Serious Resident Evil: During The Storm

[Rabid]

Resident Evil: During the Storm is a free story mod exclusively made for the PC Sourcenext version of Resident Evil 2 (1998). It's being developed by the creator of the Mortal Night mod for RE2, along with his new team (Resident Evil Classic Modding Group), closely following the canon of the saga. It is probably the most ambitious modding project for this game.

Synopsis
The clock is ticking. While the Raccoon City outbreak takes place, the last survivors of the city are barricaded within the RPD with barely any supplies, and panic is taking over. Playing as Kevin from the Outbreak series, you'll have to resist inside and outside the RPD, managing the few resources at your disposal and making sure that survivors don't die. For this, there will be new gameplay mechanics, and you'll have to choose carefully what you want to do, leaving room for dozens of outcomes. Not only your actions will affect the course of the story, but also the moment in which you do them, as there is an internal timer.

Main gameplay features
The mod is going to be divided in chapters, and each of them will have its own special enemies and gameplay mechanics. They are basically a means of dividing the main events of the story. However, these chapters are not independent and your progress will be saved, so you will have to take care of your character and his supplies.

• It's "open-world", but in a similar way to Dark Souls rather than a sandbox. Resident Evil games are usually very linear due to door locks, so in During the Storm there will be fewer of them to create a bigger sense of scale. Apart from that, the street areas of RE2 and RE3 can be freely explored, along with some new areas, and there will be several sidequests to be completed. These are optional, but unlike in most games, they will have an impact in the main plot -and its 30 NPCs- as well.
• Branching narrative. Although your choices will change the story and will determine who survives and who dies, this is a Resident Evil game after all, so not everything will be totally different (at least in the short term).
• Enemies. Mortal Night is known for its high amount of enemies. Meanwhile, in During the Storm there will be relatively few enemies, but these will be much tougher and dangerous. Enemies can also follow you through rooms, which could be seen in the reveal video, where Kevin could also use a RPD key to lock a door and prevent zombies from entering that room. It doesn't apply to all enemies or to all areas, but this mechanic will be commonly present. Apart from this, there will be some enemies never seen in RE2 that will have their own special mechanics.
• Inventory management is crucial. There will be lots of items to be picked up in DTS, but your inventory will be limited to 6 slots for the most part of the game. That means, no matter how much ammo and healings you have, you will only be able to carry some of them with you, a decision that will gain importance once you venture into big areas with no item boxes.
• Weapons. Instead of having upgrades like in the original game, here those custom weapons will be independent and will have their own ammo. For instance, there are 3 different guns that use handgun ammo; while there is universal ammo boxes for those, you will commonly find magazines instead, which are only compatible with one of those 3 guns.
• Internal timer. It is similar to the one of Dead Rising, but it won't be as restrictive. It will mainly be a way of changing the environment as time goes by, unlocking new areas, spawning enemies, and forbidding you to complete some sidequests if you take too long to carry them out. It should guarantee that each playthrough is different, unless you are fast enough and you can complete everything before the time runs out.

Length
It can't be determined right now, but During the Storm should be at least twice as long as the original game due to the great amount of content included in this mod, some of which hasn't been revealed yet.

Important links

• Biohazard Declassified, our producers and a fan RE website where you will hear first about any news regarding this mod: Biohazardcast.com
• YouTube channel of the project: Youtube.com
• Facebook page of the project: Facebook.com

Release date
It should be out in 2021. In order to avoid giving a release date that probably won't be met, we will only announce it when we are completely sure that the game offers the experience we want to give you. Please, be patient.

Straight up feels like an entirely new RE game, its easily the best RE mod I've played just from the demo - which has five endings and four branching paths, and this is just in 30 minutes or so of gameplay.

Its really, really good.

If you have the Sourcenext ISO (easy to get online) you can download the demo and play it standalone as it comes with everything you need.

 

['77 East]

its easily the best RE mod I've played just from the demo - which has five endings and four branching paths

can you put the tl;dr of these branching paths in a spoiler?

 

[Rabid]

can you put the tl;dr of these branching paths in a spoiler?

Spoiler

Now there's some minor choices that I am sure will impact the full game but I don't think those matter for the demo.

The main choices in this demo come as a result of whether or not you get drunk at the bar with Elza (who was the original Claire Redfield before 2 got redone).

If you don't get drunk:

• You don't pass out drunk and so there's not as many zombies in the streets and you see people fleeing to the RPD.
• Your first encounter with a zombie is while the zombie is still 'unconscious' in an alley. You also have to fight a second who comes out of the flames. The knife you defend yourself with is further back up the alley, making it safer to get to.
• Your movement speed isn't capped as you're sober.
• The horde hasn't reached the RPD yet (or grown too large) so whichever path you take - fortify the front or go to the basement - is easier. Still difficult, but not as hard.
• You keep playing as Kevin.

If you do get drunk:

• You wake up hours later; there's a lot more zombies now and you don't see anyone but corpses being eaten in the streets. Dialogue in the RPD changes too I think.
• You encounter the first zombie devouring a guy from the bar in the alley (who's still at the bar if you don't get drunk obviously). The knife you defend yourself with is also behind her (implying the guy drunkenly tried to defend himself and failed).
• You're drunk as fuck so you are capped at the "danger" walk/shuffle.
• The horde has reached the RPD and both paths are a lot harder - more zombies, and zombies bust into 'empty' areas in the non-drunk timeline as do dogs. The power also fails in the basement so the trip back is a very hard fight.
• You don't play as Kevin for RPD section as he's passed out again when you reach there, you play as Roy.

As for the four endings; they're split between did/didn't get drunk and whether you go to the basement or fortify the front - I can only assume it leads to more branching paths from there. Its implied if you play as Roy that someone shoots him on either path he takes and you swap back to Kevin anyway, whereas when you stay as Kevin you get your next objectives and the demo ends.

 

[Zack]

Looks nicely made, I never really got into the resident evil series but I'd like to give it a shot one day, given this mod

 

[Rabid]

Looks nicely made, I never really got into the resident evil series but I'd like to give it a shot one day, given this mod

The cool thing is if you get this mod, the installer that you use to run it comes with the original RE2 (+ the patch to translate it) so you can play that through first.

 

[Zack]

The cool thing is if you get this mod, the installer that you use to run it comes with the original RE2 (+ the patch to translate it) so you can play that through first.

Huh, that would be a great way to start then. Thanks for the heads up! Wouldn't have been aware if not told