Resident Evil Survival Unit studio JOYCITY monitored play testers’ brainwaves to make the game “objectively scary”Business lead Jun Seung Park said the team “obtained meaningful results that helped us adjust the fear levels and immersion”The team also referenced the mainline series to “capture the same unique feel on mobile devices”
South Korean studio JOYCITY, the developers behind Resident Evil Survival Unit, apparently monitored play testers’ brainwaves to ensure that the game was scary enough.
That’s according to JOYCITY business lead Jun Seung Park, who told This Is Game(machine translated by Automaton), that the developers wanted to make sure the mobile game was “objectively scary” for players.
“We conducted a bio-signal-based focus group test, monitoring players’ brainwaves, eye movements and pulse to objectively measure their levels of tension and immersion,” said Seung Park. “Even if we received positive responses through surveys, looking at actual bio-signals could lead to a different conclusion. Through this data, we obtained meaningful results that helped us adjust the fear levels and immersion.”
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A documentary-style video on JOYCITY’s official YouTube channel shows a bunch of playtesters wearing said brainwave-measuring devices strapped to their heads, so it’s clear that the studio went all in on trying to up the scare-factor.
Seung Park also discussed referencing the original Resident Evil games and said the team tried to “capture the same unique feel on mobile devices”, even going so far as to mimic the series’ sound design, in particular the sound of footsteps in a scene without background music.
“Capcom’s 30 years’ worth of accumulated know-how proved to be invaluable,” they said.
Producer Dongkyun Kye added, “At first, I was worried whether this kind of approach would be effective, but seeing how surprised and tense players got in these moments made me feel relieved.”
It’s also worth mentioning that since this is machine-translated, some additional context and nuance may be missing from Jun Seung Park’s and Dongkyun Kye’s comments.
Resident Evil Survival Unit quietly launched on mobile last November and flew under the radar for even the biggest Resident Evil fans. The reception was lukewarm to say the least, with some players praising its exploration, but criticising the game’s lack of horror, limited-time purchases, and overpriced microtransactions.
Resident Evil fans not into mobile games can look forward to the next mainline installment, Resident Evil Requiem, which launches on February 27, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
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