Outbreak 2 and Monster Hunter online in Europe

Capcom Eurosoft has confirmed that PlayStation 2 titles Resident Evil Outbreak File #2 and Monster Hunter will both feature online play when they're released in Europe next year, bringing us into line with the US and Japan.

Earlier this year Capcom released the first Resident Evil Outbreak title in Europe stripped of its online functionality, which - along with the sense that it was a pretty bumbling and poorly designed single-player adventure - contributed to critical backlash and a fairly poor commercial response.

Whether the lack of PS2 Online functionality was key to that outcome is presumably something Capcom hopes to discover when it releases Outbreak File #2, which has already enjoyed chart-topping success in the Far East since its release there, in the summer of next year.

At the time of the original Outbreak's European announcement, the publisher blamed "technical difficulties" for the lack of online support, and said it was doing all it could to improve matters for future PS2 titles.

Monster Hunter, meanwhile, has already been out in the US since late September, and we were beginning to lose hope of getting our hands on it. The news that it's due to appear in Q1 2005, and feature-complete, is certainly encouraging, but on the other hand the critical response in the US so far doesn't bode quite so well. We'll have to wait and see.