Rumour: Resident Evil 8 will leap out next year in first-person

According to new rumours, Resident Evil 8 will come out next year. It'll be in first-person, says serial leaker AestheticGamer, "and many purists are going to hate it" because "it's taking some serious departures [with] story/enemies and the like".

If you believe the rumour, it started life as Revelations 3, a more experimental spin-off game, but testers liked it so much that developers Capcom decided to turn it into a full fledged entry in the main series.

AestheticGamer has some credibility. They correctly said the Resident Evil 3 Remake was going to arrive earlier than we thought, but elsewhere, Konami denied their claims about there being multiple Silent Hill games in development. Like zombies, this could be disappointingly imaginary. Or it could be deliciously real, like zombie ants.

The rumour mill's been bubbling for a while now. This fresh rumour builds on previous statements from AestheticGamer, as well as other purported leakers. AestheticGamer does specifically mention that reports of Ethan being a main protagonist, who at some point goes wandering around a snowy werewolf-infest village, are "100% true". It's worth noting that Ethan was the star of Resident Evil 7.

Apparently, "the game's been given an additional year in the oven to convert itself to RE8", which involves "big changes to the story, characters, etc". The Revelation series does already include characters from the main games, with Claire Redfield starring as the protagonist in Revelations 2. As for what changes might be deemed necessary to turn this into a proper entry, who knows.

AestheticGamer also mentions that "hallucinations, occultism, insanity and not being able to trust others are huge thematics" of Resident Evil 8.

Adam Smith (RPS in peace) got on well with first-person in Resident Evil 7. "It lends the horror a much greater immediacy than the camera angles of 1-3 and over-the-shoulder action cam of 4-6 could ever hope for", he said in his Resident Evil 7 review, which yeah, makes sense. I know I'm much easier to spook when I'm not staring at a digital bottom that reminds me I'm controlling a character in a video game.

If you feel differently, that's cool. You can still tuck into the recent Resident Evil 3 remake, as our Nate did in his Resident Evil 3 review: "Fearwise, RE3 is pitched just right. There are some jump scares, sure. But this isn’t a game designed for exhaustingly energetic YouTube men to shriek at. Most of the horror, as is good and right, comes from a sense of dread, and the sense of constantly being under threat."

AestheticGamer reckons Resident Evil 8 "should be revealed in the next few months". Could be, could be.