Resident Evil Re:Verse is reversing right off Steam, as Capcom claims it has served its 'original, celebratory purpose' despite mostly negative reviews

Resident Evil Re:Verse, Capcom's deathmatch spinoff of its iconic horror series, will reverse its last roundhouse later this year, as the publisher has announced it's ceasing all service for the game in June.

Re:Verse originally launched in October 2022, coinciding with the release of Resident Evil Village's Winters expansion. It enabled six players to battle each other as notable characters from across the series, like Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong, Resident Evil 3's Nemesis, and Resident Evil 7's evil dad (which surely must exist as a Sam Raimi parody). But the game will shut down a little over two years after launching. While service will formally end on June 29, the game and all its purchasable DLC will be removed from stores on March 3.

In a statement, Capcom explained its reasoning for shutting down Re:Verse, claiming it had done its duty. "Resident Evil Re:Verse was developed in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Resident Evil series, and your overwhelming support for the game has far exceeded our expectations since the time of its release. Now that we've reached a new turning point for the series, we feel that Resident Evil Re:Verse has served its original, celebratory purpose admirably."

Which all sounds very heartwarming. However, I suspect the real reason Re:Verse is getting the old shovel to the brain is that no beggar played it. According to Steamcharts, Re:Verse achieved an all-time peak of 2,080 concurrent players around launch. Just over a month later, this plummeted to under 100 players, after which the player count never really recovered. At the time of writing, just 44 players were embroiled in the Re:Verse universe.

As for why nobody played it, perhaps we can glean some clues from the 'Mostly Negative' rating it has on Steam, where just 34% of nearly 3,000 reviews give it a thumbs-up. User LittleFire131 describes Re:Verse as "Absolutely horrible in every manner. One extremely boring game mode, atrociously broken balance, three maps that get boring quickly, trash, and stiff controls." The slightly more positive Viscarious doesn't agree with this entirely, stating the "moment-to-moment gameplay actually feels good". Ultimately though, Viscarious can't recommend it due to "painful" progression, "grabby" microtransactions, and "some of the worst menu UI/UX I've ever seen in a game". Ouch.

All told, it sounds like few players will miss Re:Verse when it finally backpedals into the sea in June. But in fairness to Capcom, it is one of the few stumbles in an otherwise excellent period for Resident Evil. Resident Evil Village proved a delicious horror variety bucket when it launched in 2021, while Capcom's remake of Resident Evil 4 lived up to the original's fearsome reputation when it landed just under two years ago.

Unsurprisingly, another mainline Resident Evil is currently in development, this one helmed by Resident Evil 7's director. Given it's been nearly four years since Village, I expect we'll hear more about this latest survival horror soon.