that more time is spent trying to connect to a game than actually playing it.
There are plenty of customisation options available for your armour and weapons, both coming with their fair share of toil to unlock. Having played a few hours, I haven’t made much progress – I don’t even have a scope for my starting weapon. It also seems like the higher your level, the better the weapons available to you, putting newcomers at a serious disadvantage. Balancing as a whole is off with the game’s multiplayer, often pitting you and two other less experienced player against three Bas Ruttens.
Visually, Umbrella Corps is competent, but only just. There’s a lot of clipping going on and the animations tend to veer on the Steam Greenlight side of shonky, which is surprising considering how tight Capcom’s games usually are. The controls also must have been invented by a mad scientist as they’re confusing to say the least, though this might be down to me putting serious hours into Overwatch and being unable to adapt to a scary, new world.
I still have many hours left to play to fully form my opinion, but the seeds have already been planted in my mind that this isn’t a game I would stick with if I didn’t have to review it. It will polarise fans of the series and probably offer nothing to the casual player, but if you can stick with it, there is definitely some fun to be had if you can look past its flaws.
Keep an eye out for our full review coming soon.
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