Image courtesy Capcom

When you open your brand-new copy of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D on Tuesday, you may find something interesting in the manual.

Let me explain why this is so infuriating if you’re unclear on just how hostile this is to gamers. Once you’ve beaten the game, you can’t erase your progress and start over. If you want to loan the game to a friend, they won’t be able to start their own game from the beginning. You may be able to trade the game into a store or sell it, but I wouldn’t suggest buying it from someone used, since you won’t be able to start from the beginning and unlock all the content yourself.

“Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision, so we hope that all our consumers will be able to enjoy the entirety of the survival-action experiences that the game does offer,” Capcom said in a statement given to Giant Bomb.

“In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset,” the statement continued. “The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability in order to improve mission scores. In addition, this feature does not remove any content available for users.”

If this isn’t to hurt the resale value, why else would you do this? Also, this hurts everyone who buys a copy of the game, and significantly harms the long-term replayability of the title. I often wipe the saved game files of my portable games to start fresh, and this new “feature” makes that impossible.

So thanks, Capcom. You have made my purchasing decision much easier.