The developer of SOCOM is working on the next Resident Evil title, and that should give you the perfect idea of what kind of squad-based gameplay Capcom is gunning for here. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City seems like it will see the series finally giving up the idea of survival horror completely, something it’s definitely been leaning to more and more after the more action-centric Resident Evil 4 became such a critical and commercial hit.

The new game will take place back in 1998, when the Umbrella Corporation first started accidentally unleashing its experiments in Raccoon City, which means that the series will finally see authentic zombies once again. You’re going to play a Umbrella Security Services team (like Hunk, the secret character from Resident Evil 2) who’s been called to the city to clean up the mess they created. This is the main faction, but the there are two others- a Spec Ops team who’s trying to stop the USS, and of course you’ll be able to play as the monsters. Four players will team up on each faction. While the Left 4 Dead influence is obvious, it’s pretty exciting to think about playing a Tyrant or Nemesis and stalking the other players.

No matter the faction you’ll have to contend with plain’ ol shuffling zombies, and as with most shooters killing enemies will net you XP to buy new weapons and skills. You can expect to explore a few familiar areas from the first few Resident Evil titles and even change the history of the world.

The Official Xbox Magazine will have more details in its next issue, so pick it up on newstands, if you remember what those things are. But are you folks sad that what used to be one of the scariest games around has switched its style? At least we have Dead Space 2, which knows how to perfectly meld action and horror, and we’ll see what F.E.A.R. 3 does in a few months. It just seems that the longer a horror series goes on, the less scary it is.