That’s backwards-thinking. Your spin-off series is where you experiment on new ideas, while your mainline series has the traditional game design formula. Resident Evil Revelations 2 will be episodic downloadable content, so I’d call that experimenting. Capcom, please stop.
[quote]“I think the big numbered titles are where we try the big sort of experiments, bold new things,” Okabe said. “We see what sticks, and continue to refine those ideas. I think with the spin-off series we have the opportunity to do something a little different."
Resident Evil Revelations 2’s “gameplay serves as a bridge to the more classically styled Resident Evils,” Okabe continued, "versus the new action-focused ones.”
Okabe noted that Revelations 2’s quieter horror elements “work really well because it’s a spin-off series, and I think the numbered series is where different ideas happen. They’re both important parts of the Resident Evil franchise as a whole.”
Capcom is keeping a close eye on what its fans want, Okabe explained, which is why something like Revelations is able to exist. It’s meant to fill a void in Resident Evil players’ lives, and to do so in a way that expands on what Revelations did best – its return-to-form style was, despite its flaws, mostly successful. With Resident Evil Revelations 2 carrying the torch of the first game, and pursuing a more subdued sort of tension than the mainline games are going for, Resident Evil proper favors a more mass-market action-oriented appeal with horror themes.[/quote]
Source: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/30/why-revelations-2-isnt-called-resident-evil-7