Applying Monster Hunter Stories' Healing Concept to Resident Evil

Capcom development chief Kenzo Oguro has floated the idea that design lessons from Monster Hunter Stories could inform a Resident Evil spinoff, with a central pitch that sounds almost counterintuitive for the franchise: heal the zombies.

The concept builds directly on what made Monster Hunter Stories work—taking the core Monster Hunter loop of hunting and defeating monsters and completely inverting it. Instead of conquest, you build bonds. Monsters become partners. That reversal of relationship, Oguro suggests, could translate to Resident Evil's undead, with players seeking ways to turn people who became monsters back into humans.

But this raises a sharper question than the mechanics themselves. Resident Evil's dread doesn't come from monster design—it comes from spatial claustrophobia, dwindling resources, and the creeping awareness that the things chasing you used to work in the same building, complain about the same bosses, have the same terrible coffee habit. If "healing" becomes the core loop, how does that hopelessness survive?

Dead Rising already proved "save instead of fight" can work, but its tone leans toward chaos and dark comedy rather than humanistic reflection. Oguro himself acknowledged there's no concrete Resident Evil Stories project in development—what matters is finding a "completely new angle to interpret the Resident Evil world." That angle might not be "healing" per se, but rather how the act of saving others forces you to confront your own humanity.

A Resident Evil Stories built around redemption rather than survival would ask something different: not whether you can escape, but whether you still believe everyone deserves to be saved.