Resident Evil Revelations 2: Judgment was developed and published on Xbox One and Xbox 360 by Capcom Entertainment Inc. It was released on March 10, 2015 for $5.99. XBLA Fans’ Michael Cheng purchased a copy out of pocket for review purposes.

RER2 Ep 3

Resident Evil Revelations 2 Episode 3: Judgment takes players on a ride that includes more action, more action puzzles, more explosions and more ways to die. Players may notice that one or more of this episode’s sections feel like a tribute to the older games in the series.

Claire’s campaign starts off with Claire finding a message left by a character from Episode 2 to go to a factory nearby. Through a series of wild events, players are taken through a few factories, the sewers and eventually into the interior of the island tower before climaxing at the game’s first major non-optional boss fight. Judgment contains more action puzzles than the first two episodes combined, and on the first playthrough, players can easily die if they don’t think on their feet. It’s nice to finally see a real boss fight this time around. A word of warning to streamers using the Twitch app on Xbox One, though: although you can stream the actual boss fight itself, the scene after that is blocked and will show the Twitch pause screen until you reach the result screen. Very disappointing.

Barry’s campaign continues on from the encounter at the end of Contemplation. After the cut-scene plays out, the player starts off in a drained version of the sewers in Claire’s campaign before heading to a deserted mining facility. This segment tries something different: sending the player on an extended fetch quest involving carrying a cube from one location; dropping it on a conveyor belt to be transferred; and repeating a few times before it eventually reaches its destination. Some players may not like the duration of this fetch quest, myself included. It was tolerable the first time and a major annoyance on every subsequent playthrough.

Judgment features more necessity on partner play to get tasks done, and many puzzles are specifically designed for Moira and Natalia. The episode is very long, with a wide variance in its completion time. I spent two hours on Claire’s section and just over an hour on Barry’s on the first playthrough due to heavy exploration. As of this writing, the top leaderboard time on Xbox One clocks Claire’s section at about 18 minutes and Barry’s at around 17, which is almost double the time of the first episode.

Raid mode continues to (unsurprisingly) be amazing. Twelve more levels on three difficulties as well as two more playable characters have been added. The best part of Judgment‘s additions is the inclusion of Resident Evil Revelations 2 levels. This is both a welcome addition and long overdue; I was getting sick of seeing mostly Resident Evil 6 maps. Raid mode is fantastic, and I can’t wait to see the patch that enables online co-op play.

That being said, while I liked what Capcom did with Judgment, I don’t feel enthusiastic about replaying it outside of Raid Mode.

To find reviews of other episodes (as they become available), check out the Resident Evil Revelations 2 review hub.