The Resident Evil Revelations Demo Predated My Adoration of the Franchise

I’ve penned a couple of Resident Evil articles throughout my time at GameGrin and beyond that, I carry a great love for the whole franchise. Resident Evil Revelations 2 and 2019’s Resident Evil 2 are amazing experiences, Resident Evil 0 is a dear guilty pleasure for me, and I’ll even defend the 2002 Resident Evil film — seriously, it’s a fun movie! However, this was not always so. I am a consummate scaredy cat who blanches at the sight of horrors, particularly zombies, after a fateful nightmare in my youth, so for a long time, I avoided anything that was meant to instil fear. However, while I tried my hardest to avoid even thinking about zombies, I had another powerful drive deep in my core: free stuff.

Resident Evil 0

I admit it: I like getting things for free! Even a decade back, when I was just a little Erin, everything was better if it didn’t need money to work. Hand-me-downs, free samples, and game demos were absolutely my jam. Even today, I keep my ear to the ground for temporary 100%-off sales, and I’ve amassed a sizable collection of various random stuff that I’ve not spent a dime on. So, when I, as a child in the early 2010s, noticed that the Nintendo 3DS was starting to roll out demos for the big new titles, I knew I had to give them all a shot. Plus, since each user only got a limited number of attempts at each demo, I definitely had to make the most of my playtime and be extra careful.

Clearly, though, when I saw that a new Resident Evil title was coming to the 3DS and would be getting a demo, the smart thing to do would have been to simply ignore it. I mean, I didn’t like horror, and I certainly didn’t like zombies, which were kinda Resident Evil’s whole deal. Plus, the game was marked as Rated M for Mature by the ESRB (PEGI 16 for y’all); it was not for kids, and I was very much still a kid. Besides, at that point, I was pretty awful at actually playing anything that wasn’t turn-based; with what seemed like only a handful of attempts available to me, I was sure to die over and over again before I got to anything resembling fun. I wasn’t going to have a good time with it, I wasn’t going to get very far into it, and my parents almost certainly would have been exasperated to hear that I’d even tried. Even with the notoriously poor decision-making skills of an indecisive 12-year-old, the choice should have been obvious.

But still… the Resident Evil Revelations demo was free. How could I say no?

I downloaded it as soon as I could and just stared at the giant, horrible eyeball on the top half of my 3DS. Every time I passed over the demo, it was there, staring back out, blinking, the pupil jittering this way and that across the screen, moving more in my head than should be typical of a 3D image. I don’t remember if it took me days or hours to work up the courage and boot it up, but I did eventually start it — my first foray into the horrors of Resident Evil, gripping my 3DS tightly as I shivered on the seat of a car.

For all I’d built it up in my mind, I don’t remember the actual demo terribly well, but there was a room on a ship, I was a woman — Jill Valentine, the master of unlocking, I would later learn — and walking felt slow. The situation would be fine for now, of course; this was the beginning of the demo! They wouldn’t throw an enemy at me yet. Still, I was tense as I looked around and made my way into the nearby bathroom. It was simple and small, with a tub against the wall. Filled with water as it was, I gave it a look, learning that there was “something” at the bottom. My mind was quickly flooded with possibilities as I stared at the water. Sure, it could be some sort of useful tool, like a key, or maybe a weapon, something more powerful than the handgun I didn’t fully understand how to use, but what if it wasn’t that? What if there was something alive down there? Or worse, something no longer alive, but still moving? A zombie? A monster? That disgusting eye from the logo? I could drain the tub, yeah, but the bathroom was so small, I knew whatever was down there would be on me before I had a chance to fire a gun that I didn’t even know could hurt it!

There was something — a sound, a bang, a clang — from outside. Was that just ambient noise from the ship? Or was someone — something — coming? If there was a monster in the tub, and I drained it now, I was trapping myself between a rock and a dead place, but if there wasn’t a zombie ready to devour me, if there was something helpful, maybe it would mean the difference between progress and getting digested. I drained the tub. When the water was about to hit the bottom, I snapped the 3DS closed, not wanting to see what was inside, another way to delay the inevitable. Preteen teeth clenched, I braced myself and reopened the console, finding a screwdriver at the bottom of the tub. Fat load of good that was going to do me, but whatever. I could pick up the tool for free, so why not?

I stepped back into the first room, my heart in my throat, but otherwise completely confident. I mean, it was the first room, right? There hadn’t been anyone in there before, so why should that have changed? At the time, I had not yet realised that Resident Evil, as a series and survival horror titles in general, love to place new enemies in old rooms. I very quickly discovered my mistake when this pale, eyeless creature burst through a nearby door. It lumbered toward me, its sharp teeth and jagged, disjointed claws already piercing into my soul. Out of fear more than skill, I whipped up the handgun; I fired and I missed, cutting over the beast’s shoulder. Very much struggling to aim the gun, I wasted precious seconds failing to line up a headshot — the monster that didn’t even begin to look human was swaying and bobbing and weaving and advancing too much for a 12-year-old to get a lock on it — and it grabbed me. A long off-pink tongue shot out to do something inconceivable, and I closed the 3DS once more.

I didn’t wind up continuing on that attempt, choosing to restart later on, when I could maybe try it out at home and freely pace around whenever the demo got to be too much. However, on my next attempt, I simply couldn’t force myself to leave the bathroom. I closed the console whenever I, as Jill, wasn’t in motion, terrified that if I wasted a single second, that nightmarish threat would knock that door over too. I never made it past that bathroom again and the demo went unfinished. My Resident Evil revelation at the time was simple: the series was firmly not for me. And maybe I didn’t need to try every demo.

Years later, just on the cusp of going to college, I was somewhat older and maybe slightly wiser. Yet, at my core, I was the same girl, no less prone to freezing up in fear and no less likely to jump at the chance for a freebie. Due to a marketing campaign, I managed to snag three free months of Xbox Game Pass and gave it a shot, hoping to use the months to play through a handful of titles that I wasn’t going to buy otherwise. There were a few games that piqued my interest at the time, like Roundabout, Operencia: The Stolen Sun, or Banjo-Kazooie, but also Resident Evil 6… somehow. I was still very disinterested in a survival horror experience, but Resident Evil was a big franchise! I couldn’t just avoid playing all of it forever; I had to give some part of it a shot. From there, it was easy to decide on 6. After all, which entry would be better than the one no one seemed to like because it was too focused on action and not enough on survival horror?

Resident Evil 6, objectively the best starting point in the franchise

I played through Ada’s campaign first — because I wanted to play as the lady, obviously, nevermind the fact that I hadn’t realised her storyline was meant to be played after the others — and it turned out… surprisingly okay? I had a hard time understanding some bits and pieces of the plot, and I still froze up from time to time, but something about this second attempt at the series just clicked for me. Maybe it was the fact that the first enemies I came across looked more like soldiers or how the ability to perform stealth takedowns left me feeling more capable of dealing with my foes. However it started, I finished the playthrough actually enjoying myself, even if the monsters were gross, and I still jumped at every noise. Maybe Resident Evil could be fun after all.

I still haven’t quite made my way back through Revelations entirely, but I’ve played a good chunk of the rest of the series and had a lot of fun doing so, to boot! So maybe that little 3DS demo put me off of this fascinating franchise for a bit; I wasn’t ready for it then, anyways. I’m quite glad I didn’t try to force myself to keep going through it and that I waited until I had the chance to try out 6 on my own. Now, I’ll get to Revelations when I’m ready. I’ll load up the game, work through however long it takes to get back to that ship, that room, that door, and I’ll walk into the bathroom. I’ll drain that sink and shudder at the sounds of the ship. And when that zombie that’s haunted me for years pops in and lumbers toward me? I’ll be ready to shoot it between its nonexistent eyes.

And then I’ll probably miss and get gobbled up.