YMMV / Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Leon's actions in the ending stirred a lot of discussions with many fans based on the events of Resident Evil 6. As he explains to Shen Mei, exposing the truth could cause distrust and panic in the public and earn her enemies which is what would happen to President Graham's successor, Adam Benford, who intended to reveal the truth about the US government's role in bioweaponry and was killed for it. Therefore, Leon's reason not to give Jun See's chip to Claire seems like him protecting her from being targeted by their enemies. And there's also the fact that Leon's job as a government agent means he can't just give classified secrets to civilian Claire.
  • According to the director Eiichiro Hasumi's interview, the outcome of Leon and Claire's ending conversation is up for interpretation. Therefore, it can be assumed that the two still see each other as friends even though they have different methods of fighting bioterrorism and there was no team-up of them in later games. Resident Evil 6 files also attest that Claire is responsible for having Chris and Leon meet each other in person, although it never specifies if it was before or after the events of Infinite Darkness, so the possibility is, again, still there. By the time of Resident Evil: Death Island, they've apparently both gotten past it.
• Complete Monster: Secretary of Defense Wilson initially appears to be a jingoistic War Hawk pushing President Graham into conflict with China, but is revealed to be a corrupt member of Tricell out to enrich himself. Years ago Wilson developed Super Soldiers through a modified version of the T-virus, with the soldiers relying on regular injections of an inhibitor to avoid becoming zombies. When the US intervened in the Penamstan Civil War, then-Major General Wilson deployed a team of these soldiers as a test. When this resulted in a zombie outbreak, Wilson ordered the area bombed to cover his tracks, uncaring that the Mad Dogs unit was still there. When the now-infected Mad Dogs confronted him, Wilson forced them to perform Black Ops missions for him in exchange for the inhibitor, resulting in all but one of them committing suicide. Wilson then orchestrates a zombie outbreak in the White House and has a submarine destroyed, blaming the attacks on China. Wilson's plan is to push the US into a war with China so he can deploy his super soldiers there and enrich himself through his control over the inhibitors.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The most common complaint levied against the show is how short it is. All four episodes are half-hour long, but it doesn’t help that it feels like a feature-length movie being chopped up into four parts rather than a full-fledged series. This isn't helped by the final episode dramatically increasing the pace of the story, and the way Leon doesn't explain his motivations at all to Jason, Claire, or even the audience. It comes off as rushed, like it retained action scenes at the cost of exorcising crucial character arcs. It would have more than likely benefited from a fifth or even a sixth episode.
• Memetic Mutation: RIP Redfield Legacy^ExplanationIn the ending, Leon refuses to give Jun See's chip to Claire in order to preserve the alliance between the US and Penamstan, causing a rift between the two. And since this is the last, or at least the most recent, time Claire and Leon team up together, both in-universe and in Real Life, many fans saw this as Leon rejecting the Redfield Bloodline and joked that Chris is going to be pissed.
• Narm:
  • Jason's insistence on constantly saying the words "terror" and "fear" over and over again quickly wears out its welcome, since it makes up a majority of what he says.
  • There's also Spacer's constant mentions of China, and characters constantly mentioning Penamstan. If you're ever in the mood to get drunk quick, just watch this and take a shot every time either place is mentioned - you'll be out flat by the end of the first episode. Doesn't help that "Penamstan", like "Parmistan" before it, sounds rather silly.
  • Jason's apparent reputation doesn't quite gel with the fact that he is never given a surname. You'd think being a famous war hero would warrant a more formal address than just "Jason".
• Nightmare Fuel: The rat B.O.W.s Leon encounters onboard the submarine supply one of the creepiest and most nauseating moments in the franchise.
• Nightmare Retardant: Jason's mutated form can best be described as the bastard love child of Swamp Thing and the Hulk, much more goofy than horrifying. Also not helped by his continued ranting about "terror" and "fear" over and over and the big silly leaps he does.
• Ship Sinking: After decades of media suggesting some level of romantic chemistry between Leon and Claire, Infinite Darkness clarifies that Leon had burned away much of the good will built between them from Raccoon City despite remaining on cordial terms in the future.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Like Rebecca in Resident Evil: Vendetta, many viewers felt Claire's role in the series is completely wasted. Not only her subplot is disjointed from the main story, but she also doesn't do much other than investigating the government conspiracy which happens mostly offscreen and getting kidnapped until she saves herself, helps Leon take out Jason, and gets knocked out in the process.
  • Patrick himself is completely underutilized. The series and it the trailers for it make it seem as if he'll become a Tritagonist, but he hardly does anything at all. It gets to the point that he becomes President Graham's bodyguard and hardly shows up near the tail-end of the series.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: As with Resident Evil: Degeneration, Sherry isn't mentioned by either Leon or Claire despite files in Resident Evil 6 explain that Sherry looks up to them as parental figures and that Claire occasionally visits her during her time of captivity by Simmons.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Shen Mei is written with the assumption that viewers will find her motives and family tragedies sympathetic, but it's incredibly difficult to overlook her murdering several innocent navy men onboard that submarine, with many fans feeling like her death is a great deal less tragic and more karmic than the story tries to frame it.
  • There is contention over Leon's decision in the end to not hand over Jun-See's chip to Claire and expose Wilson's crimes. Not only is Leon complicit in covering up the truth about the events of Penamstan and massive government corruption and a conspiracy that cost dozens, if not hundreds of people their lives, but he doesn't even bother to explain his reasoning to Claire, instead just saying he can't do it.

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