Resident Evil

Story overview

The early Resident Evil games focused on the Umbrella Corporation, an international pharmaceutical company that secretly develops mutagenic viruses to further their "bio-organic weapons" (BOW) research. The company's viruses can transform humans into mindless zombies while also mutating plants and animals into horrifying monstrosities. The Umbrella Corporation uses its vast resources to effectively control Raccoon City, a fictional midwestern American city. In the original Resident Evil, members of an elite police task force, Special Tactics and Rescue Service (STARS), are lured to a derelict mansion on the outskirts of Raccoon City. The STARS team is mostly decimated by zombies and other BOWs, leaving only a handful of survivors, including Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Albert Wesker. Chris and Jill explore the zombie-infested mansion and uncover a secret underground Umbrella research facility. Wesker reveals himself to be a double agent for Umbrella and betrays his comrades. However, Wesker is seemingly murdered by a Tyrant, a special BOW that is the culmination of the Umbrella Corporation's research.

Chris and Jill escape the mansion, but Raccoon City's officials ridicule their testimony due to Umbrella's influence. Meanwhile, a separate viral outbreak occurs in another Umbrella research facility underneath Raccoon City. Most of the city's residents are infected and become zombies. Resident Evil 2 introduces two new protagonists, Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie police officer and Claire Redfield, the younger sister of Chris. Leon and Claire arrive in Raccoon City amidst the chaos of the viral outbreak. Leon is aided by Ada Wong, a spy posing as an FBI agent, while Claire rescues Sherry Birkin, the daughter of two prominent Umbrella researchers. At the same time, Jill makes her escape from the city in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. A new Tyrant, Nemesis, who Umbrella deploys to eliminate all surviving STARS members, relentlessly pursues her. The U.S. Government destroys Raccoon City with a nuclear missile strike to sterilize the viral outbreak. Leon, Claire, Sherry, Ada, and Jill escape the city before its eradication. Claire continues to look for Chris, whereas Leon is recruited to work for the U.S. Government. Resident Evil – Code: Veronica follows Claire as she escapes from a prison camp in the Southern Ocean and reunites with Chris at an Umbrella research facility in Antarctica, while Wesker is revealed to be alive. Resident Evil 4, set six years after the Raccoon City incident, focuses on Leon as he tries to rescue the U.S. President's daughter from a cult in Spain.

A government investigation into the Umbrella Corporation reveals its involvement in the Raccoon City disaster and leads to the company's dissolution. Despite the downfall of the Umbrella Corporation, its research and BOWs continue to proliferate across the black market, fueling the rise of bioterrorism. Chris and Jill establish the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) to combat these ever-growing threats on a global scale. Wesker is involved in the development of new potent viral agents and BOWs. In Resident Evil 5, Wesker seeks to unleash a highly mutagenic virus that will infect all of humanity. Chris and the BSAA confront and kill Wesker in Africa before he can fulfill his mission. Resident Evil 6 features Leon and Chris meeting for the first time in the video game series. The two work separately to triage bioterrorist attacks in the United States, Eastern Europe, and China. They are assisted by Sherry, Wesker's illegitimate son Jake Muller, Ada, and members of the BSAA and the U.S. government.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village feature a new protagonist, Ethan Winters, who becomes entangled in a bioterrorism incident while searching for his missing wife. He encounters Chris and the BSAA, who help him rescue his wife and defeat Eveline, a powerful BOW. Ethan, Mia, and their newborn daughter, Rosemary, are relocated to Eastern Europe but are abducted by a cult. Ethan ultimately sacrifices himself to destroy a fungal colony being weaponized by bioterrorists and save his family. Resident Evil Requiem introduces a new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, whose investigation into a syndrome affecting survivors of the Raccoon City incident leads her into the city's ruins to uncover a new conspiracy, aided by Leon and Sherry.

Gameplay

The Resident Evil franchise has had a variety of control schemes and gameplay mechanics throughout its history. Puzzle-solving has figured prominently throughout the series.

Tank controls

Early Resident Evil games use "tank controls", whereby pressing up on the game controller moves the character in the direction they face, down reverses them, and left and right rotates them. This differs from many games, in which characters move in the direction players push from the perspective of the camera. Some critics have posited that the control scheme is intentionally clumsy, meant to enhance stress and exacerbate difficulty. Mikami felt the use of fixed camera perspectives and tank controls made the game scarier.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis saw some action-oriented additions. These included a 180 degree turn and dodge command that, according to GameSpot, "hinted at a new direction that the series would go in". Later games in the series, like Resident Evil 4, introduced a more fluid over-the-shoulder third-person camera instead of a fixed camera for each room, while Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village are played from the first-person perspective.

Third-person shooter gameplay

Resident Evil 4 saw significant changes to the established gameplay, including switching from fixed camera perspectives to a tracking camera, and more action-oriented gameplay and mechanics. This was complemented by an abundance of ammunition and revised aiming and melee mechanics. Some critics claimed that this overhauled control scheme "made the game less scary." The next two games in the franchise furthered the action-oriented mechanics: Resident Evil 5 featured cooperative play and added strafing, while Resident Evil 6 allowed players to move while aiming and shooting for the first time, fully abandoning the series' signature tank controls.

First-person shooter gameplay and VR

Resident Evil 7 is the first main Resident Evil game to use the first-person perspective and to use virtual reality. It drew comparisons to modern survival horror games such as Outlast and PT. The eighth main installment, Resident Evil Village, also features a first-person perspective and included a VR mode added post launch. A VR version of Resident Evil 4 was released on the Oculus Quest 2 on October 21, 2021. On December 8, 2023 a free DLC for the remake of Resident Evil 4 was released that added a VR mode using PlayStation VR2 to the PlayStation 5 version of the game.

Other media

The Resident Evil franchise features video games and tie-in merchandise and products, including various live-action and animated films, comic books, and novels.

Films

Live-action films

From 2002 to 2016, six live-action Resident Evil films were produced, all written and produced by Paul W. S. Anderson. The films do not follow the games' premise but feature some game characters. The series' protagonist is Alice, an original character created for the films portrayed by Milla Jovovich. Despite a negative reaction from critics, the live-action film series has made over $1 billion worldwide. They are, to date, the only video game adaptations to increase the amount of money made with each successive film. The series holds the record for the "Most Live-Action Film Adaptations of a Video Game" in the 2012 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, which also described it as "the most successful movie series to be based on a video game."

A reboot, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, was released on November 24, 2021, with Johannes Roberts as writer and director. In January 2025, it was reported that Zach Cregger was writing and directing a film reboot, Resident Evil, co-produced by Constantin Film and PlayStation Productions. In March 2025, Sony Pictures won a bidding war to secure the rights to the Resident Evil franchise, including its upcoming untitled project, with Columbia Pictures serving as the film's new distributor. Sony has set a release date of September 18, 2026, for the project. In June 2025, it was reported that the project had registered to film in the Czech Republic. On August 11, 2025, Austin Abrams was confirmed to star in the film. Filming is scheduled to begin in Prague in November 2025. Cregger said that he had not seen the previous Resident Evil films and that his film will be more closely based on the video games, particularly Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and Resident Evil 4.

Animated films

The first computer animated film for the franchise was Biohazard 4D-Executer. It was a short 3D film produced for Japanese theme parks and did not feature any characters from the game. Starting in 2008, a series of feature-length computer-animated films have been released. These films take place in the same continuity as the games and feature characters such as Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Ada Wong, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine and Rebecca Chambers.

Television

Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness, a four-part CG anime series, premiered on July 8, 2021, on Netflix. Starring the Resident Evil 2 protagonists Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, the series features both uncovering a worldwide plot. The series was released on July 8, 2021 on Netflix.

Resident Evil premiered on July 14, 2022, on Netflix. An eight-episode live-action series, two plotlines set in 2022 and 2036 follow Albert Wesker and his daughters navigating Umbrella's experiments in New Raccoon City.

Merchandise

Over the years, various toy companies have acquired the Resident Evil license, with each producing their own unique line of Resident Evil action figures or models. These include, but are not limited to, Toy Biz, Palisades Toys, NECA, and Hot Toys.

Tokyo Marui also produced replicas of the guns used in the Resident Evil series in the form of gas blow-back airsoft guns. Some models included the STARS Beretta featured in Resident Evil 3, and the Desert Eagle in a limited edition that came with other memorabilia in a wooden case, along with the Gold Lugers from Code: Veronica and the "Samurai Edge" pistol from the Resident Evil remake. Other merchandise includes an energy drink called "T-virus Antidote".

Resident Evil Archives is a reference guide of the Resident Evil series written by staff members of Capcom. It was translated into English and published by BradyGames. The guide describes and summarizes all of the key events that occur in Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and Code: Veronica. The main plot analysis also contains character relationship charts, artwork, item descriptions, and file transcripts for all five games. A second Archives book was later released in December 2011 and covers Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 5, the new scenarios detailed in Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, and the 2008 CGI movie, Resident Evil: Degeneration. The second Archives volume was also translated by Capcom and published by BradyGames.

A Resident Evil theme restaurant called Biohazard Cafe & Grill S.T.A.R.S. opened in Tokyo in 2012. Halloween Horror Nights 2013, held at Universal Orlando, featured a haunted house titled Resident Evil: Escape from Raccoon City, based on Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

Novels

The first Resident Evil novel was Hiroyuki Ariga's novella Biohazard: The Beginning, published in 1997 as a portion of the book The True Story of Biohazard, which was given away as a pre-order bonus with the Sega Saturn version of Biohazard. The story serves as a prelude to the original Resident Evil, in which Chris investigates the disappearance of his missing friend, Billy Rabbitson.

S. D. Perry has written novelizations of the first five games, as well as two original novels taking place between games. The novels often take liberties with the games' plot by exploring events occurring outside and beyond the games. This often meant that the games would later contradict the books on a few occasions. One notable addition from the novels is the original character Trent, who often served as a mysterious behind-the-scenes string-puller who aided the main characters. Perry's novels were translated and released in Japan with new cover arts by Wolfina. Perry's novels, particularly The Umbrella Conspiracy, also alluded to events in Biohazard: The Beginning, such as the disappearance of Billy Rabbitson and Brian Irons' bid to run for Mayor. A reprinting of Perry's novels with new cover artwork began in 2012 to coincide with the release of Resident Evil: Retribution and its respective novelization.

There are a trilogy of original Biohazard novels in Japan. Hokkai no Yōjū (北海の妖獣; lit. "The Strange Beast of the North Sea") was published in 1998 and was written by Kyū Asakura and the staff of Flagship. Two additional novels were published in 2002, To the Liberty by Sudan Kimura and Rose Blank by Tadashi Aizawa. While no official English translation of these novels has been published yet, the last two books were translated into German and published in 2006.

Novelizations of the films Genesis, Apocalypse, and Extinction were written by Keith DeCandido. Afterlife did not receive a novelization due to Capcom's decision to discontinue working with Pocket Books, who had been their primary source of publishing books up to that point, Capcom would later make Titan Books their primary publisher going forth. Retribution was written by John Shirley, while The Final Chapter was written by Tim Waggoner. Genesis was published over two years after that film's release and coincided with the publication of Apocalypse, Genesis being marketed as a prequel to Apocalypse, while the Extinction novel was released in late July 2007, two months before the film's release. The Final Chapter was published in December 2016 alongside the film's theatrical release. There was also a Japanese novelization of the first film, unrelated to DeCandido's version, written by Osamu Makino. Makino also wrote two novels based on the game Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. The books are a two-part direct novelization of the game and are published in Japanese and German only. The first novel, titled Biohazard: The Umbrella Chronicles Side A in Japan and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles 1 in Germany, was released on December 22, 2007. The second novel, titled Biohazard: The Umbrella Chronicles Side B in Japan and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles 2 in Germany, was published in January 2008.

Comics

In 1997, Marvel Comics published a single-issue prologue comic based on the original Resident Evil, released through a promotional giveaway alongside the original PlayStation game.

In 1998, WildStorm began producing a monthly comic book series based on the first two games, Resident Evil: The Official Comic Magazine, which lasted five issues. The first four issues were published by Image, while Wildstorm themselves published the fifth and final issue. Each issue was a compilation of short stories that were both adaptations of events from the games and related side stories. Like the Perry novels, the comics also explored events occurring beyond Resident Evil 2 (the latest game during the series' publication) and thus were contradicted by later games. Wildstorm also published a four-issue miniseries, Resident Evil: Fire & Ice, which depicted the ordeal of Charlie Team, a third STARS team created specifically for the comic. In 2009, Wildstorm reprinted Fire & Ice in a trade paperback collection.

In Hong Kong, there has been officially licensed Biohazard manhua adaptations of Biohazard 0 by publisher Yulang Group, Biohazard 2 by Kings Fountain, Biohazard 3 Supplemental Edition by Cao Zhihao and, Biohazard 3 The Last Escape, and Biohazard Code: Veronica by Lee Chung Hing published by Tinhangse Publishing. The Code: Veronica manhua was translated into English, formatted to look like an American comic and distributed by WildStorm as a series of four graphic novel collections.

In 2009, Wildstorm began publishing a Resident Evil comic book prequel to Resident Evil 5, which centers on two original members of the BSAA, Mina Gere and Holiday Sugarman. Written by Ricardo Sanchez and illustrated by Kevin Sharpe and Jim Clark, the first issue was published on March 11, 2009. On November 11, 2009, the third issue was released, and the fourth was released March 24, 2010. The sixth and final book was finally published in February 2011.

Plays

In the summer of 2000, Bioroid: Year Zero was performed in Japan. It was a musical horror-comedy but took the perspective of the infected. Super Eccentric Theater put on the production under the direction of Osamu Yagihashi. The stage play was performed from early July to late August. Biohazard The Stage was released in Japan in 2015. The play focused on Chris Redfield and Rebecca Chambers as Philosophy University in Australia is experiencing a bioterrorist attack. The production was handled by Avex Live Creative and Ace Crew Entertainment, under supervision from Capcom. The following year, Musical Biohazard ~Voice of Gaia~ was released in September. It was produced by Umeda Arts Theater by director G2 and composer, Shunsuke Wada. Biohazard the Experience was the second Resident Evil play produced by Avex Live Creative and Ace Crew Entertainment. The story is set in 2015 and follows a cast of thirteen survivors who were abducted and woke up in a mansion during an outbreak.

Reception and legacy

Most of the games in the prominent Resident Evil series have been released to positive reviews. Some of the games, most notably Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4, have been bestowed with multiple Game of the Year honors and often placed on lists of the best video games ever made.

In 1999, Next Generation listed the Resident Evil series as number 13 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that, "Flawless graphics, excellent music, and a top-notch storyline all combined to make a game of unparalleled atmosphere and suspense." In 2012, Complex ranked Resident Evil at number 22 on the list of the best video game franchises. That same year, G4tv called it "one of the most successful series in gaming history."

Commercial performance

By December 2022, around 135 million Resident Evil games had been sold. The first two Resident Evil games had collectively sold approximately 11 million units worldwide by March 1999. By early 2001, the series had sold 17 million units worldwide, earning more than $600 million. By 2011, it had sold about 46 million copies and was estimated to have grossed at least $1.3 billion. It is recognized by Guinness World Records as the best-selling survival horror series, with Resident Evil 2 remake being the best-selling survival horror game as of 2023. Seven of the top ten best-selling horror games in North America are Resident Evil games.

The 2023 Resident Evil 4 remake sold more than three million copies in its first two days of release. It sold four million copies in its first two weeks, making it one of the fastest-selling Resident Evil games. In Japan, it was the best-selling retail game in its first week, selling 89,662 copies on PlayStation 5 and 85,371 on PlayStation 4.

The Resident Evil film series was the highest-grossing film series based on video games by 2012. By 2011, the films had grossed over $600 million at the box office, bringing the franchise's estimated revenue to at least more than $1.9 billion in combined video game sales and box office gross up until then. As of 2020, the films have grossed more than $1.3 billion in box office and home video sales. The success of the video games and films have made Resident Evil the highest-grossing franchise in the horror and zombie genres.

Cultural impact

GameSpot listed the original Resident Evil as one of the fifteen most influential video games of all time. It is credited with defining and popularizing the survival horror genre of games. It is also credited with taking video games in a cinematic direction with its B-movie style cut-scenes, including live-action full-motion video (FMV) footage. Its live-action opening, however, was controversial; it became one of the first action games to receive the "Mature 17+" (M) rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), despite the opening cutscene being censored in North America.

The Resident Evil franchise is credited with sparking a revival of the zombie genre in popular culture, leading to a renewed interest in zombie films during the 2000s. Resident Evil also helped redefine the zombie genre, playing an important role in its shift from supernatural themes to scientific themes by using science to explain the origins of zombies. According to Kim Newman in the book Nightmare Movies (2011), "the zombie revival began in the Far East" mainly due to the 1996 Japanese zombie games Resident Evil and The House of the Dead. George A. Romero, in 2013, said it was the video games Resident Evil and House of the Dead "more than anything else" that popularised his zombie concept in early 21st-century popular culture. In a 2015 interview with Huffington Post, screenwriter-director Alex Garland credited the Resident Evil series as a primary influence on his script for the horror film 28 Days Later (2002), and credited the first Resident Evil game for revitalizing the zombie genre. Screenwriter Edgar Wright cited Resident Evil 2 as a primary influence on his zombie comedy film Shaun of the Dead (2004), with the film's star and co-writer Simon Pegg also crediting the first game with starting the zombie revival in popular culture. The Walking Dead comic book creator Robert Kirkman cited Resident Evil as his favorite zombie game, while The Walking Dead television series director Greg Nicotero credited Resident Evil and The House of the Dead with introducing the zombie genre "to a whole generation of younger people who didn't grow up watching Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead."

The Resident Evil Apocalypse zombies were conceptualized and choreographed by Sharon B. Moore and Derek Aasland. Through script analysis and movement research, a "scientific logic" was devised for the T-virus accounting for each Zombie behavior envisioned in Paul W. S. Anderson's script. Sharon B. Moore and Derek Aasland then wrote the so-called Undead Bible - a Handbook for the Undead - used as the guide for the nearly 1000 cast under the choreographic department (stunt performers, actors, dancers, extras) to ensure the Undead physicality was performed in a unified way across the picture. The Stunt and Core teams participated in the "Undead Bootcamp". See also 2007 Documentary Undead Bootcamp starring producer Jeremy Bolt, director Alexander Witt, and choreographers Sharon B. Moore and Derek Aasland.

On the DVD Featurette 'Resident Evil; Game Over' Apocalypse director Alexander Witt said the zombies needed to be "more aggressive and more dangerous" than the original film, so they were created by the film's choreographers Sharon B. Moore and Derek Aasland as "liquid zombie[s]' in terms of their relentless forward motion: unstoppable, flowing around any kind of resistance, and then rushing in on the final attack. This is also detailed in the book Biopunk Dystopias: Genetic Engineering, Society, and Science Fiction (Lars Schmeink, 2016, p. 214).

Additionally, the first Resident Evil film adaptation also contributed to the revival of zombie films, with the success of the film and the games resulting in zombies achieving greater mainstream prominence and several zombie films being greenlit, such as the video game film adaptation House of the Dead (2003), the remake Dawn of the Dead (2004) and Romero's Land of the Dead (2005). The Resident Evil films, 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake all set box office records for the zombie genre, reaching levels of commercial success not seen since the original Dawn of the Dead (1978). They were followed by other zombie films such as 28 Weeks Later (2007), Zombieland (2009), Cockneys vs Zombies (2012), and World War Z (2013), as well as zombie-themed graphic novels and television shows such as The Walking Dead and The Returned, and books such as World War Z (2006), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) and Warm Bodies (2010). The zombie revival trend was popular across different media up until the mid-2010s. Since then, zombie films have declined in popularity during the late 2010s, but zombie video games have remained popular, as seen with the commercial success of the Resident Evil 2 remake and Days Gone in 2019.