There are a lot of angry people out there right now over our decision to offer a single save game slot on the forthcoming Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D (or Mercs as we like to call it).  But before you take up pitch forks and burning torches ready to march upon Capcom towers please just stop and read this…

Now this might be an official Capcom blog, but you’re not going to find us suggesting that a single save slot is the perfect answer to save game systems and all games should be like this. Because it isn’t… But we are going to try and explain why a single save slot is less of an issue with Mercs than it might be with another title in the Resident Evil series.

We hope that at the end you understand that while not being perfect it’s certainly not the game breaker or the erosion of your civil liberties that some of the more scurrilous internet reporting might have you believe.

First things first Mercs is a time based score attack game very similar in style to an old school arcade game, you run around despatching enemies, collecting weapons, finding time extends and all manner or other hidden extras all while racking up the points.  After your time has run out you’re ranked and your score and performance rating displayed.  There is no story mode. There are no plot twists or spoilers, just lots and lots of infected despatching carnage to rack up a perfect high score.

Check out the game play video below

Because of the nature of the game Mercenaries has more in common with Street Fighter than Resident Evil 5. There is no specific start and no end, you can play any level as many times as you like, play all levels once, or maybe the second level twice the third level six times and then play the first level once…I think you get the point. The game is only finished when you choose or decide you can’t improve your high scores any further.

This is the case whether you purchased the game new, got the game 2^nd hand or borrowed it from a friend.  Simply put this is a non linear game where progression is beating previous high scores NOT uncovering a story.

There are plenty of other myths floating around the interweb, lets torpedo some of them…

Myth 1

“I can only play the game through once”

The game has no end point, it’s a score attack game against the clock, you can play it as many times as you like on what ever level you choose there is no ‘end’ or finish to the game.

Myth 2

“You did this to kill the 2^nd hand market”

Well it was a pretty poor solution if that was the case! At present only one store in the UK has said they will not accept trade in.

Given the non linear nature of the game and the fact that having someone else’s save on the cart doesn’t reveal the story, or put you midway through the game and you can choose to play any unlocked level from the start (or as many times as you like) there are no problems playing a version that someone else has previously played.

While we can’t speak for individual retailers, this is not the first game to have this save system and there is no reason why this shouldn’t be accepted as part of a trade in.

Myth 3

“You’re going to have this in all your games going forwards”

We’ll feedback to our R&D teams on the ‘popularity’ of this save system. But due to the nature of Home Consoles this save system will never appear on PS3 or 360

Myth 4

“I can’t lend it to a friend”

Yes you can, because there is no story line you will not have missed out on anything or offered any spoilers, or get the game back in anyway that means you can’t play it in exactly the way it was intended