- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcom my dear Fami's, it is time to delve further into the horror. Let's talk about a certain terrible event set at the end of the nineties of the last century. Somewhere in midwestern America, in a town called Raccoon City was faced with shocking events. In the area of the Arklay Mountains, a forest surrounding the city, bizarre events were reported. People were hearing about attacks in which people were murdered... but it did not stop there. News broke of people (Hikers out of state, Raccoon City residents) being eaten by their attackers, as victims were found with bite marks and more. While the police department did not find anything during their investigations, the city deployed their special taskforce, S.T.A.R.S. Alpha squad and Bravo squad (Special Tactics and Rescue Service) to investigate the murders. And on that faithful day, the 24th of July 1998, all hell broke loose. After Bravo Squad could not be reached anymore, Alpha Squad started a search for their team mates. But what Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine found while searching Arklay was something they never thought to be real. As a team mate was mauled by a seemingly decaying bunch of dogs, they had to run for their lives. During their escape they come across a mansion, which they flee into. Little did they know that this building would change their lives forever...
The Early years
And so Resident Evil was born. Initially started as a new version of the NES game Sweet Home Capcom, went through several development stages with the game before Resident Evil finally released on March 22nd 1996 on PlayStation. It became a breakout hit for Capcom and rising star Shinji Mikami as people were extremely impressed with the intro, the 3D graphics, the creepy atmosphere and ofcourse the many quotable lines like "You were almost a Jill sandwich!". But a horror game like... we have never seen such a thing! With the orignal game being a massive hit, the sequel came out abut two years later; Resident Evil 2 introduced Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield who entered Raccoon City in September of 1998, not knowing the city was succumbing to a viral outbreak turning its citizens in zombies. The game was an even bigger succes as people thought the game was an even bigger improvement over the original. Capcom kept putting out new games in the series, with a new mainline game in the series heading to Sega's next gen machine the Dreamcast. A new spin-off was heading to the PlayStation. As Sony had a contract with Capcom that the next game in the series should be a numbered one, the spin-off turned into Resident Evil 3, detailing the last days of Jill Valentine in Raccoon City and her desperate escape of the B.O.W. weapon Nemesis. The Dreamcast game turned into Code Veronica, a new game starring Claire Redfield in search of her brother Chris, but that ends badly for her. Something about weird twins.. Yuck.
The Nintendo years
As Shinji Mikami, the series creator became more frustrated with Sony and him having some credit with the Capcom higher ups, he was open to give the series a new home apart from PlayStation. After Microsoft botched a talk with him, it was Nintendo who swooped in with Shigeru Miyamoto. Nintendo and Mikami came to an agreement, which surprised many; Resident Evil would appear exclusively on Nintendo's new machine, the Gamecube. Better yet, the happy purple cube became the place for horror enthousiasts as Luigi went hunting for ghosts and people were experiencing some weird stuff in Eternal Darkness. So to start Nintendo fans with the series, a full remake of the original Resident Evil game came to the Cube and introduced a revamped mansion with about seventy percent new content. And the frightning, yet tragic Lisa Trevor. As an added boon the N64 bound Resident Evil Zero was heading to the Gamecube as well. The entire series was ported to the machine, but the magnum opus of Shinji Mikami had yet to come; after a troubled development (the original trailer and the hookman version of the game never came out) Resident Evil 4 hit the scene and changed the third person genre forever. To this day it is still one of the best games ever made. While Nintendo was happy with such a high profile series on their system, Capcom higer ups weren't so happy. RE 4's long development time and consts needed to be earned back. While Mikami essentially said that he would behead himself before porting over the game to the PS2, but it still happened. Thus marked the ending of an era; Resident Evil being exclusive to Nintendo systems and Shinji Mikami's involvement with Capcom, as he would leave after Clover Studios was shut down.
The oh man, I have no idea what I'm doing years
With the series in the limelight again because of the phenomenal fourth installment, Capcom issued the next chapter for the series; in Resident Evil 5 we see Chris Redfield return and he's heading to Africa to investigate virus acitivity. Him and his new partner Sheva Alomar get more than they bargained for. It marks the first Resident Evil in which players can play in co-op together and that was not met with roaring enthousiasm. The A.I. would get in the way. and you would shoot them by accident. But it marked another problem for the series, as fans and newcomers alike thought that the action was overtaking the horror series more and more. Especially when Capcom was looking into expanding the series with more spin-offs like railshooters on Wii, a 3DS version of the Mercenaries minigame or ill-fated attempts like Operation Raccoon City. (Which btw, is so bad its laughable). While the 3DS did receive a new game in the form of Revelations, Capcom also introduced Resident Evil 6... which in fact was a giraffe givin- no stop that! Well, yeah, I guess. Its just a case of hammer the buttons and wiggle the sticks.. With Resident Evil 6 getting a dreadful reception by critics and fans alike (except for weirdos) Capcom had to rethink what direction they would take with the series. In the meantime they did release a Revelations 2, which marked the first time players could take control of S.T.A.R.S. veteran Barry Burton!
And currently...
The series came back with a vengeance. In 2017 Capcom surprised everyone with Resident VII Biohazard where the game switched to a first person perspective and placed you in the inexperienced shoes of Ethan Winters. When heading to the southern states of America to find his girlfriend Mia, he encounters a creepy house inhabited by the twisted Baker family... and its a wild ride. Lauded as a return to its horror roots, fans were delighted with newest game in the series. But the fun didn't stop there. As we knew it to be in development, 2019 also marked the release of the Resident Evil 2 remake, which was absolutely hype. And no it did not stop there; in 2020 we even received a Resident Evil 3 remake and this year in May we also got to play the latest mainline installment in the series, Resident Evil Village (or Resident Evil VIIIage) where Ethan Winters is making friends in Eastern Europe with tall vampire ladies. The series is on all time high in terms of popularity. While the Switch is not getting the latest installments, Capcom has published the Resident Evil Remake, Zero, 4, Revelations, Revelations 2, Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6 on the system.
That begs the question...
What are your memories of the series? Did you even play the games? Do you want to start with the series? Share it all here! The series even celebrated its 25th anniversary this year and here's hoping we get experience more as Capcom releases new installmentsof the series.
Latest news and rumours
1. There is a new Resident Evil movie in theaters now! The The trailer can be found here. In any case, that might be a rotten idea though.
2. Resident Evil 9 is in development, duh
3. A Resident Evil 4 remake is in development as well. New art has surfaced recently for Wesker. You can find the art here, but there are some troubling tidbits about Wesker's VA
4. And last but not least, after the big Capcom leak last year there seems to be a Switch exlusive Resident Evil in development as well. The source can be found here as well. Keep in mind, due to the Covid troubles its development could be delayed.
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