The fifth and latest set of the Resident Evil Deck Building Game by Bandai has finally received some new hard information. The set is called Mercenaries, it will be released in November although a price has not been specified.
Originally planned as another expansion, it has now been developed into a full set, so it can be played with or without the prior sets.
This seems to be the largest departure for the card game since the original release. A large influence has been taken from the Mercenaries and more specifically the 3DS version of the game.
Many new features of the game support slightly faster game play:

slightly raising the health of the new protagonists

they now only have one level ability on their cards instead of two

a new "skill" type of system has been implemented which is intended to be equivalent to the skills that players of the 3DS game could assign to their characters to modify the way they play and also seems to be the replacement for the second level that character cards are now missing (how the "skill" cards are obtained during play has not been specified)

there is now some sort of XP system in which the player can gain XP when they explore the mansion without regard to whether they were able to defeat the enemies that were revealed

the starting cards that players generally have in their decks (pistols, knives, ammo, etc.) have new features that encourage players to get rid of them in favor of better cards-- which in turn is supposed to help newer players understand the flow of the game better in terms of trading up for better cards but also getting rid of worse cards as the game goes on to provide more consistency when drawing.

In the link below there are some pictures of some of the new cards and an advert poster that has some additional information can be found in the second link, which features the only character card that has been revealed, which is Rebecca Chambers.
In my personal opinion, whenever I hear that a game is taking steps to make things faster and more accessible (a hand holding approach), I tend to worry. After reading the preview cards and understanding the thought behind what is happening to the game, I don't have a single worry. It sounds as if the way the game is being modified is only producing more ways to play with complexity and create combos (fitting for a set called Mercenaries) while also helping newer players understand the flow of these types of card games.
Another annoying thing that can occur when this approach is taken to changing a game is the side effect of all previous sets and cards becoming obsolete or incompatible, but wonderfully, these cards are being made to work well with previous sets. Also the intended replacement of a few of the old starting equipment cards from prior sets with the updated starting cards, this new set should only make every previous set better than it was before.

If you haven't tried out the Deck Building Game, I would highly recommend it. In my experience, I have played it with fans, non-fans, gamers, people who haven't played card games or the video variety and each person I've played it with has genuinely enjoyed it and wanted to play more. They can be purchased on Amazon.com.

http://www.bandai.com/residentevil/news/

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ... =1&theater

If you've played, what's your favorite set? Character? Weapon, monster, experience? What would you hope to see in the new set?