What We Already Know: Capcom is aggressively moving Resident Evil’s survival horror onto handhelds as the company figures out the next step for the franchise on the consoles, with a new Resident Evil headed to both PSP and now 3DS. At least in the case of Resident Evil: Revelations for 3DS, however, we’ve actually seen part of the game, whereas the PSP installment remains a mystery.

 What We’re Seeing Now: There was no gameplay shown here at E3 2010 for Resident Evil: Revelations. Instead, Capcom chose to showcase what it’s pulling off with the clearly far more advanced 3DS hardware. I watched a minute-long cut scene featuring Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine in a dark, dank environment that may or may not have been a prison cell. The two of them had a prisoner tied to a chair, beaten and bruised. The character models were incredibly impressive, both seemingly lifted from Resident Evil 5. Both were clearly scaled down – while 3DS is powerful, it’s not exactly a portable Xbox 360 – but nonetheless noteworthy for a handheld. Chris and Jill briefly talked back and forth before the mysterious man in the chair mocked them, informing the duo they were already dead. Ominous, no? Sadly, that’s where the demo concluded, with no indications of what was to come. The 3D effect was noticeable but not distracting, a pattern prevalent amongst many of the 3DS demos at E3 2010. I didn’t really know it was there much of the time.