Market Precedents

This document reads the games most like Resident Evil Online against what happened to them, and asks what that means for this design. It is written in the Service's register. A sale counts here only with the context that made it: when the game arrived, at what price, against what, and with how much money behind it. A hit in one context is not a promise in another.

Figures are the ones published by the developer or publisher where they exist, and otherwise the estimates of analytics firms (Alinea Analytics, VG Insights, Gamalytic) or press reports, named in each case. Estimates are marked as such. Every figure stood as of October 2026. The Business Case takes its assumptions from this document.

The Precedents

Extraction, PvPvE

Game	Model	What it did	The context it did it in
ARC Raiders (Embark, 2025)	US$40, PC, PS5, Xbox	Over 4 million copies in its first twelve days, 14 million by the end of 2025, and 16.3 million by June 2026, more than $550M in revenue, by Nexon's reports. 700,000 concurrent players across platforms in its second week; 10 million monthly players in January 2026 (Alinea, estimate). Best Multiplayer Game at The Game Awards 2025	Announced in 2021 as a free-to-play co-op shooter, rebuilt as a paid PvPvE extraction game, and tested publicly twice before launch. It launched polished, with machines strong enough that players often chose not to fight each other, and a death that costs less than in its genre (a safe pocket survives). Matchmaking leans peaceful players toward each other, which its CEO confirmed in January 2026. Its cost was reported at about $75M with marketing (estimate). Its text-to-speech voices drew criticism, and some were re-recorded by actors after launch
Escape from Tarkov (Battlestate, 2017–2025)	Paid, with pricier editions	Eight years in early access. On its 1.0 and Steam launch in November 2025, about 1.1 million Steam copies and $38.9M in its first month (VG Insights, estimate), with reviews at 45% positive	The genre's founder and its hardest game: everything carried in can be lost. It proves a hardcore audience will stay for years, and that the audience is a niche
Hunt: Showdown (Crytek, 2019)	Paid, with cosmetic DLC	A record of 60,124 Steam players at its 1896 update in August 2024, five years after launch, despite complaints about performance and the new interface. In February 2025 Crytek cut about 15% of its staff and paused its next Crysis to concentrate on Hunt	The closest precedent in tone: horror, PvPvE, monsters that punish noise, a few teams in a large map. It grew by renewing the same game instead of replacing it
Marathon (Bungie, 2026)	US$40	About 1.2 million copies and $55M in its first weeks (Alinea, estimate). Steam peak of 88,337 at launch in March 2026, and 71% fewer a month later. A free week with its second season in June 2026 tripled its Steam players, to 40,686, and then they fell again. Its budget was reported at over $250M (estimate)	It arrived four months after ARC Raiders, in the same genre and at the same price. Reports blamed the loss of everything carried in, a steep learning curve, and endgame content too complex for most of its players

Horror played by voice

Game	Model	What it did	The context it did it in
Lethal Company (Zeekerss, 2023)	About US$10, early access	About 10 million copies in three months (Push To Talk, estimate); over 100,000 Steam players at its peak	Made by one developer. Four friends, proximity voice, monsters that hunt by sound. Its spread was clips of people screaming at each other
R.E.P.O. (semiwork, 2025)	Low price, early access	A Steam peak of 230,645, and between 1.5 and 3.1 million copies in under three weeks (VG Insights and Gamalytic, estimates)	The same formula two years later: proximity voice, enemies that react to noise, co-op chaos made to be watched
Phasmophobia (Kinetic Games, 2020)	Low price, early access	Over 20 million copies by November 2024, by the studio	Began as a solo project. Players speak to the ghosts, and the game listens

Horror with someone else's monsters

Game	Model	What it did	The context it did it in
Dead by Daylight (Behaviour, 2016)	US$20, paid chapters	Over 70 million players in ten years. A record 170,073 Steam players in June 2026, with its tenth-anniversary update and a free week. Its team grew from about 35 to nearly 400	An original game first, licences second: Michael Myers was the first, and each made the next easier to sign. Resident Evil itself became a chapter in June 2021
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Gun, 2023), Evil Dead: The Game (Saber, 2022)	Paid	Texas Chain Saw ended all content and fixes in May 2025, two years after launch. Evil Dead was taken off sale in May 2025, three years after	Each built on one licensed film, with one cast and a fixed set of places. When the material ran out, so did the game

Zombies, survival, and the director

Game	Model	What it did	The context it did it in
DayZ (Bohemia, standalone 2018)	Paid, with paid expansions	Steam records in early 2025, seven years in, with 938,000 weekly players; its Frostline expansion sold over 530,000 copies in three months	Strangers in a zombie country, trust and betrayal by voice. The demand for exactly that question has not worn out
Back 4 Blood (Turtle Rock, 2021)	Paid, on Game Pass from launch	Content ended with its third expansion in December 2022. Concurrent players around 5,000 for most of 2022, while Left 4 Dead 2, from 2009, still drew 20,000 to 40,000	The makers of Left 4 Dead, with a director, a co-op horde, and no mods. A director alone did not hold players
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead, 2024)	US$40, Warbonds that never expire	Over 20 million copies by January 2026 and over $700M from copies alone (Alinea, estimate); 12 million in its first twelve weeks	Its war is run by a person: Arrowhead's Game Master adjusts the campaign in real time, and players read the war as a story they are writing together

Paid, then free

Game	What it did	The context it did it in
PUBG: Battlegrounds (Krafton)	New players rose 468% in the first week after it went free in January 2022	A paid hit five years old, with a falling population
Fall Guys (Mediatonic)	50 million players within two weeks of going free in June 2022	A paid hit two years old (The Service, What the Record Shows)

Failures

Game	What happened	Why, as reported
Concord (Sony, 2024)	Taken offline and refunded two weeks after launch, with a Steam peak of 697 and about 25,000 copies (estimate)	A US$40 hero shooter with no reason to choose it over free ones
Splitgate 2 (1047 Games, 2025)	Steam players fell 93% in a month, from 25,785 to 1,839. The game went back into beta in July 2025, and 45 people were laid off	A sequel to a free hit that players did not see a reason to move to
Resident Evil Re:Verse (Capcom, 2022)	2,080 Steam players in its first month, 329 the next, never above 100 again; shut down in June 2025	A pack-in with Village, delayed, thin on content, and pushed toward a premium pass
Resident Evil Resistance (Capcom, 2020)	A Steam peak of 4,181 (The Business Case, Anchors)	A pack-in with the Resident Evil 3 remake

The franchise and the market

• Resident Evil sells. Requiem sold 5 million copies in its first week, 6.91 million by the end of March 2026, and over 8 million by June 2026. The series stands at 213 million units. Capcom has set records for nine years running.
• The audience is on PC. 54.5% of the 59 million games Capcom sold in the year to March 2026 were on PC. About 70% of Marathon's copies, and 13 million of Helldivers 2's players, are on Steam.
• Premium still pays. Alinea estimates that free-to-play games made about 22% of Steam's revenue in 2025, and paid games the rest.

What the Successes Share

1. A threat worth uniting against. ARC Raiders' machines, Hunt's monsters, DayZ's dead, Tarkov's scavengers: in each, the world is dangerous enough that fighting other players is a choice, often a bad one. That choice is where their stories come from.
2. Losing costs little, the stakes stay high. ARC Raiders softened death with a safe pocket; Marathon, launched months later, took everything, and reports name that among its first problems.
3. The voice is the game. Lethal Company, R.E.P.O., and Phasmophobia were made by tiny teams, and spread on clips of voices: whispering, screaming, lying, begging. ARC Raiders' proximity chat is what made its friendly lobbies famous.
4. A fair price, and fair cosmetics. The paid hits sold between US$10 and US$40, with cosmetics that do not expire or give power (Helldivers 2, ARC Raiders, Hunt, Dead by Daylight).
5. Polished on the first day. ARC Raiders launched to reviews of nine in ten and held its players through its first month. Marathon and Splitgate 2 lost 70% to 93% of theirs in that month and did not win them back.
6. Cheap to make, or very sure of its audience. ARC Raiders cost about $75M with marketing (estimate). Lethal Company, R.E.P.O., and Phasmophobia began as one-person or tiny projects; Dead by Daylight began with about 35 people. The expensive games in this list are on the failure side: Marathon (over $250M, estimate), Concord (estimates from $100M to $400M).
7. The same game, renewed for years. Dead by Daylight for ten years, DayZ for seven, Hunt for five, by adding to one game instead of replacing it.

What the Failures Share

• No reason to choose them. Concord and Splitgate 2 were good enough and arrived where better or free games already were. Marathon arrived after the genre's new leader, at its price.
• Half a game, or a pack-in. Re:Verse and Resistance were sold as extras to single-player games, and treated as extras by their players.
• Monetization before content. Re:Verse's premium pass, Splitgate 2's $80 bundle.
• One source of material. Texas Chain Saw and Evil Dead each had one film to draw on.
• A director without anything else. Back 4 Blood had a director and its makers' pedigree, and no reason for players to stay once it was learned.

Where Resident Evil Online Stands

What it already does that the successes did

Pattern	In the design
A threat worth uniting against	The dead hear every sound, the virus is in every body that is bitten, and the Heavy needs five strangers with guns or two with a secret weapon (Survival, Run First). Fighting the living is always a choice, and the night prices it (Dilemmas)
Losing costs little	No item is carried in and none is kept (Survivor). A survivor can lose a night and nothing else. This avoids the cost that hurt Marathon most
The voice is the game	Speech is a sound the dead hear, set by how it is spoken, not by the microphone (Presentation and Technology, Voice, in Practice). A whisper and a shout are mechanics, which is the lesson of every voice-horror hit
A fair price, fair cosmetics	US$29.99, nothing that changes a night, nothing that leaves (The Service, The Promises)
A deep source of material	Resident Evil's records: Raccoon City in 1998 and in ruins in 2026, the Valley of 2004, every crosstime night, and thirty years of people and creatures (Seasons and New Content). It is Capcom's own, so no licence runs out
Renewed, not replaced	One world, every mode, and new versions of places that already exist (The Worlds, One World, Every Mode)
Every performance a person's	Every voice, ΜΝΗΜΗ's included, every face, and every movement is performed and recorded by a person (Project Overview, Performed by People). It is the answer to the criticism ARC Raiders drew for its synthetic voices, and it costs more (The Business Case, Building It)
PC-first audience	Every platform plays with every other, and an account is the same everywhere (Presentation and Technology, Engine and Platforms)

Where it repeats a failure

• It costs what the failures cost. Its realistic cost before launch is about $246M (The Business Case, Building It). That is Marathon's reported budget, three times ARC Raiders', and more than any game on the success side. It is the single largest risk in the project, and the one the precedents speak most clearly about.
• It is hard to learn. No HUD, no markers, no names on anyone, a strain map that is never announced, roads that arrive one Trial at a time, and ways out that are never on a map. Marathon's reports name a steep learning curve as the second cause of its losses. The documents say no tutorial repeats once a player has seen it (Presentation and Technology, Sleepers and the Remembered, in Practice), and what a player's first nights teach is answered in step 3 below.
• It arrives late in its genre. ARC Raiders defined the PvPvE extraction game in 2025, and Marathon showed in 2026 that arriving second at the same price is not enough. Resident Evil Online would launch about 2031 (The Business Case). It has to be chosen as a Resident Evil horror game, not as another extraction game.
• Its director is not a reason to stay. Back 4 Blood showed that a good director is something players stop noticing. ΜΝΗΜΗ has to be felt as a character, as Helldivers 2's Game Master is felt, or she is only pacing.

How Resident Evil Online Succeeds

Each step below starts from something the documents already establish. Where a step needs something new, it says so.

1. Spend like a success, not like a failure. The project should be steered toward its Low cost case, about $167M, by the reuse the first gate measures (The Business Case, Capcom's Decision), and the Late Wakings fallback kept ready (Story Nights and the People of the Records, Late Wakings · A Variant). The precedents give no example of a game this expensive that sold enough to repay it in this genre; ARC Raiders sold about as many copies as this game needs to break even, and cost a third as much.
2. Win the first month. Every failure above lost most of its players in thirty days. The second gate already judges the closed beta "on whether players come back and on peak concurrency" (The Business Case, Capcom's Decision). The business case gives it a number: a beta whose players would not hold the launch above the population the queues need is a project that stops.
3. Teach the first nights through ΜΝΗΜΗ. The earpiece already speaks to every survivor as a person, and already speaks to them from what their file has found (ΜΝΗΜΗ as Director, What She Speaks Of). For a file in its first nights, she has almost nothing to draw on, and can say instead what the night is about to teach them: that a shot is heard across the district, that a Mark draws the dogs, that a column of light means the end has come. She never lies, and she never tells anyone where another survivor is, so this needs no new rule, only the lines, which ΜΝΗΜΗ as Director sets out (A File's First Nights).
4. Make the voice the trailer. The successes in this genre spread on clips. Resident Evil Online's clips write themselves: a whisper that saves a squad, a shout that brings the district down, a stranger begging at the Subway's door. The launch marketing budget should go first to creators who play it in groups, as the voice-horror hits were played.
5. Be chosen as Resident Evil. The story night, the people of the records, the Nemesis in every Raccoon City night, and the Last Morning are what no other extraction game can offer (Story Nights and the People of the Records). They are the reason to buy it after ARC Raiders, and the business case keeps them on the launch line for that reason.
6. Make ΜΝΗΜΗ felt. Her bodies, her visions, her remarks in the earpiece, and the Sealed File revealed season by season already give her a presence no director in this list had (ΜΝΗΜΗ as Director, The Sealed File). The seasons should be read by players as her doing, the way Helldivers 2's war is read as the Game Master's. Her voice is two actors, recorded line by line, which is how a character is felt rather than heard.

Open Questions

• Matchmaking by conduct. ARC Raiders leans peaceful players toward each other, and players praised it. Resident Evil Online shows each player's doorstep standing in the lobby and lets anyone leave before the night (Cosmetics and the Dossier, Where It Is Seen), but does not match by it. Matching by it would make nights calmer, and would weaken the question every night is built to ask (Dilemmas). Which matters more is a decision for the design.
• Free weekends before the Opening. Marathon's free week tripled its players, and Dead by Daylight's free week helped set its record. Nothing in the Promises forbids a free weekend before the Opening, since nothing is sold by it, but nothing in the documents plans one either.
• The Valley's trigger. As The Business Case (Running It) shows, the Valley's rule spends $30–45M in the year the First Run's sales are falling, and in the Hit case it is the difference between profit and loss. A rule tied to what the project has earned back, rather than to copies sold, would follow Promise 14 more closely.

Sources

• Nexon results via GamesBeat, ARC Raiders surpassed 16.3M sold, August 2026. Link
• Notebookcheck, ARC Raiders has reportedly surpassed 15 million copies, February 2026 (Alinea Analytics). Link
• Wikipedia, ARC Raiders. Link
• FRVR, ARC Raiders CEO confirms aggression-based matchmaking, January 2026. Link
• PCGamesN, Arc Raiders has been cutting back its AI voices, 2026. Link
• WN Hub, VG Insights: Escape from Tarkov earned nearly $40 million on Steam, December 2025. Link
• Multiplayer.it, Escape from Tarkov: over 1 million copies since 1.0, December 2025. Link
• Game Developer, Hunt: Showdown sees new concurrent player high with 1896 update, August 2024. Link
• WN Hub, Crytek is cutting 15% of its staff, February 2025. Link
• Notebookcheck, Marathon has surpassed 1.2 million copies sold, March 2026 (Alinea Analytics). Link
• tbreak, Marathon cost over $250M to make but lost 71% of Steam players, April 2026. Link
• LevelUp, Marathon goes free-to-play and triples its Steam player count, June 2026. Link
• Wikipedia, Lethal Company. Link
• WN Hub, R.E.P.O. might have exceeded 3 million copies, March 2025. Link
• Games Market, Phasmophobia has sold 20 million copies, November 2024. Link
• Canada Media Fund, 10 years of Dead by Daylight, 2026. Link
• OpenCritic, Ten years after launch, Dead by Daylight just shattered its record player count, June 2026. Link
• VGC, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is getting no more content or support, May 2025. Link
• VGC, Saber confirms it's delisting Evil Dead: The Game, May 2025. Link
• MP1st, DayZ 2025 season breaks multiple player records, January 2025. Link
• PCGamesN, Back 4 Blood updates end, 2022. Link
• FRVR, Helldivers 2 has sold over 20 million copies, January 2026 (Alinea Analytics). Link
• Destructoid, Helldivers 2 has a Game Master modifying the galactic war in real time, February 2024. Link
• TechSpot, PUBG experiences massive player growth after switching to free, 2022. Link
• TechRadar, Concord is going offline just two weeks after it launched, September 2024. Link
• Notebookcheck, Splitgate 2 unlaunches as player count drops 93%, July 2025. Link
• Insider Gaming, Resident Evil Re:Verse servers turned off, June 2025. Link
• Game Developer, Resident Evil Requiem has sold over 8M units, July 2026. Link
• WN Hub, Record profit for the ninth consecutive year: Capcom's report, May 2026. Link
• WN Hub, Alinea Analytics: free-to-play did not take over the PC gaming market, 2026. Link