Resident Evil: Revelations 2 Episode One: Penal Colony

Resident Evil: Revelations 2 Episode One: Penal Colony is a third-person survival horror shooter from Capcom that kicks off a four-episode serial. You get two parallel campaigns per episode: one following Claire Redfield and Moira Burton through the front half of a creepy abandoned detention facility, and another following Barry Burton and a psychic child named Natalia across the same island from a different angle. Each campaign runs two to three hours, which is short but dense enough to hook you into the next episode. The episodic pacing works better than it probably should. The core design idea here is asymmetric partner play. Claire handles the firepower, carrying pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles, while Moira fills a support role using her flashlight to temporarily stagger and blind enemies so Claire can land clean shots or melee finishers. On Barry's side, Natalia can sense enemies through walls and highlight weak points for Barry to exploit. It is a genuinely clever system, and in sections where enemies are only visible to one character, real co-op produces moments of actual tension. The problem is that on PC, online co-op for the campaign was not present at launch. The PC version shipped with local splitscreen requiring two controllers, and the community was understandably frustrated. That situation has improved post-launch, but it is a blemish worth knowing about. Solo play works via character-swapping, lifted straight from Resident Evil 0, but partner AI is passive enough to occasionally be a liability rather than a help. Gunplay is functional but unremarkable. Move-and-shoot controls replace tank movement, enemies react to hits well enough, but shot feedback is soft. Headshots do not feel meaningfully different from body shots, which is the kind of thing you notice immediately if you care about TTK granularity. Melee finishers triggered after a stagger or blind give you a useful ammo economy mechanic, and higher difficulties make conserving rounds feel genuinely tense. The Afflicted enemies, fast-moving mutants armed with axes, wrenches, and saws, keep combat scrappy. Bosses and Uroboros-type creatures round out the enemy roster with some variety. The campaign puzzles are light and largely consist of fetch objectives chained with enemy waves, which reads as padding more than design. Graphics are also noticeably dated, running closer to a last-gen budget release than a 2015 PC title. Raid Mode is where the longevity lives. It is a standalone arcade-style mode with over 200 stages, 15 playable characters pulled from across the RE series, weapon unlocks, custom parts, and escalating difficulty tiers. Progression is addictive in a classic shooter loop way, and this is where two-player co-op actually runs properly. If you are buying Episode One and expecting to get everything from the campaign alone, you might feel the runtime. Add Raid Mode and the value proposition shifts considerably. Bottom line: Episode One is a front door, not a complete house. It sets up a story worth following, establishes dual-campaign structure that pays off more in later episodes, and gives you Raid Mode as a buffer while you wait. Just go in with expectations calibrated to a budget episodic entry, not a mainline release.

Fred · Scout Team

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