Hideki Kamiya, the director behind the original Resident Evil 2, has stated that current Resident Evil titles are becoming too frightening. Kamiya, who has since moved on to work at Platinum Games and now Clover, admitted in an interview with VGC that he has never been comfortable with horror.
"I don’t like horror, and I don’t like scary things," Kamiya said. "I’m not able to make it through scary movies, and that was even the case back in the day." He noted that earlier Resident Evil games, on which he worked, relied more on atmosphere and tone for their scares, rather than the direct threat of gruesome enemies. While monsters were present, the primary source of fear was the environment and overall mood.
However, Kamiya believes that modern technological advancements have enabled developers to create monsters with a heightened sense of realism. "The amount of crazy, horrifying things that people are able to put on the screen is absolutely insane," he observed. He suggested that the development teams at Capcom might be desensitized to the level of horror they are creating. "And I think anybody who’s on the Resident Evil teams at Capcom, at this point, they must all be completely numb to how scary the thing they’re making is."
Kamiya proposed that a potential solution could be a "non-horror mode" for games, drawing a parallel to the arachnophobia mode introduced in Obsidian Entertainment's Grounded. He expressed a desire for such an option to allow players who are sensitive to horror to still experience games they may have had a hand in creating or enjoy the franchise.