At its core Resistance 3 wasn’t a bad game by any means. Although some would argue it is the weakest in the series (PS Vita’s Burning Skies excluded). Again that doesn’t mean the third entry was unplayable or awful. Insomniac’s Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2 were just beloved by the PlayStation community for one reason or another. Why wasn’t the tertiary title in leagues within those two? Let’s just say that I’m hoping a fourth game pops up or a reboot happens in order to tell the story Resistance 3 neglected.
First off Resistance 2 is one of my favorite shooters ever. The story was amazing in scope and had you facing off against skyscraper sized aliens, but maintained a relatable, emotional tone. Especially considering the twist ending. Then there was the co-op mode that added companion lore and actually felt detailed. It wasn’t just a tacked on thing that was inserted to keep people playing longer. Plus, don’t get me started on the competitive multiplayer. Easily one of the most well crafted in the entire history of gaming (minus the Wraith of course).
Now what had me really excited for Resistance 3 at the time was the continuing story of Capelli after Hale literally bit the bullet. You see for those that paid attention to the sub-plots and collectibles of the second game, it revealed that the Chimera had plucked Earth from its orbit and were transporting it somewhere. Additionally, there were even hints that our blue planet actually belonged to the villainous lifeforms. Where was this amazing setup taken? Absolutely nowhere.
Insomniac completely let that fall by the wayside and instead decided to just focus on Capelli after the Chimera had all but conquered Earth. He had a family with Nathan Hale’s sister and wanted nothing more than to protect them. All well and good. However, the entire course of Resistance 3 had an old ally return to our hero and essentially tell him the New York alien tower had to be destroyed due to it changing the climate of the world. Fast forward some highs and lows on a trek to this artificially created/excavated structure. Capelli miraculously brings the tower down and all is well. The Chimera are suddenly defeated and easily overwhelmed by the remaining humans, people are safe, and Earth is ours once again.
Except at no point in the entire series should this have been possible. From the very beginning the Chimera overpowered humanity at every turn, with or without a tower that could open a wormhole to freeze the planet. In fact, in previous titles destroying a tower would only setback the alien race. This time it is expected of us to believe destroying THIS tower somehow absolutely cripples our foes. Resistance 3 basically presented the Chimera with an ADDITIONAL way to destroy Earth. Then by Capelli negating that ADDITIONAL advantage then means the entire Chimerian race can be defeated. They still had the numbers, weapons, and diabolical beasts on their side, but screw it…one tower down out of many equals victory.
What hurts even more is taking the untouched lore from Resistance 2 and applying it to this ending. You just (unbelievably) defeated a powerful race of extraterrestrials who were transporting your planet across space. You just took them out of the picture for good (again unbelievably). Anyone see how deadly the ramifications are here? Destroying the Chimera means they no longer have the ability to move our planet. Our planet being stopped mid-transportation most likely means no orbit or heat source. Which clearly means bye-bye all life on Earth. Knowing how things ended though I’m sure it would be stated that the planet remarkably entered another star’s orbit at just the right distance to continue life as usual. Oh and don’t forget the utter disappointment of beating the game in four hours on the hardest difficulty.
So Insomniac basically retconned the majority of the series’ lore, that didn’t involve Nathan or Malikov, in its third and currently final outing. Instead of focusing on the worldwide ramifications of what happened behind the scenes in the previous two games, they targeted Capelli and his PERSONAL adventure that somehow wraps up all problems in a nice bow. One of my favorite video game series deserves a better end than this. Here’s hoping we get another sequel or reboot since the series as a whole sold pretty well and received critical acclaim. I truly cling to a proper end of things that didn’t abandon already occurring events more than halfway through. Although I am all for Insomniac Games taking every single moment they need to make the new Spider-man title. Massive hype yo!
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