After Capcom released Resident Evil in 1996, it sparked a number of imitations within the company itself. One of the more popular was 1999’s Dino Crisis – a game that played just like Resident Evil except it replaced the hordes of undead with dinosaurs. Now it may be coming back.

Jawmuncher at NeoGAF reports (via VG24/7) that the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine UK has a rumor that Capcom is prepping a Dino Crisis reboot to be revealed at E3. There’s not much else to go on at this point, but the prospect of a new Dino Crisis is certainly exciting.

Dino Crisis, like Capcom’s other Resident Evil-inspired series (e.g. Onimusha), has had a spotty history. The first game was released in 1999 and was directed by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami. It retained the puzzles, fixed camera angles, jump scares and tension of its spiritual predecessor, but offered much larger boss fights in the form of T-Rexes and other large dinosaurs.

A year later, Capcom published the sequel – Dino Crisis 2. It featured two playable characters and takes place in the pre-historic past as a result of time fluctuations or some such. In short, it was silly. It was still generally well received, but it ditched the survival-horror atmosphere of the first title in favor of a more action-adventure feel.

With Dino Crisis 3, it seemed that Capcom had killed the franchise for good. The 2003 Xbox-exclusive was set in space and had players surviving an outbreak of mutated monsters spawned from dinosaur DNA. Long time fans felt betrayed by this weird course in direction, and its exclusivity to the Xbox limited its appeal.

While it’s easy to see why Capcom wouldn’t want to revive the series, it has a good reason to as well. It’s been over 10 years since the last entry was released so it’s not exactly in the mainstream consciousness anymore. This would allow Capcom to market it to a brand new audience that doesn’t have the expectations of long time fans still complaining about the third entry.

It also comes at a time when Capcom still isn’t sure how to move forward with the Resident Evil franchise. The latest entry – Resident Evil 6 – was met with middling reviews and less than stellar sales thanks to its focus on Call of Duty-like set pieces instead of scares. With Dino Crisis, they could explore how to better balance horror with action before tackling another Resident Evil.

Either way, we’ll find out at E3 this year which is set to take place on June 10. Capcom doesn’t generally hold a press conference at the show so we might see the announcement at either the Sony or Microsoft press conference.

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