Netflix ‘s new Resident Evil live-action series has been cancelled. Nothing out of the ordinary, considering the negative repercussions, right? However, don’t let its dubious quality standard stop you from getting to know this intricate plot of zombie epidemics and pharmaceutical industry marauders created by Capcom. Check out our guide to the in-game series and find out which is the best gateway to this terrifying universe.

Emergence of the Franchise

The 90s were intense for Capcom. Having discovered a gold mine with the success of Street Fighter 2 and its countless revised versions, the company would need to find a new brand capable of sustaining the positive tide it had been finding since then, but which had receded with the end of the second great era of arcades , passed over from home consoles such as the PlayStation.

Thus, the proposal to get around this thought was the production of a kind of remake of another title produced by Capcom itself in 1989, called Sweet Home . Although it was restricted to the Japanese market only, Sweet Home is considered ground zero for survival horror games .

Inspired by the Japanese film of the same name — that’s right, Sweet Home is a “movie game”, although it has little to do with the story of the said whose — it was in charge of Tokuro Fujiwara, the person responsible for Ghosts ‘n Goblins , another IP company’s success. In practice, what the title offered was the definition of an entire genre and how it relates to its gameplay by bringing puzzle elements and a construction of environments cohesive enough for the experience offered to be immersive enough.

Thus, Resident Evil – known in Japan as Biohazard – emerged as an attempt to revitalize the success achieved by Sweet Home, with Fujiwara in the production and a then newcomer Shinji Mikami in the direction, being inspired primarily not only by the horror game produced by Capcom itself. , but also in other low-budget movie classics, such as those produced by George Romero and Sam Raimi.

The first title became a success and consolidated the brand, which was soon producing worthy sequences in games and expanding its universe to other media, some with relevant material, such as computer graphics films and some comics, and others not so much, such as infamous live actions .

Sticking only to the origins, let’s get to know in detail each of the main games in the series and what makes each of them so special or simply a reason for contempt on the part of fans of the franchise.

Getting to know the main series

In all, ten main Resident Evil games have been produced by Capcom since its first title in 1996, seven of them explicitly numbered (from the first to the sixth, in addition to zero), two implicitly (Resident Evil Biohazard and Village, whose names carry letters in Roman algorithms that make up numbers seven and eight) and, finally, a last standalone game called Resident Evil Code: Veronica, which fits into the main series on its own. Check out more about each one.

Resident Evil (1996)

The basic story of the first Resident Evil revolves around Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, members of the Alpha team of STARS, the Raccoon City police force, in their search for the missing Bravo team, but who end up having to take refuge in the mysterious Spencer mansion. . Inside, they soon discover that the abandoned property was one of the stages of illicit activities conducted by the pharmaceutical Umbrella Corporation.

Being able to choose between the two protagonists that lead to slightly different endings, the first game had a fixed camera environment in which the player had to walk through the scenarios while unlocking the mansion’s secrets and had to deal with limited supplies of items, such as ammo and cure.

The original title also knew how to use the hardware at hand, understanding its limitations and finding good solutions, such as the infamous animation of the door opening that served to hide the disk loading times, as well as the scenarios that actually , were two-dimensional, but they created the sensation of depth with mastery when traversed by the 3D models of the controllable characters.

The game’s almost immediate success led Capcom to port it to other platforms, such as the Saturn, PC and even, years later, to the Nintendo DS, with each of these editions bringing their own peculiarities. Though little talked about, a handheld edition developed exclusively for the Game Boy Color almost had its release date, but was soon scrapped. Although archived by Capcom, the ROM of the title in question even dropped on the internet in 2012.

Finally, despite being a classic that marked its generation, it is very important to remember that the first game in the series received a remake . Released in 2002 for the Gamecube, this edition is widely considered the definitive one for the Resident Evil experience, making the original game dated and worthy of being checked out more for the historical value it represents.

Resident Evil 2 (1998)

After some attempts to follow up on the original Resident Evil — as is the case with the canceled Resident Evil 1.5 and Resident Evil Dash — the second title has arrived to improve everything that the first had brought innovative. This applies from the graphic issue to the boldness of the script, through more complex puzzles, a considerable variety of new enemies and weapons, unlockable secret content and more intense moments of suspense and terror.

Here, the story takes place months after the events of the Spencer mansion and, in the role of Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield, the player ends up getting involved in a plot in which he has to face the new G-Virus and its creator, William Birkin, while accompanying Claire’s search for her brother Chris and tries to escape the doomed Raccoon City.

As would soon become customary in the franchise, Resident Evil 2 was not restricted to PlayStation, it was also released for PC soon after. The Nintendo 64 also received an exclusive edition with its own characteristics due to the differentiated hardware , bringing support for the analog stick and performing the miraculous feat of fitting the pre-rendered cutscenes inside the reduced capacity cartridge compared to CDs, in addition to the possibility of adjusting the degree of violence and a system that randomizes the items found in each new campaign.

After arriving on the Dreamcast as well, the Gamecube version, released in 2003, was received negatively for being released without adjustments or refinement work, proving to be visibly outdated, even more so if placed next to the remake of the first Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0. At that time, the production of a remake of Resident Evil 2 was considered, but it was left aside in favor of Resident Evil 4. The project was only unarchived to be released years later, in 2019.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999)

The villain Nemesis was the nightmare of many of the young people who had the pleasure of playing the third title of the saga when it was released in 1999. Starring only Jill Valentine, Resident Evil 3 takes place parallel to the events of Resident Evil 2. That is, during the chaos of Raccoon City moments before it was wiped off the map by the nuclear explosion ordered to contain the T-Virus epidemic that was spreading through the city.

The third title in the series was also the first to flirt with action elements implemented into its basic gameplay, with its main differentiator being the alternate endings that forked continuity from the series’ overall plot. Another possibility is the alternative way in which the player could deal with the antagonist Nemesis, being possible (at the right moments) to continue the plot by defeating him or simply avoiding him.

Produced with the original PlayStation as a platform, Resident Evil 3 received versions for the Dreamcast and PC between 2000 and 2001. Like Resident Evil 2, in 2003 it was the turn of the Gamecube, whose port was negatively received because it was considered outdated in the face of the successes achieved. for the remake of the first Resident Evil and for Resident Evil 0, which had already arrived on the platform the previous year.

Resident Evil Code: Veronica (2000)

While not a numbered entry, its events make it just as important as the main ones when it comes to offering a complete experience for the franchise’s history. Set three months after the events of the second and third games, Resident Evil Code: Veronica continues Claire’s journey in search of her brother, Chris.

Developed for the Dreamcast, the title took advantage of slightly more powerful hardware to offer a larger campaign and 100% three-dimensional environments, unlike the two-dimensional scenarios of its predecessors. This allowed the camera, while still fixed, to play with more complex angles in order to enhance the survival horror atmosphere so characteristic of intellectual property.

Additionally, two characters can be controlled, bringing different perspectives on events. In different portions of the game, the player controls not only Claire, but Chris as well, with two different points of view on the invasion carried out on Umbrella’s arctic premises. It is also in Code: Veronica that the revelation that Albert Wesker is alive, even after being presumed dead in the events of Spencer Mansion.

A PlayStation 2 version hit the market as Code: Veronica X, in addition to a port for Gamecube in 2003, whose repercussion, at this point in the championship, doesn’t even need to be commented again, right?

The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Code: Veronica are the most accessible to play these days, as the title does not have a PC port . On PS3, it is possible to play it digitally both in an emulated version through the PS2 Classics seal and in a remastered native edition (and available in PlayStation Plus Premium). In the case of Xbox 360, in turn, there is support for Xbox One through backward compatibility.

Resident Evil Zero (2002)

After closing the original trilogy with the bombing of Racoon City, the series decided to go back a bit and bring, with Resident Evil Zero , the story of how police officer Rebecca Chambers and convict Billy Coen had to escape from a derailed train and ended up intruding on the Umbrella Corporation premises.

The idea of ​​making a prologue to the events of Spencer Manor dates back to the development of the first game. Targeting the infamous Nintendo 64DD as a platform, the title had to be reworked to fit the GameCube reality. One of the main design ideas developed early on was the possibility of having two different protagonists and alternating them in order to solve the puzzles of the scenarios. It is also noted that, during production, there was an effort to minimize the items that facilitate progress in order to make it closer to Sweet Home, which gave rise to the franchise.

Having been restricted to Nintendo consoles for a long time — first the Gamecube in 2002, then the Wii in 2008 — the title only broke free of its shackles and became accessible to a wider audience in 2016, when it came out for PC and other platforms. like the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Resident Evil 4 (2005)

With the first story “arc” ending with the third title, Nemesis, Resident Evil 4 is the first hands-on revamp the series has gone through, expanding the mythology beyond Raccoon City. In this case, Resident Evil 4 brings Leon S. Kennedy back as the protagonist, now a government agent, in his mission to rescue Ashley Graham, daughter of the President of the United States. The girl was kidnapped by a mysterious cult known as Los Iluminados and infected with a parasite known as Las Plagas. As expected, the parasite in question is responsible for the zombie infestation that plagues the region of Spain where the game takes place.

Unlike previous fixed-perspective games, the action now follows the protagonist Leon on screen, with the camera over his shoulder, especially useful when scouring the more open scenarios that make up the game’s campaign. As a consequence of this, the development team noticed an opening for more diverse interactions, such as the possibility of bringing more zombies on a single screen, as well as the possibility of performing different actions depending on the context, by quicktime events .

Resident Evil 4 is quite divisive when it comes to its reception. Although some more purist fans criticized the franchise’s new direction, which now featured less mystery and suspense elements to the detriment of action sequences and graphic horror, the press and the other portion of players viewed the experience positively, believing that the series achieved its apex in giving up certain limiting systems, such as the fixed camera, and regards this fourth numbered title as one of the best Resident Evil games.

A curiosity is that the fourth game in the series was one of the so-called Capcom Five, a kind of partnership between Capcom and Nintendo whose aim was to produce software that leveraged Gamecube sales at the time — alongside Viewtiful Joey, killer7, PN 03 and the canceled Dead Phoenix. With the exception of the most questionable of these, PN 03, all received versions for other platforms over time. Resident Evil 4 was the most re-released among them, being possible to play it even on devices like Zeebo and, more recently, Oculus Quest 2 (in a special edition in virtual reality).

Resident Evil 5 (2009)

Apparently, it seems that Capcom liked this idea of ​​making action-oriented games and ended up losing it during the production of Resident Evil 5 . Starring Chris Redfield, Resident Evil 5 marks the series’ abdication of survival horror for being too sustained by the new Western perception at the time regarding the “zombie apocalypse” fashion that was growing at that time, with scares and psychological terror giving place to guns, running, action and more guns.

In addition, while Resident Evil 4 brought a new vision to shooters in its time, the practical gameplay of the fifth game was bureaucratic to the maximum, including constant failures in the artificial intelligence of both enemies and ally Sheva Alomar – who insisted on spending resources limited as healing herbs and ammunition, as if it weren’t enough to boil down to negative stereotypes, both racial and gender.

Regarding the story, while Leon became an agent of the American secret service, Chris Redfield, in turn, became an agent of the BSAA, the Bioterrorist Security Assessment Alliance, and is dispatched with Sheva to the village of Kijuju, in Africa. , to intercept an illegal negotiation of a new bio-organic weapon. Unsurprisingly, however, the duo discover that the entire place was already plagued with Las Plagas, and Chris deduces that Jill Valentine, thought to be dead until then, might be alive.

Resident Evil 6 (2012)

There is some controversy as to whether the worst title in the saga is the fifth or sixth. Not learning from its predecessor’s mistakes, Resident Evil 6 proved to be a soulless product right off the bat. Structurally, it’s a lost title in many different campaigns, none of which feature a sufficient degree of depth to live up to the numbered games in the franchise.

Following the wave of gray shooters that were at their peak at the time ended up having very negative implications for the development of this sixth game, since all the gameplay was simplified, probably in order to reach a different audience than the one already consolidated by the franchise.

In addition, you soon realize how out of tune Resident Evil 6 was by bringing different game modes with a focus on local multiplayer and an attempt to collaborate, on PC, with Left 4 Dead , another zombie game, but with a completely different footprint. in relation to what the Capcom series represented.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)

Although the last few games sold well and received a positive reception from the press, they were soon rejected by fans, who craved a more traditional experience for the franchise. In this way, Capcom returned to the design table and conceived Biohazard.

Drawing on more classic horror inspirations, such as the movie The Evil Dead , the title spent part of its promotional period being known only as “KI7CHEN” and as an experience primarily geared towards virtual reality. before being made official as the seventh game in the Resident Evil series.

Emphasizing exploration and now bringing a first-person view, Biohazard puts the player in the shoes of civilian Ethan Winters in his search for his wife Mia. Recreating traces of the first game, which recovered most of the campaign inside the mansion, Resident Evil 7 isolates the player primarily in a single scenario: the abandoned house of the Baker family, rescuing the essence of the survival horror franchise to the essence of the genre.

Resident Evil Village (2021)

Resident Evil Village — with the first stick letters of the word Village resembling an eight in Roman numerals — brings the protagonist Ethan Winters back in a different plot that involves mutations that go beyond zombies, such as the Lycans, who resemble werewolves. The character then suddenly wakes up alone in a village controlled by four terrible mutant lords.

Resident Evil Village was one of the most well-received games in the series in a long time, even surpassing its direct predecessor. Enhancing the first-person combat system and bringing an engaging narrative worthy of the history of Resident Evil, the title was seen as a natural evolution of the series, which, after a discredited phase, returned to present the standard of quality for which it is normally recognized.

Are Resident Evil Remakes Worth It?

In a straightforward way, the answer to that question is yes . Produced years away from the original versions, it’s worth considering that most remakes of the series work more to improve the experience offered – bringing the best Resident Evil games in their respective iterations – than as undignified replacements for the brand they represent. Still, each of these remakes deserves its own remarks.

Resident Evil (2002)

The original remake of the first Resident Evil was also part of a pact between Capcom and Nintendo that was not the aforementioned Capcom Five, but another agreement that aimed to make the Gamecube the main platform to play the franchise, something that, in a certain way, way, it ended up staying for a long time. Also known as REmake , this 2002 edition soon established itself as the definitive version of the first game in the franchise for bringing a more complex experience provided by more powerful hardware , which resulted in more detailed graphics, creating a denser atmosphere. and in the implementation of more complex systems for the title.

Note that the same game engine also served as the basis for the production of Resident Evil 0, released in the same year. It even went through the same problem and was restricted to the Gamecube and Wii for a long time before coming to other platforms in 2015.

Resident Evil 2 (2019)

Sixteen years after the remake of the first Resident Evil, Capcom has finally decided to continue the process and produce a reimagining of the second title. Although considered shortly after the release of its direct predecessor, its development was long shelved because it would conflict with the production of Resident Evil 4.

Unlike the original, with a fixed camera, the Resident Evil 2 remake was produced with a game design closer to the fourth game in the series, putting the action on the shoulders of the protagonists, but still trying to cling to the feeling of survival horror. so characteristic of the franchise — and whose absence at certain times really took a toll on the public’s perception. Effectively, it is a completely new and differentiated game, modernizing a classic in a dignified way.

Resident Evil 3 (2020)

With the success of the Resident Evil 2 remake , as well as the ease of having a game engine practically ready, the release of a Resident Evil 3 remake seemed inevitable. So, a year later, it ended up happening.

While still considered a positive re-creation, it presents itself as the “least definitive” — if you can call it that — of the three released so far, as it abdicated some of the original’s design philosophies, cutting out some campaign sequences that was already lean in 1999, as well as eliminating the alternate endings with the justification of narrowing the timeline of the events of the series.

Resident Evil 4 (2023)

It’s funny to think about the paradox of knowing very little information about the Resident Evil 4 remake , but at the same time having a complete notion that it will probably follow the same path as its direct predecessors. In addition, in order to circumvent the criticism it received at the time, this new version promises to bring an even darker atmosphere, with more horror elements than the original abdicated in favor of more action-oriented gameplay. Announced at the June 2022 State of Play, the title is expected to arrive on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC in March of next year.

Unlocking the Resident Evil Spin-offs

With the growing success, several important spin-offs were produced as a way to capitalize on the income of the franchise. Although most cases have worked more like slot machines than entries capable of expanding the universe of the series, others still prove to be important in this regard.

Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection

The duo composed of Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles , for example, manages to achieve the feat of bringing, at the same time, differentiated gameplay and additional information relevant to the series’ mythology. Thus, the two games either recount the events of the first three games, or bring new complementary information in unprecedented situations that fill gaps at certain moments in the intellectual property timeline.

Individually, The Umbrella Chronicles relives the events of Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; the last scenario presented, starring Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield, features an unprecedented excerpt from an invasion operation at an Umbrella base in Russia.

The Darkside Chronicles , in turn, covers two other classic games in the franchise: Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica. The game’s unpublished scenarios bring Leon S. Kennedy as the protagonist alongside Jack Krauser, an old acquaintance of Resident Evil 4 players, on a mission in South America that takes place after the events of the second game in the series.

Originally. both titles were released for the Wii and follow the shooter on rails format (very similar to the competitor House of the Dead), but in 2012 they arrived together on the PlayStation 3 as part of the package known as Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection.

Resident Evil Revelations

Again, this is a spin-off miniseries in two titles. The first Resident Evil: Revelations takes place specifically between the fourth and fifth games in the series, it brings the interesting circumstance of taking place on a ghost ship and, being a closed environment with a gloomy tone, this spin-off accomplishes the feat to rescue the origins of the franchise.

This resumption serves as a kind of respite, as it takes place at a time when the brand was not finding itself in its main gameplay aspects. Thus, Revelations gives preference to resource management over action-oriented gameplay, but with the downside of presenting an episodic structure, which prevents the player from dictating the pace of the narrative. In addition, the common T-Virus infected also gave way to the Ooze monsters, also products of Umbrella’s experiments.

Although this first title was originally released for the Nintendo 3DS, competent high definition versions arrived for consoles soon after.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 , in turn, is situated between Resident Evil 5 and 6 and has a very different structure as it is an episodic game at launch, with the four chapters hitting the market weekly between the end of February 2015 until mid-March of the same year. Starring Claire and Barry Burton, the title allowed both co-op multiplayer and occasional switching between characters (in single player mode) in order to enable the resolution of puzzles.

Too many Resident Evil spin-offs

There are still a few other spin-offs within the franchise’s universe, but most of them are either quite irrelevant to the understanding of the series’ mythology or even minimally entertaining to be considered worthy of a closer look. It is noted that most of them are unsuccessful attempts to elevate the brand to online multiplayer experiences, as is the case with Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City , from 2012, which brings a hypothetical scenario from the point of view of mercenaries of the Umbrella during the chaos of the T-Virus epidemic in the city.

Years later, in 2016, Capcom insisted on this multiplayer idea when trying, once again, to surf the success of Left 4 Dead. This spawned Resident Evil: Umbrella Corps , which once again de-characterized the series in favor of trying to use only the brand name to sign a new product.

A third attempt came in 2020 with Resident Evil: Resistance , which now took on the asymmetrical multiplayer framework. Again, another game that no one called, but that at least came free in the Resident Evil 3 pack as an apology for the little content in the remake in question.

The first actual attempt, however, to bring online multiplayer into Resident Evil came with the Outbreak subseries , in 2004. Appearing perhaps even ahead of its time — it relied on the networking capabilities of the PlayStation 2 when few software did. — the player needed to complete several different scenarios in a Raccoon City taken over by zombies. Outbreak even received a sequel the following year.

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D was another spin-off released for the 3DS and that brought, in its own package, a reworked version of the minigames that gave rise to the game in question present in Resident Evil 4 and 5. Again, there is nothing important to the series’ mythology to consider here.

Ah, remember that attempt to port the first game in the series to the Game Boy? Well then, that idea being discarded didn’t prevent a Resident Evil from being produced for the platform at the time. Boasting limited features due to weaker hardware, Resident Evil Gaiden features conflicting story information with the main series’ mythology and is therefore disregarded within the broad canon.

Finally, years before the Chronicles series, Resident Evil received a few titles for light gun , they being Resident Evil Survivor , released for PlayStation in 2000 and for PC two years later; Resident Evil Survivor 2 — Code: Veronica , from 2001, which, as the name suggests, adapts the eponymous title to the gameplay of the first Survivor and arrived for both arcades and PlayStation 2; and Resident Evil: Dead Aim , from 2003 and also released for the PlayStation 2.

After all, what is the best title to start playing Resident Evil?

Considering that Resident Evil is a series that has gone through several reinventions, it’s not an easy task to determine exactly what would be the best starting point for a newcomer to decide to delve into the series’ mythology. However, some games have some features that serve as signs that they were designed with the intention of bringing a new wave of players.

As such, the first game we’ll consider as a good entry point is 2002’s Resident Evil Remake , which has been intensively ported and remastered for other platforms. Having improved the original in many ways to the point of making the title almost timeless, the so-called Remake is the definitive edition of the first title in the series and the main gateway to understanding “where it all began” in its vast universe.

Still, although Resident Evil 0 takes place before the events of the first game, the use out of chronological order is more interesting precisely so that the player can fish out several of the references brought and, thus, make the experience more complete.

Another entry point to consider is Resident Evil 4 . The adventure starring Leon S. Kennedy was responsible for revitalizing the brand to a more modern and dynamic tone, bringing a little more action than the modernity of the industry demanded, but still maintaining the dark and scary tone so characteristic of the franchise.

In addition, he helped to consolidate several characteristics that became standard for shooters that came after, such as the camera perspective on the shoulders of the main character, influencing names like Alan Wake, Dead Space or even The Last of Us.

Finally, the third possible entry point for Resident Evil is one that introduces the player straight to their current directions, with Resident Evil: Biohazard , the seventh “numbered” title in the franchise. Trading the third-person perspective for the first-person view, in Biohazard we are introduced to Ethan Winters, the new hero who represents the new atmosphere of the series, which aims to return to its origins of survival horror.

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