Report: Resident Evil 9 takes inspiration from Dead Island

Resident Evil 9 will apparently take some cues from Dead Island when it releases in 2025.

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New reports from insider DuskGolem may shed new light on Capcom's plans for the next mainline Resident Evil game. According to inside sources, Resident Evil 9 has been in development since 2018 and has had the longest dev time of any game in the series (7 years). Sources also say RE9 has the biggest budget out of all of the zombie-infested survival games.

But what about the locale? It sounds like Resident Evil 9 could be similar to Techland's 2011 hit Dead Island. DuskGolem further states that RE9 will take place in a "fictional rural town on an island in the Southeast Asia Sea inspired by Singapore specifically."

If accurate, this means that Resident Evil 9 will be a big departure from other games in the series and take players to a more exotic and colorful setting. Previous rumblings also said that RE9 could be an open-world type of game with more robust exploration--but again, nothing has been confirmed just yet.

Capcom hasn't announced the new Resident Evil just yet, but the company did confirm its plans to upgrade its RE Engine technology to a new RE neXt engine, but it's unknown whether or not RE9 will leverage this new tech.

However, an early 2025 release might allow Capcom enough time to optimize Resident Evil 9 to take advantage of Sony's new mid-gen PlayStation 5 Pro upgrade, which will allow for better visuals and tighter frame rates.