iOS (iPhone/iPad) Critic Reviews

Resident Evil: Survival Unit is an intriguing experiment, a title that tries to bring the soul of the horror saga to mobile without completely betraying its spirit, but inevitably pays the price for the compromises imposed by the free-to-play format. Between well-crafted real-time battles and a base management system that risks becoming repetitive, the game constantly swings between enjoyable moments and long periods of waiting or microtransactions.

Resident Evil: Survival Unit is a mash-up of different mechanics, with Capcom’s characters thrown into semi-automatic strategic battles, city-builder-style sections, invasion or PvP missions, and a very scaled-down representation of Resident Evil’s exploration phases and puzzles. The experience is decent and flows smoothly during the first few hours, but it becomes immediately clear that the monetization system is lying in wait... and its fierce bite may end up being far more frightening than that of a zombie.

It’s effectively a State Of Survival clone that uses Resident Evil themes and settings. So it’s a base builder at heart, except your base is Raccoon City – not that it makes much difference since you’ll be raiding rival Raccoon Cities in dull multi-hour engagements and paying real cash to unlock legendary heroes like Leon S. Kennedy. There are zombie-orientated exploration segments, and lane-based tactical battles, but the meat of the game is gacha and pay-to-win base building of the type that’s by now wearyingly familiar to mobile gamers.