As the Resident Evil series' control schemes have evolved to allow the player to react more quickly, so has the legion of undead evolved.
Resident Evil 6 will allow players to move and shoot at the same time, something that Resident Evil 5 did not. Capcom said this week that the zombies in Resident Evil 6, called J'avo after the Serbian word for "demon," will also be more agile.
The J'avo are "even more dangerous than the typical zombie, and are capable of understanding speech and coordinating attacks," Capcom blogger Brett Elston wrote on Wednesday. "That said, they're still mutated monstrosities, so they're not exactly calm or collected when it comes to tactics."
Over the course of the series, Resident Evil's depiction of the undead has meandered far from the sluggish brain-dead zombies of the original 1996 game. So too is the player less of a lumbering oaf. The original Resident Evil game had sluggish, limited controls that were adequate for taking out its slow-moving zombies.
But with each new Resident Evil installment, players have been introduced to superior, more fluid player controls ideal for taking on different kinds of threats. Resident Evil 5 let the player control the camera and character independently for the first time. Consequently, its Majini zombies could wield firearms and get behind cover.
To make Resident Evil 6's J'avo even creepier, they also have the ability to regenerate their bodies as they take damage. Wounds will also occasionally result in mutations sprouting out of their body, too, similarly to the Majini or the Las Plagas of Resident Evil 4.
Of course, they're still quite vulnerable to a well-timed blast from the old trusty shotgun.
