If Resident Evil franchise didn't branch out "people would be really sick," of it, says Kawata

Resident Evil producer Masachika Kawata has said if the series didn't branch out a bit from its survival horror roots, "people would be really sick," of the series.

"At the core, basically, we want to make the best use of our brand," Kawata told Gamasutra. "Resident Evil is an IP, and a franchise, that people have loved for a long time.

"It's still very, very popular and we're very, very happy about that, and we want to basically answer all the requests that we get about the series. People want to see a lot of different experiences within the Resident Evil universe, and so we've been fortunate enough to be able to answer those requests with a lot of different experiences, in different forms, in games."

Kawata said he wasn't concerned with the brand becoming diluted, when asked, as all the Resident Evil games coming out are "focused on very different things."

"I'm thinking that if we would have brought out all these Resident Evil titles, and they were all focused on survival horror, absolutely I think people would be really sick of Resident Evil," he said.

"In my mind, we've got this online shooter game, we've got other things like Mercenaries that are even more action-focused, and some other games. And by going in a lot of different directions, I'm pretty confident that people are going to still be enjoying Resident Evil for a long time."

Operation Raccoon City is slated for release in the early part of 2012, and Revelations is out in February.