When Capcom released 2019’s stunning remake of it seemed an awful lot like the company had remembered what we all loved about the survival horror franchise in the first place. There were well-designed puzzles, perfectly-paced scares, and a very real feeling that you could run out of supplies and kick the bucket at any moment. It was tense, it was horrifying, and it was .

The recently released remake is a little more action-oriented than its predecessor, but much of what made great remains intact. I’m not entirely sure then, how to take the news that is coming in 2021 and will be a “serious departure” for the series that “many purists” are going to hate.

This new report comes from reliable horror game leaker AestheticGamer, aka Dusk Golem. They claim the sequel to is on track to release next year, and that it actually started life as the third chapter in the Revelations spinoff series. Apparently Capcom, along with those who tested the game, were so excited by that it became .

AG also touched on the fact that this new report contradicts his earlier claims that was still “years away”. According to the leaker, this is because there was another in development at one point, and that one some time off releasing. Apparently Capcom didn’t want too big of a gap between and the next mainline entry though, so the original was pushed to one side, and became the new in light of all the positive feedback.

Our leaky friend also suggested that is likely to be a cross-gen title, so expect to see it on PS4 and Xbox One as well as PS5 and Xbox Series X. Oh, and like , it will be first-person again. I know not everybody was super into that, but I thought it worked well last time Capcom tried it.

“It is first-person,” AG added. “Many purists are going to hate it because it’s taking some serious departures in the story/enemies and the like. Hallucinations, Occultism, insanity and not being able to trust others are huge thematics of the game.”

Previous rumours that first surfaced at the start of this year also suggested that would be first-person. Those same reports claimed that protagonist Ethan would be teaming up with series mainstay Chris Redfield, and that the game would feature classic zombies… as well as ghosts and werewolves.

Of course, since these particular rumours emerged a few months ago, it could very well be that they were referring to the original incarnation of , and not the new version that AG has been talking about recently. As always, we’ll have to wait until we hear from Capcom before we can say for sure, but either way it sounds like the next Resident Evil is shaping up to be a real departure.