For now, it seems we're getting a steady diet of new Resident Evil games alongside remakes of the classic series. But, eventually, Capcom's going to run out of games to remake, right? It seems the publisher is already prepared for this eventuality. In fact, executive producer Jun Takeuchi says the company's been preparing for an eventual "crossover" between these two lineages since Resident Evil Village.

"Currently, 'Resident Evil' operates on a two-pronged approach: the numbered titles allow players to experience the ongoing drama of the series, while the remake series lets them experience the past," Takeuchi says in a Japanese magazine special published for the series' 30th anniversary.

"Eventually, the remake series will catch up to the era of the numbered titles, and the mechanisms for that are already being considered. In fact, preparations for this have been gradually underway since 'Resident Evil Village,' including the appearance of names like Umbrella and Spencer, and the reappearance of Raccoon City in 'Requiem.' This is all in preparation for a crossover."

At least, that's one version of what Takeuchi has to say, as presented by the Resident Evil Wiki. You'll find it translated slightly differently from other sources, whether that's RENEWS on Twitter or a DeepL or Google Translate rendering of the Japanese text. The gist seems to be the same in every case, though – Capcom's been preparing for the remakes to catch up to the newer numbered games, and it's been seeding references to the OG lore in preparation for a future "crossover."

Naturally, some fans are already taking this as confirmation that remakes of Resident Evil 5 and 6 are in development, but you should probably hold back your excitement for now. Given the success of the previous Resident Evil remakes and the fact that Resident Evil Veronica is currently on the way, it's a pretty safe bet that more remakes will follow, but this quote stops several steps shy of actually confirming that.

Personally, I'm much more interested in what this "crossover" is. In a way, Requiem already served as a crossover between old and new Resident Evil games, pulling elements from all the games that had come before into an expansive blend that brought Umbrella Corporation and Raccoon City back to the forefront of the story.

"'Resident Evil RE:2' was a title we decided to make if '7' was successful. The 'Resident Evil' series, which began on PlayStation, didn't have easy access to its early titles at the time, and even if people could play them, they were decades old. So, it also embodies the meaning of 'reboot' and 'response,'" Takeuchi explains, seemingly referring to the "RE" in both "remake" and "Resident Evil."

"You should understand the meaning of the crossover before the 'Resident Evil' series celebrates its 40th anniversary," Takeuchi continues. "Since we're on the subject, let me give you a hint: 'Requiem' isn't just a title chosen for its meaning of 'requiem.' The spelling of Requiem (REQUIEM) contains not only the 'RE (response)' mentioned earlier, but also a 'Q (question).' In other words, this 'Requiem' presents both an 'answer' and a 'question.' I will explain the meaning of that at some point in the future."

I think Takeuchi is saying that we'll see this crossover bear fruit by 2036, though I don't even want to try to start unpacking all this "question" and "answer" business. I believe we can be confident on one count, at least: Capcom definitely wants to give us another decade of Resident Evil.

These are the best Resident Evil games of all time.

I had a feeling Zach Cregger's new Resident Evil movie was exactly what the franchise needed, and now data from Alinea Analytics proves it: several Resident Evil games have received a nice sales boost, especially on PS5, after Capcom unleashed some well-timed discounts when the film released this month. While Capcom discounts helped encourage the surge, Resident Evil film lead Austin Abrams' screaming face sweetened the deal.

Alinea head of market analysis Rhys Elliott explains in a September 25 Substack post, Cregger's perfectly obscene Resident Evil movie about a medical courier (Abrams) stupidly getting stuck in Raccoon City after dark had "the biggest opening in the 24-year history of Resi films." It's also the most successful video game movie yet with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and its biohazardous blockbuster effect is spreading to the Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 remakes.

When ignoring Capcom's franchise-wide discounts, data suggests Cregger's movie directly influenced a 64% and 54% uptick in PS5 sales for RE2 and RE4, respectively.

"On Steam, the same movie effect is a much milder +11% to +14%," says Elliott.

In terms of pure player count, which would also include people who own the game jumping back in after the movie's release, "Resident Evil 2's remake jumped +48%" in daily players across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, says Elliott, as the game went from about 78,000 daily active users to nearly 116,000. Its price was chopped into bits, from $39.99 to lucky $7.99.

Cregger told GamesRadar+ his Resident Evil movie – which doesn't feature any characters from the games – unfolds "on the periphery" of Resident Evil 2's t-Virus outbreak, so it also makes sense that Resident Evil 2 benefits from it most. The 2019 remake's sales "nearly doubled on PS5," Elliott adds.

Meanwhile, Resident Evil 3 remake's daily players are up 25%, and Resident Evil 4 remake's player count lifted 24%. The new Resident Evil Requiem got a tinier bump with only a 20% daily player increase after Cregger's movie and Capcom discounts, but it didn't necessarily need the help – Elliott says, "Revenue-wise, [Requiem is] outpacing every other game in the franchise and will certainly leapfrog the Resident Evil 4 remake's $600M+ when all is said and done."

"Almost all the copy movement was on PlayStation," Elliott reminds us. Resident Evil players don't care about their Steam points, or maybe it's just that the franchise has been associated with PlayStation since its macabre beginning in 1998. But now that the Resident Evil franchise finally has a film that made me laugh and white-knuckle my popcorn bucket with equal intensity, there's no telling where it goes next.

Resident Evil has some other movie gems – just see our list of the best Resident Evil movies ranked.

Resident Evil is already available to pre-order on Blu-ray, which are words I love to type as a horror movie fan. It's still in movie theatres the world over, and I've not even had the chance to drag my frightened fiancé to see it. But physical copies are now available, should you want to avoid the horrors of a loud and phone-lit theatre screening.

Starting from $36.99 at Amazon, you can secure your copy of the 4K release, a standard Blu-ray, or even a DVD copy. Amazon US and UK have all three versions available, though I'd recommend sticking with the 4K release if you've got a PS5 or compatible player around. While its extras have yet to be confirmed, it includes a digital copy of the film, and the Walmart listing reveals a swanky limited edition steelbook, which is sure to look the part amongst any horror movie collection.

As a warning, this itchy tasty release has yet to receive an official release date or have its final look confirmed. While the live Walmart listing shows off Bryan running through the snowy and bloody streets of Raccoon City, the Amazon listing is different, so just be prepared for any changes going forward and availability of the steelbook to differ from retailer to retailer. As 4K Blu-ray releases have a tendency to sell out, I personally pre-ordered it regardless, and I've included the best places for you to do the same for both the 4K and standard Blu-ray copy down below.

Are you building a physical movie collection? Check out our Spider-Man Brand New Day Blu-ray pre-order page and our thoughts on the Rings of Power Seasons 1 and 2 4K Blu-ray while you're here.

With a new movie now out in the wild I've decided that it is time to rank all the best Resident Evil movies. That's right, from Milla Jovovich's outing as Alice in Paul W. S. Anderson's movies to all the reboots set in Raccoon City (including Zach Cregger's new Resident Evil flick), you'll find all eight T-Virus-inflicted films ordered from worst to most entertaining right here.

But before you dive into this ranking, first a disclaimer: even as a massive fan of these flicks and of the Resident Evil games, I will say that these aren't masterpieces in the traditional sense. I've seen every single Resi movie and can honestly tell you that only a few are coherent. Most only reference the best Resident Evil games, and none adapt them faithfully. However, they are a ton of fun, and at this point, iconic in the realm of video game movies in general. Whenever I'm looking for a B-Movie that I know is going to be wild and action heavy I still go back to the Resident Evil movies, and still recommend them (well, at least some) wholeheartedly.

So, if you want to take a trip down memory lane or want your Umbrella Corporation fix while avoiding the truly bad zombies of the bunch, then read on to find out what I believe are the best Resident Evil movies to watch right now and what are the worst. And if you are also a massive fan, let me know your personal rankings in the comment section below.

The best Resident Evil movies, ranked from worst to best

8. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

Year: 2021
Director: Johannes Roberts

Before the 2026 Resident Evil movie, in 2021, they tried to reboot the Resi franchise with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. Now, I will say that there are a lot of game tidbits added in this movie as it draws on the first and second Capcom games. But, even with zombies and iconic characters trying to survive, it's for the most part pretty boring and just not that scary.

The script feels painfully generic, the characters' dialogue is corny, and even when you spot scenes from the game, instead of being excited, I was often disappointed because the games simply did it so much better. Also, as a Leon S. Kennedy fangirl, I will admit I have a bias against the film because of its portrayal of the agent. Seeing a version of Leon who is supposedly an incompetent cop, paired with bad CGI and a surprising lack of pacing and stakes, cements Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City as the worst Resi movie to date.

7. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

Year: 2017
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

The final Paul W. S. Anderson Resident Evil movie wraps up Alice's story and is the director's worst one. The story has pretty much been abandoned at this point, and instead the film is filled with action scenes and an eyebrow-raising amount of jump scares that, because of their frequency, become annoying instead of scary very quickly. I will also say that if you get motion sick easily, this isn't going to be the Resident Evil movie for you since its editing is wild and so frantic you can't tell what is going on at times.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is full of Easter eggs and fan service, but another reason why it's ranked so low on my list is that it completely takes the wind out of the ending of Retribution. We were set to see the fight to protect the White House, and the movie opens up with it already having happened off-screen…great. All in all, it's not fun enough to indulge in, and as a send-off to the franchise, it just underdelivers.

6. Resident Evil: Retribution

Year: 2012
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

Resident Evil: Retribution's story is again another mess; however, it is at least very wacky and a lot more enjoyable than its successor, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. My main issue with this film is that the characters lack clear goals beyond simply trying to survive, and after four movies, that simply feels overdone at this point. Sure, there are also some clone storylines going on, but that isn't really explored in any kind of depth either.

However, despite my gripes, I have to give praise to some great choreographed action scenes here that really make Milla Jovovich shine. Also, I personally love the Umbrella Corporation training facility moments in terms of striking visuals and memorable action set pieces we get in the entire franchise. Also, its opening sequence is one of the most successful and original moments in the films. Still, I can't in good faith rank it higher because there really is no story structure here, and at some points it's even incomprehensible.

5. Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Year: 2004
Director: Alexander Witt

Resident Evil: Apocalypse is personally my favorite Resident Evil movie and has become a cult classic and fan favorite film in recent years. It does technically suffer from the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score out of all the films, but that was a case of bad timing since we only had the first film to judge it by. In retrospect, it is miles better and more enjoyable than the majority of its predecessors by an undead landslide.

Structurally, it is the most successful sequel as its story (while generic) actually makes sense. It also introduces Jill Valentine and Nemesis for game fans. Jill is one of the most charismatic characters in the franchise by far, and from the moment we see Nemesis firing a mini machine gun, we know we are in for a good time. Resident Evil: Apocalypse is wacky, and it takes big, smile-inducing action swings. If you are after just a silly good time in Raccoon City, I highly recommend this one. But be warned, you aren't going to get a narrative masterpiece here either.

4. Resident Evil: Extinction

Year: 2007
Director: Russell Mulcahy

OK, so firstly let's get one thing out of the way: Resident Evil: Extinction has some very clear Mad Max vibes going on with its Mojave Desert setting, and seems to be channeling Day of the Dead more than Resident Evil. However, it also has some amazing action scenes, choreography, and features the Tyrant from the games, so you have to give it credit. It is also one of the few Resi movies that really manage to capture the B-movie charm that makes these fun at the end of the day.

The movie's script is still a mess; the characters (especially the game characters) are disappointingly hollow and generic, but all the creative kills and fights make this movie feel punchy by the time the credits start to roll. It is silly, but it isn't boring, and Alice really shines as a character in this flick. It's a great reminder as to why Milla Jovovich was chosen as the face of the series; she has the charisma and skills of an action hero in spades.

3. Resident Evil: Afterlife

Year: 2010
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

Out of all the Resident Evil movies, Resident Evil: Afterlife feels the most like a traditional zombie movie as we follow Alice still navigating a wasteland of a world following Extinction, so it has a special place in my heart. While it does suffer from the same plot issues as the rest of the flicks in this franchise, it does manage to capture that feeling of dread that will keep your eyes hooked on the screen. This is largely thanks to some amazing fight sequences that are the best in the franchise and keep you on your toes.

Now I will say, the reason why Afterlife is ranked so high here is because of how entertaining it is. Similarly to Apocalypse, it gives enough for action movie fans to love and enough game tidbits for Resi fans to gush over as well. Albert Wesker is the best version of himself in this movie, with Shawn Roberts giving us the most dedicated and gleeful rendition of the baddie to date. If you are a game fan, witnessing Wesker in this flick is a must; trust me.

2. Resident Evil

Year: 2002
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

The movie that started it all, the 2002 Resident Evil movie, at this point is a pop culture icon and still the most enjoyable of all the Paul W. S. Anderson-directed films in the franchise. This is also the only Resi movie (apart from the new 2026 reboot) that is a horror movie first and an action flick second, as its setting of the underground facility called the Hive successfully builds up feelings of dread and the sense that something will pop out to attack our heroes at any moment.

It's a lot smaller and more contained than the sequels, but that is what makes it work so well, as the feeling of claustrophobia adds to the terror. It also captures what we all love about the Resident Evil games: feeling constantly on edge whenever you walk into a confined space, not knowing what bizarre mutant will jump out of the shadows. Alice is also at her most interesting in this film, with Milla Jovovich giving a great performance. And, lastly, that laser corridor death scene is still one of the best kills in cinema, so gotta show some respect.

1. Resident Evil (2026)

Year: 2026
Director: Zach Cregger

The latest Resident Evil movie is also the very best (as we mentioned in our Resident Evil movie review). Director Zach Cregger (Weapons) is a self-proclaimed Resident Evil superfan, and despite the controversial absence of game characters like Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, Cregger's back-to-basics survival horror reboot is a more authentic Resident Evil experience than any previous installment, as hapless hero Bryan encounters all manner of horrid, T-Virus-infected creatures across Raccoon City. Best of all, it's a taut, unrelenting 95-minute thrill-ride that's paced to perfection.

Prioritizing horror over action, it's a movie that wants you to feel the tension and fear of pressing ahead with only three bullets in the clip, as the groan of some unseen BOW echoes from the shadows. It's also very funny; Bryan is hopelessly out of his depth and spends as much time screaming as he does shooting. Cregger incorporates the language of the games in some cool ways too: the camera frequently flips between a third and first-person perspective, Bryan is constantly coming up against environmental obstacles like padlocks and treacherous ledges that need to be shimmied across, and, of course, it all builds to a climax in a sterile white Umbrella lab. Cregger gets it.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie is currently out in cinemas. If you want more spooky fun, be sure to check out our list of the best horror movies of all time and the best zombie movies to watch today.

Across a quarter century and seven live-action movies, Resident Evil has had a rough ride on the big screen. While the Capcom-developed video game series has gone from strength to strength since its 2017 revival, the live-action movies have always been, at best, guilty pleasures and, at worst, affronts to the cherished survival-horror series. Turns out eighth time's a charm, as despite much pre-release griping over the absence of iconic game characters like Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, director Zach Cregger's Resident Evil isn't just the best Resi movie by a distance; it's the best video game movie full stop.

Cregger is a self-proclaimed Resident Evil superfan, and among the most exciting filmmakers working today following his arresting debut Barbarian and horror sensation Weapons – a film so undeniable even the horror-averse Academy recognized it with an Oscar for Amy Madigan's Gladys. Cregger's first foray into franchise filmmaking is just as singular and fuelled by invention as his original work, telling a new story in a recognizable world that feels wholly authentic to the spirit and ethos of the games. It's among the more invigorating pieces of IP moviemaking in recent memory, and the first to accurately translate the immersive feeling of playing video games to film.

Clocking in at a refreshingly taut and unrelenting 95 minutes, Resident Evil is stripped back to the point its plot beats could be sketched out on a coaster. Austin Abrams' Bryan is a medical courier about to clock off when he's hired to transport a mysterious biological cargo from the sticks to Raccoon City General Hospital. Unfortunately for Bryan, this happens to be the night of the Raccoon City incident, during which the Umbrella Corporation's DNA-altering t-Virus transforms the population of the city into your garden-variety living dead, and even gnarlier BOWs (Bio-Organic Weapons), which Bryan has to haphazardly fight his way through en route to his final destination.

Don't hate the player

Cregger's movie may take place in parallel with Resident Evil 2, but don't expect any crossover with the games; it's better to think of the movie as a separate and distinct Raccoon City story that is simultaneously taking place on the fringes of what happens to be going on elsewhere in the city. Neither is it totally consistent with established Resi lore: some BOWs exhibit traits of the Las Plagas parasite, for example, which doesn't show up till Resident Evil 4, and the precise way the t-Virus escapes the lab contradicts what we know.

Does any of this matter? Not in the slightest. What matters is that Cregger understands far better than previous stewards of Resident Evil on screen what makes the series tick. Gone is the daft post-Matrix gun-fu; here it's replaced by bullet-counting, resource-scrounging and cautious tiptoeing around dark corners.

Cregger also incorporates the grammar of video games in subtle but effective ways: the camera is frequently hovering over Bryan's shoulder in third-person fashion, he 'upgrades' his firearms across the night, and is constantly coming up against familiar obstacles, like padlocked gates and treacherous ledges that need to be shimmied across.

Bryan, in fact, is a very different protagonist for Resident Evil. While the movies (in Alice) and the games (in Leon, Chris, Claire, and co.) have typically featured very capable leads who take out the undead with ease, Bryan is a doofus with commitment issues whose only experience shooting guns is, amusingly, in video games. This makes every encounter a major life-or-death situation, the movie ramping up the peril with some devilishly effective jump scares and gloriously horrid creature design.

It's scary, no question, but marketing materials to date have majorly undersold how funny Resident Evil is. Despite stripping out many of the jokes after test screening audiences reacted negatively, Resident Evil remains a no-bones horror-comedy where the extremity of the situations Bryan finds himself in elicits nervous laughs and screams in equal measure.

A standout among the Weapons ensemble as addict James, Abrams is at the center of every frame here. The character and performance are reminiscent of Bruce Campbell's slapstick Ash in Evil Dead II, mixing out-of-his-depth everyman with a Wile E. Coyote-style streak of bad luck as the ill-equipped-for-action Bryan screams, panics, and dissociates his way through one hellishly terrible situation after another.

The running joke of the film is that if something can go wrong for poor Bryan, it does, and Cregger seems to take endless pleasure in tormenting his unlikely lead. It can teeter on sadistic, with gruesome moments involving both mutated children and even babies. Somehow, it never feels exploitative. Instead, it adds to the outrageously gonzo, anything-goes nightmare of it all.

Undead nightmare

There are a handful of supporting characters – Paul Walter Hauser, Kali Reis, and Zach Cherry all pop up – but their appearances are so fleeting they barely register as Bryan is pursued across Raccoon City, Nemesis-style, by a relentless multi-limbed monstrosity. It's a movie that doesn't stop for a moment; even the cursory (and mercifully brief) mid-movie exposition dump is delivered on the move. The Fury Road comparisons are apt: Resident Evil is paced to perfection, moving from one environment and grisly encounter to the next at a thrilling clip.

There are some deleterious consequences to this approach. Character development and plot are so bare-bones they're practically non-existent, and don't even think about trying to identify themes. Before it all kicks off, Bryan reacts indecisively to a call from his girlfriend that she may be pregnant, and this regret weighs on him as the film goes on. But this exact character motivation was utilized far more effectively mere months ago in Exit 8, another video game adaptation.

Clearly, Cregger's priority here is experiential. Resident Evil is a gloriously gnarly film. Heads explode (in more ways than one), distended stomachs erupt with rats, and there's a very memorable evolution of the way the t-Virus operates that will no doubt irk die-hard fans. Some may question the choice not to utilize the many iconic creatures we know are roaming the streets of Raccoon City at this time, but Cregger is far more interested in putting his own twist on the world than creating a live-action facsimile. It's arguably the smartest way to approach an adaptation like this when a Last of Us-style faithful rendering doesn't make sense.

Resident Evil might not match Barbarian or Weapons for sheer formal inventiveness, and perhaps won't live as long in the memory as a result. Nor is it likely to replicate Weapons' Awards-season-crashing success. But unless you're a stickler who can't live with the idea of Cregger failing to adhere to the letter of Resident Evil lore, it's hard to imagine anyone with a tolerance for the grisly not having a blast watching this. After 24 years, the big screen finally has a Resident Evil that lives up to the legacy of the games.

Resident Evil releases in theaters on September 18. For more, check out our rankings of the best video game movies, and the best Resident Evil games.

The first reactions to Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie are in, and they're pretty glowing.

The new take on the iconic game franchise tells the story of Bryan (Austin Abrams), a hospital courier charged with making a delivery to Racoon City General Hospital. However, on his way he gets caught up in a horrifying outbreak, leaving him fighting for his life.

Rather than focussing on game characters, the new take on the IP is set instead on the periphery of Resident Evil 2. According to Cregger, it's more focused on translating the feeling of playing video games than being a direct adaptation. It seems like the risk has paid off based on the movie's first reactions.

Collider's Perri Nemiroff calls it "one of the best video game adaptations I’ve ever seen" She adds that it's "also one of the best horror comedies I've ever seen. Cannot believe how many hilarious beats this movie has without ever diminishing the stakes or sheer terror of the situation."

According to Fandango's Erik Davis, the movie is "less an adaptation of a game and more a movie that makes you feel like you're playing one." He adds: "Don’t get stuck on what is or isn’t in the Resident Evil games. This is a film that takes the spirit of playing those games and runs wild with it."

"Zach Cregger is cookin' with napalm," writes Variety's Courtney Howard. "It's a wild, hilarious, unpredictably bonkers thrill ride from start to finish. Kinetic action leans heavily on demented body horror. Mutant mayhem galore! Austin Abrams is perfect as our doofy, hapless hero."

Film critic Mark Cassidy wrote on Twitter: "#ResidentEvil may not feature recognizable characters/storylines, but by tapping into the relentless tension of the games, Zach Cregger has actually delivered the most faithful take yet."

Check out some more below.

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. For more, check out our guides to upcoming horror movies and all the upcoming video game adaptations you need to know about.

One of the reasons Leon Kennedy is such a great horror protagonist is that he carries himself with an unshakeable sense of humor despite always being faced with the most unimaginable atrocities. Even after barely escaping the clutches of a giant, mutant alligator with his life, Leon still manages enough levity to quip, "Chew on that, you overgrown son of a" you-know-what.

For me, Leon being an absolute himbo genuinely breaks up the tension I feel while playing a Resident Evil game, and this contrast was put to especially good use in this year's Resident Evil Requiem, which features some of the scariest sequences I've ever experienced in my 30-plus years playing horror games. But as it turns out, some of Leon's funniest lines were actually left on the chopping block, as proven by newly leaked cut voice lines from Requiem and Resident Evil 4 Remake.

Two separate videos, one that lets you hear close to 400 cut voice lines from Resident Evil Requiem, and another with more than 600 cut lines from Resident Evil 4 Remake, were recently posted to YouTube by prominent modder Keff0 (via PC Gamer). As a longtime Resident Evil diehard, it was fascinating hearing all of Leon's bad puns, Grace Ashcroft's panicked breathing, and even lines from less central characters like RE4's Merchant and Requiem's Chef Zombie, that Capcom for whatever reason decided didn't cut the mustard. As for the Leon one-liners, I'm disappointed they were left out, because some of them sound like they could've been genuinely great in the right context.

"Shucks, no time for an encore."

"Someone needs to work on their parallel parking."

"Eight legs, no brains."

"That again? You're a bit of a one-trick spider."

Naturally, longtime Leon actor Nick Apostolides delivers his lines beautifully, but I would love to see the exact scenarios onscreen that would've triggered them. Unfortunately we'll probably never know, and Leon's not the only one with some gems in the vault. I mentioned RE4's Merchant, and he's another that had some lines cut that I would've loved to see in the actual game.

"This'll perk you up," he says in one cut line. "Relax mate – it's not that kind of herb." I think all Resident Evil fans can imagine the exact situation that would've prompted that line, and I can understand why Capcom ultimately decided against including it, but man, what a loss.

"It's important to stay young at 'eart. Especially at times like these," is another line from the Merchant I would've smiled at in the game.

At this point, I feel like I'm spoiling these gems for fans, so I'll leave the rest for you to uncover on your own. There's even a cut line from RE4 Remake that seems to reference Resident Evil Village, which is completely unnecessary but fun nonetheless.

Lies of P director says Resident Evil Requiem is one of the games he enjoyed most this year because Leon is "still as cool and tough as ever."

Hideki Kamiya, legendary Capcom veteran behind gems including Resident Evil 2, thinks newer games from the studio like Resident Evil Requiem are… too scary?

Yes, indeed, Kamiya finds games like Capcom's more recent Resident Evil entries a tad too spooky for his tastes, as per a recent interview with VGC.

First declaring that "this is not a joke," the Devil May Cry mastermind says he's "being one hundred percent serious when I say that I wish they would make it so that their games can also be enjoyed by people like me, who can't handle scary games at all." And… honestly, I get it.

Look, even Resident Evil 7 director Koshi Nakanishi admitted his game was "possibly too scary" and "some people couldn't handle it" last year (and as somebody who loves the seventh entry, I'd most certainly agree).

Requiem, according to Kamiya, isn't any better. "Just recently this year we had Resident Evil Requiem and the big return of Leon Kennedy, and he went back to Raccoon City… reliving all of those memories and all of those experiences."

He then states that, "As somebody who directed that original game, Resident Evil 2, I was curious to know how that panned out for him." Unfortunately though, the horror-adjacent side of Requiem made that impossible for Kamiya.

"I wanted to experience that myself as a player," as he says, "but the game was way too scary, and I couldn't." So, what's the solution, then, so that all flavors of player can enjoy Capcom's stories? Apparently, a less scary game mode.

"It's not a joke," Kamiya explains. "I legitimately wished it would include some kind of non-horror mode for people like me." He outlines how he's spoken to "folks who are on the Resident Evil teams at Capcom" and admitted as much to the devs.

"I tell them that their games are way too scary, and they're like, 'What, come on, they're not that scary,'" the Resident Evil 2 legend recalls.

Kamiya concludes that the devs "seriously seem to have no awareness of how scary the things they make actually are, so I really hope they address that at some point" – even if that means just making it "so that the zombies' faces aren't so scary."

You know, "Why not have a mode that just puts, like, brown paper bags on all of their heads, or instead of having these dark, dingy rooms everywhere, they could have really pleasant mood lighting" – which I'm not too sure I agree with...

These are horror games, after all, and this isn't the first time he's brought the topic up. Earlier this year, Kamiya said Capcom "should make a 'non-scary' mode" because "look, I just want to enjoy the puzzles."

So, there you have it – Resident Evil has become too frightening for the very folks who helped mark its name amid other survival horror giants.

If you're yet to play it, be sure to check out our Resident Evil Requiem review to find out if it's worth your time, or our Resident Evil Requiem safe codes guide to help you through it.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie has been (unfairly) divisive for its creative deviations from Resident Evil canon, and for telling a Resident Evil story without fan-favorite characters like Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield. Nevertheless, it's set to open huge later this month, and could potentially double the opening weekend box office takings of the biggest Resident Evil movie to date.

Early tracking (h/t IGN) has put Resident Evil's opening weekend figure at some $40-50 million in the US. Even at the lower end of predictions, that's far higher than any movie in the Milla Jovovich-starring series, the biggest of which, Resident Evil: Afterlife, opened to $26.6 million in 2010. The most recent Resident Evil movie, Welcome to Raccoon City, opened to just over $5 million in November 2021. Even factoring in that more faithful adaptation's pandemic-era handicap, this is a big improvement.

Cregger's Resident Evil movie seems to be resonating for a few reasons. The fact that it's telling an original story that anyone can jump into is certainly one. Cregger himself is becoming something of an event filmmaker after his original horror-thriller Weapons opened to a massive $43 million last summer. And the self-proclaimed Resident Evil superfan seems to have learnt all the right lessons about video game adaptations, in that he's staying true to the "spirit and tone" of the games (and even the power progression) rather than simply re-telling one of the games' stories on screen.

Even a bumper box office is unlikely to result in more Resident Evil movies from Cregger, however, as the writer-director is set to helm original sci-fi The Flood next. He's also penning Weapons prequel, Gladys, centred on that movie's twiggy witch, and he's reportedly scripting a Siren Head movie for director Brian Duffield. So Cregger is booked for years to come. But given how lucrative adaptations of the Resident Evil series have proven to be over the years (some seven live-action movies and an ill-fated Netflix TV show have been made to date), it's unlikely to be the last.

Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams as a medical courier tasked with transporting biological materials across a zombie-infected Raccoon City. Late last year, we visited the Resident Evil set in Prague, where Cregger, Abrams and the team took us through their full-throttle vision for the movie.

Resident Evil opens on September 18. For more scares, check out our guide to upcoming horror movies and our list of all the new video game adaptations on the way in 2026 and beyond.

Ashley Graham is unfairly seen as one of the more controversial characters in Resident Evil lore due to some clumsily tuned AI during her escort missions in the original Resident Evil 4. That was all fixed in Resident Evil 4 Remake when she became a much more fleshed out, supportive character.

Admittedly, the 2023 remake also makes Ashley a lot less prone to being captured and restarting your mission, which is nice, but stronger writing and a convincing performance from voice actor Genevieve Buechner help endear her even further. Point is, Ashley Graham doesn't deserve the hate, and she definitely didn't deserve to have her prologue scene from Resident Evil 4 Remake cut during development, but that's reportedly what happened. And now, you can play that prologue mission thanks to a newly released mod.

As spotted by RENews on Twitter, the Chapter 0 Restoration mod (via NexusMods) does precisely what it says on the box: "Restores the cut Chapter 0, a playable prologue as Ashley, seamlessly integrated into the New Game flow as a real chapter that runs before Chapter 1."

According to modder Keff0, Ashley was originally going to be the first playable character in Resident Evil 4 Remake before transitioning to Leon in the infamous village scene, which as an aside is also a lot less punishing than it was in the original game.

"A Chapter 0 existed at some point during development, but it was cut before the game's release: a short prologue played as Ashley, at night, ending in her capture," reads the mod's description.

The modder says the scene takes place on a path that's not in the final release but was dug out of the game files with "most of its details and collision removed." In it, Ashley stumbles upon some murderous cultists whose victim is the woman from the very first cutscene in the official game. Apparently, that cutscene goes back even further, showing a shocked Ashley turning and running, leading into the playable chapter, which ends with her capture.

Going full circle, the only downside to more Resident Evil 4 Remake is having to see Ashley tortured even more than what she's already endured both in the game and in Resident Evil communities everywhere. I'm not even an Ashley stan and never thought I'd say this, but at this point I think we need an Ashley Graham spinoff, or at least her own DLC at some point in the future, but I think it's safe to say that's unlikely to happen in the current timeline. Justice for Ashley.

The 1998 horror game that haunted my dreams even more than Resident Evil 2 is back, "modernized," and available on consoles for the first time.

Zach Cregger has opened up about his approach to adapting Resident Evil in his new movie. Instead of a direct adaptation, the Weapons director is telling a new story set in the world of the franchise.

"I happen to worship these Resident Evil games and pull a lot of inspiration from the experience of playing them," he said in a new featurette, before listing some of the references he included. "I tried to keep the environment changing every seven or eight minutes, like the games. You're always moving into another level as it were."

Cregger went on to explain that he includes weapon progression in the movie, from pistol to machine gun, as well as including healing spray cans, typewriters, and herbs. He's even included a particularly niche frustration, which fans of the franchise will know all too well. "There's a lot of items from the games, he's constantly coming up against these padlocks that are stopping him from progressing," he added.

As Cregger puts it, while the new movie won't include Leon or adapt any particular story, "This is an opportunity for me to be loyal to the games in spirit and in tone and build a story that puts you in that scenario again and again, with increasing stakes."

Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams as a hospital delivery driver tasked with taking an important package to Raccoon City hospital. However, what follows is no ordinary night as a viral outbreak of infected monsters swarm him as he makes the perilous journey.

The horror movie opens on September 18, 2026. For more scares, check out our guide to upcoming horror movies as well as a breakdown of all the new video game adaptations on the way in 2026 and beyond.

Capcom credits the release of Resident Evil Requiem for a surge in sales of previous games in the series.

In its latest financial results, Capcom confirms that Resident Evil Requiem has now sold 8.06 million copies since it was released back in February. However, the top 10 has revealed that the entire series has had a great year so far, with Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 remakes coming out ahead of Requiem in sales over the last quarter, while Biohazard and Village also make an appearance in the top 10. Resident Evil is now the best-selling Japanese game series not published by Nintendo, and Resident Evil 2 remake is the best-selling game in the series.

In an investor Q&A alongside the results, Capcom is asked what the reason was behind the strong Resident Evil series sales, and whether it believes the next game will replicate this. Capcom responds, "sales of Resident Evil series titles grew amid rising interest in Resident Evil Requiem."

It explains, "We have also seen new users who encountered the series by purchasing past titles, creating a virtuous cycle in which sales of both new and past titles grow together." Capcom adds, "With Resident Evil Veronica, we will likewise work to further expand sales of the series."

Notably, Capcom has had major sales on the series' titles this year, with the biggest being a $3 sale of Resident Evil 3 remake back in April. So that undoubtedly helped the series sales along. And, given that people are clearly very excited for Resident Evil Veronica as it hits two million Steam wishlists, it could definitely inspire a similar sales boost for the series at large.

Yet to play it? You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review to see if it's worth your time, and our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

PlayStation is preparing for a future without physical games on its platform and Nintendo is arguably devaluing physical media with the controversial Switch 2 Game-Key cards. But, Capcom isn't too worried about physical game sales shrinking (or being forced to shrink, depending on who you ask) since it sells most of its games online anyway.

Game sales have slowly been skewing digital for years now, but recent months have painted a dire outlook for physical media. Sony's planning to stop manufacturing new PlayStation discs starting in 2028, high-profile blockbusters including GTA 6 aren't bothering with discs at all, and Nintendo's Game-Key cards now operate similarly to download codes (ones you can sell and share, sure, but not ones that let you properly own the game as you would with an in-hand cartridge).

Asked about what impact the shrinkage of physical game sales might have on the company, Capcom sort of just shrugged its shoulders in its most recent investor Q&A. "Approximately 90% of our unit sales are digital. We do not anticipate a significant impact at this time." It's worth noting the Resident Evil and Monster Hunter maker counts Game-Key card sales as digital.

While Capcom's not fearful of the widespread changes in how we buy or manufacture games, PlayStation's decision to end support for discs isn't sitting well with everyone. The move has been called an "attack on our diminishing rights" by a leading digital rights org, another publisher said physical games helped the company reach audiences it otherwise wouldn't be able to, and there were negative reactions to the news across the industry.

As Capcom makes clear, a lack of proper discs and cartridges might not negatively affect companies that make most of their business on digital storefronts. For Sony, it's likely beneficial, financially. But anyone who cares about true ownership or relies on second-hand prices that make the hobby accessible might have more complicated feelings about a disc-less future.

PlayStation killing discs is bad for everyone, whether you care about physical games or not

The Future Games Show is set to return later this month, and this time around the two hosts should be familiar to die-hard denizens of Raccoon City.

The Future Games Show at gamescom 2026 is hurtling towards us, lining up with the massive gaming celebration taking place in Koln, Germany. But if you can't make it all the way the show floor itself, three different shows will be there to guide you through the biggest and best reveals. On hosting duties this time are Nick Apostolides and Angela Sant'Albano, who last joined forces as the performers behind Resident Evil Requiem's Leon S. Kennedy and Grace Ashcroft.

Nick and Angela will be guiding viewers through dozens of world premieres, exclusive announcements, and developer interviews, with games including Tides of Annihilation, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and No Law. The Future Games Show at Gamescom will kick off on Wednesday, August 26, at 10:00 PDT, 13:00 EDT, 18:00 BST, 19:00 CEST (that's 01:00 on Thursday morning for those on CST). You'll be able to watch on Twitch, YouTube, Steam, X, Facebook, and right here on GamesRadar+, as well as via local streaming services around the world, including Bilibili and KuaiShou.

Immediately after the main show concludes, you'll also be able to join the FGS crew for FGS Live From gamescom, walking you through even more reveals direct from the show floor. And if that's not enough, FGS Best Of gamescom will be back on Sunday, August 30, wrapping up the week's most exciting reveals.

Capcom has announced that Resident Evil Veronica has hit 2 million wishlists on Steam, less than two months after its reveal at Summer Game Fest.

The news was announced on Twitter on the official Resident Evil account, with a post reading "2 million biscuits for the 2 million of you who've wishlisted Resident Evil Veronica. Thank you!" This was accompanied by the elderly French lady with a very young-sounding voice featured in the debut trailer for the horror remake looking very happy. I sure hope following her doesn't lead to anything terrible happening.

While wishlist numbers aren't publicly available, SteamDB does keep track of the most wishlisted games on the platform. At the moment, Resident Evil Veronica sits in eighth place on the board behind the likes of Deadlock, Light No Fire, Fable, and Total War: Warhammer 40,000. However, Resident Evil Veronica is releasing on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2 as well, so those numbers will likely have added a fair amount to the total.

Granted, it's no wonder Resident Evil Veronica is as anticipated as it is. The original game is the second-highest-rated game in the series on Metacritic (behind the original Resident Evil 4), and even if its stock has fallen somewhat within the fanbase since then, it's still a pretty beloved entry. More crucially, the new game is reportedly being worked on by the team behind the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4, which – alongside their original incarnations – are the most beloved games in the series.

Resident Evil remakes allow Capcom to release yearly games in the series and invest money back into new games like Pragmata, producer says

Resident Evil 2 is now the series' best-selling game, while a new sales milestone sees the Capcom horror series pass Final Fantasy.

In Capcom's latest earnings report, the company announced that Resident Evil 2 – that being the 2019 remake, not the 1998 original with the same name – has sold an extra 1.42 million copies since the last report, sending the game to lifetime sales of 19.75 million copies. And despite Capcom's decision to split every different version of a game into different parts of its platinum titles page making it seem like this happened long ago, Resident Evil 5 has finally been dethroned (via DuskGolem).

Between the original Xbox 360 and PS3 game, its Gold Edition, the PS4 and Xbox One re-release, and Switch editions of Capcom's divisive horror title, Resident Evil 5 had sold 19.01 million copies the last time Capcom detailed its sales in an earnings report earlier this year.

However, Resident Evil 2's spot at the top is definitely under threat as Resident Evil 4 remake is already at 16.04 Million copies sold despite 2's four-year headstart. Not to mention Resident Evil 4 sold 2.43 million copies in the last three months, which is over 1 million more than 2 sold. Resident Evil Requiem is also killing it as it sold a further 1.14 million in the last three months, and with momentum like that and big sales down the line, it also has a chance to make it to the top.

Capcom also confirmed that the Resident Evil series as a whole has sold 213 million copies since it debuted 30 years ago. That means it has surpassed Final Fantasy, which Square Enix claimed had sold 212 million as of last month. This means that Resident Evil is the ninth best-selling game franchise of all-time, and the biggest-selling Japanese game series not published by Nintendo, and with sales like Mario and Pokemon have, I'm afraid that's probably the closest it will get.

"Resident not-Evil" is Resident Evil 2 director's joke cozy life sim pitch starring a retired Leon Kennedy fishing, baking, and "inviting his old friends over for barbecues"

Capcom has been churning through remakes of its best Resident Evil games over the last few years, with Resident Evil: Code Veronica up next, but dusting off the horror tomes serves more than one purpose for the publisher. Capcom producer Masachika Kawata says remakes help the company release back-to-back games in the series and help invest more money back into all-new games.

Speaking to Game Informer magazine in its latest issue, Kawata explains that one of the reasons why the publisher creates so many remakes is that "producing a new entry in the Resident Evil series every year would be quite an undertaking and a difficult task" otherwise. Resident Evil isn't properly an annual franchise yet, but the only big gaps in its recent history have been in 2024 and 2025.

"Being able to revisit older games and remake them helps Capcom meet that goal of releasing a Resident Evil title each year, but it also allows the team to continually challenge themselves and hone their craft," Kawata adds. "That's not to say the remakes are any less important. In fact, they're just as important as the mainline titles." (Good spot, NintendoEverything!)

The proof is arguably in the pudding with Resident Evil Requeim, a game that managed to marry the tight and sweat-inducing first-person horror of RE7 and RE8 with the bloody, third-person horror-action of Capcom's recently remade games.

"Capcom is lucky enough to have found this cycle that can continue to provide us with the financial resources to create things like new entries in the Resident Evil series and completely new IP like Pragmata," he continues. "So there is that relationship there."

Of course, the well of old Resident Evil games will eventually run dry. Capcom could re-remake the first game and then try to redeem Resident Evils 5 and 6, sure, but at some point, it'll need to start making multiple original Resident Evil games simultaneously should the company want to keep up the cadence it's on now.

Resident Evil 4 made Capcom another $560 million and became the best-selling remake of the generation, analyst says, more than tripling sales of Oblivion Remastered and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Oblivion Remastered and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth have been found dead in a puddle of T-virus – the Resident Evil 4 remake from 2023 has sold 16.8 million copies across all platforms, and games industry researcher Alinea Analytics infers that makes it the best-selling remake of this console generation.

"It’s also among the most successful single-player horror games in history," says market analysis lead Rhys Elliott in a Substack breakdown of the best-selling game remakes and remasters since 2020, "generating $560M in gross revenue for Capcom so far across the three platforms, split 53.1% PlayStation, 34.1% Steam, and 12.8% Xbox." Resident Evil 4 remake's competition comes nowhere close.

In terms of total copies sold, Resident Evil 4 is followed by 2023 remaster Ark: Survival Ascended, which moved a total of 7 million copies. The Last of Us Part 1 remake sits behind it with 6.3 million sold, while Oblivion Remastered, the Dead Space remake, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth lag in the race with a total of 4.5, 4.3, and 4.2 million copies sold, respectively.

Bloober's Silent Hill 2 remake from 2024 is the worst best-seller according to Alinea, with a total of 3.2 million copies sold – though, as a huge fan, I'm at least placated by the suggestion that millions of people have now been exposed to buff Pyramid Head.

Elliot suggests, out of all these still very popular titles, Resident Evil 4 might have been especially suited to the new, industry-wide hobby of swanky remakes because "it's revered enough to guarantee demand and old enough that the remake feels new."

But the obvious flaw with this conclusion is that it applies to multiple titles in Alinea's collection of best-selling remakes. Silent Hill 2, for example, is even older than Resident Evil 4 and similarly revered, while Oblivion released around the same time as Resident Evil 4 and seemed to sell at a similar pace; contemporaneous reports estimate Resident Evil 4 sold 3 million copies within a year from launch, while Circana analyst Mat Piscatella said in 2025 that Oblivion Remastered outsold the original game's first 15 months on the market, which likely also existed in the realm of 3 million (2006 reports say Oblivion had already sold 1.7 copies by the end of its first week).

So what's really so special about the Resident Evil 4 remake? Well, Capcom's sales – you can currently purchase the game on Steam for $9.99 instead of $39.99, whereas Silent Hill 2 is currently $27.99 on sale, and Oblivion is an unrepentant $49.99. Elliott says, "Steam's share of total Resident Evil 4 revenue has grown from 28.0% in launch week to 34.1% today. There’s that Capcom catalogue flywheel again – a game earning a bigger slice of its lifetime revenue years after release, at the low end of the price curve (in markets consoles barely reach)."

Then, there's the irresistible charms of a formative game like Resident Evil 4. It has something for every player – revolutionary third-person shooting, a girl named Ashley, and parasites that look like someone sneezed on the floor. I, personally, couldn't imagine wanting anything more.

Only 7 PlayStation games have sold over 100,000 physical copies in the US this year, says analyst, as commenters demand discs without buying them.

The GOG store had its biggest bump in visibility thanks to Capcom's PS1 survival horror classics, the CD Projekt Red-owned store's staff say.

Marcin Paczyński, senior business development and partnerships manager at GOG, revealed last year that Capcom was initially hesitant to re-release the classic Resident Evil trilogy as Resident Evil (2002), Resident Evil 2 (2019) and Resident Evil 3 (2020) already existed and were – in its eyes – superior games. However, speaking to RPG Site, Paczyński says that the success of that trilogy's return – which led to it being released on Steam – has probably made it easier to convince Capcom to play ball with returning classics.

"The launch answered a lot of questions by itself," Paczyński says. "The classic Resident Evil games and Dino Crisis sit at over 90% positive user ratings on GOG, and it's worth remembering how seriously Capcom approached them: they were treated as full new releases, with complete QA and certification, per language."

Paczyński responds to the question of whether things have gotten easier since Resident Evil, saying: "We understand what it means for a company to hand over brands this iconic, brands that are truly its own. That takes real trust, and we're grateful Capcom gave us that chance." He adds, "We delivered. Perhaps that makes conversations with other partners a little simpler now, because there is a track record to point to.

"As for whether more of Capcom's legacy is coming: the top of the GOG Dreamlist is the most honest answer I can give." At the moment, Resident Evil Code: Veronica X is Capcom's highest ranking game on the Dreamlist, with 83,884 votes making it one of the top requests on the site.

Paczyński also credits Capcom's releases with giving the store a boost in visibility, saying: "Bringing back Resident Evil and Dino Crisis did more for GOG's visibility than almost anything else in recent years." He adds, "It showed players that the biggest classics can come back done right, and it showed rights holders, especially in Japan, what a classic release can look like on PC."

As for Capcom itself, he says the company has been a "fantastic" partner "through all of it, demanding in the best sense, and we would love to do more together. That is no secret." So hopefully we'll see God Hand and the Mega Man Legends games get a PC release soon… please.

"Resident not-Evil" is Resident Evil 2 director's joke cozy life sim pitch starring a retired Leon Kennedy fishing, baking, and "inviting his old friends over for barbecues."

Resident Evil Requiem has all sorts of brilliant lines, especially from iconic protagonist Leon Kennedy – but there could've been even more, had Capcom not cut them.

Leon Kennedy actor Nick Apostolides reveals a few in a new discussion from Play, Watch, Listen+ on YouTube (below), including one that would've come up during the Titan Spinner fight – an arguably hair-raising battle against a huge arachnid.

"The one that they didn't use would have been my favorite," Apostolides explains, admitting that the cut line would've been his most beloved… had Capcom not removed it from the game.

"When you fight the spider, I wanted to say – and we recorded it, 'You know, you've been a real itsy-bitsy pain in my ass,'" the actor recalls, using his legendary Leon Kennedy voice while recalling the line. "It would have been a banger." Indeed, it would've been.

I'm not alone in agreeing with the star, either, as folks over on Twitter lament the cut dialogue. "OMG," exclaims one fan. "This would have been freaking incredible."

Quoted responses (if you click to view post activity) are just as amusing, with somebody shouting, "WE WAS ROBBED!" Another jokes, "Requiem Leon is definitely a father."

The actual video on YouTube has garnered some pretty great attention, too – considering that Apostolides used his Leon Kennedy voice while describing the cut line, folks comment on how it could be modded into the game itself now.

"Well, he just gave us the line right there to mod it into the game," as one person says – and, I mean, they're not wrong.

There are all sorts of Resident Evil Requiem mods out there, from those affecting gameplay to others targeting visuals. What's to say a boss fight line couldn't be the next to go live? I certainly wouldn't be opposed to it, and it seems like the community is already considering the possibility.

Here's hoping we get to hear the "itsy-bitsy" line in-game someday, then – Leon Kennedy can never have enough one-liners, if you ask me.

Yet to play Capcom's latest horror game? Be sure to read our Resident Evil Requiem review. You can also check out our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through the game.

If anyone deserves a nice, safe retirement away from the horrors inflicted by a variety of viruses, it's Leon Kennedy. To say the poor guy has really been through it in the Resident Evil series over the years is an understatement. When he's not being attacked by infected dogs, stalked by a hulking, hat-wearing tyrant, or dealing with men wielding chainsaws, he's rescuing the president's daughter, uncovering a conspiracy, and returning to a place of great trauma.

Isn't it high time that after all that, he gets to kick back and take it easy? This isn't me saying I want the iconic action man to step away from the limelight after Resident Evil Requiem. On the contrary, I want to experience the retirement Kennedy deserves, and to do that, I need Resident Evil 2 director Hideki Kamiya's joke conceptual pitch to be anything but a joke. The pitch in question? A cozy life sim starring a retired Leon fishing, baking, and having barbecues with old pals. Now that idea is in my head, I can't let it go. And as a scaredy cat who loves Resident Evil from a safe distance, I'd give just about anything for Capcom to actually make it into a reality.

Home over horror

Just like Kamiya, I'm definitely not a horror fan. Even so, I've always had a great fondness for Resident Evil. I love the over-the-top silliness, corny one-liners, and lore of the infected world, but I'll be the first to admit I still find it too scary to play myself. So how do I enjoy it if I'm not playing? Well, the way in which my relationship began with the series kickstarted how I would go on to experience it from then on: by watching others play.

Witnessing my dad play through Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube way back when is one of my favorite gaming memories. I loved Resident Evil 4 (and its bingo line) so much I even attempted to try it for myself, but I quickly came to the conclusion I just couldn't handle the creepy zombie villagers and scary atmosphere upfront. By watching someone else play, I could enjoy the story and action and put some distance between myself and the horror.

But what Kamiya jokingly pitched would deservedly put some distance between the horror for Leon, too, and better yet, it would bring to life a game set in the Resident Evil universe I could actually play. In the words of Kamiya, "it'd be a game where a retired Leon spends his days in the countryside fishing, gathering wild vegetables, baking bread, walking his dog, tending to his garden, driving 50 kilometers to the nearest general store, inviting his old friends over for barbecues, fixing his elderly neighbour's oven, and selling homemade lemonade at the local festival."

The sweet concept sounds like a laidback life sim with ingredients plucked right out of games like Stardew Valley, and as an avid player in the cozy game scene, that's really speaking my language. Not only could it bring a whole new audience into the world of Resident Evil, but Capcom could tap into the genre in such a novel way for longtime fans by bringing to life a cozy life sim experience led by an established character with such a rich history.

Handy man

Just think of all of the references they could pack in, with framed pictures and belongings dotted around Leon's retired abode in the countryside that nod to past encounters and meaningful moments. Not to mention cameos from other familiar faces who pop over for barbecues. I also love how the pitch so perfectly captures Leon Kennedy. He'd never be content to rest on his laurels completely, and I could see him getting very involved with the little neighboring communities. It's easy to picture quests, for example, that make him go out of his way to help others in more day-to-day ways.

After all, you don't have to fight zombies and put a stop to the schemes of a dastardly corporation to be a hero. I'm sure Leon is just as much of a hero to the elderly neighbor whose oven gets fixed as he is to Ashley Graham in Resident Evil 4.

Kennedy is easily my favorite character in the Resident Evil universe, and imagining him stepping into one of my favorite game genres sets my heart on fire. I mean, who wouldn't want to kick back in the countryside with the retired action man and sink into a relaxed routine of dog walking and bread baking?

I know I'm letting my imagination run away from me, and this is just a joke from Kamiya. Even so… what I wouldn't give for it to be made into a reality. Sure, Resident Evil has brought us many of the best survival horror games over the years (and will no doubt continue to do so with the likes of Resident Evil Veronica on the way), but I would love to see a spin-off that goes in a wildly different direction. And when it comes to a cozy life sim, there's undoubtedly a market for it. So, this is my open letter to Capcom: please bring to life an idyllic retirement for Leon Kennedy so we can both get a break from the scares.

Look back over the series' highlights with our ranking of the best Resident Evil games.

It sounds as though Zach Cregger's upcoming Resident Evil movie will be a thrill ride from start to finish, just like the video game series it is based on.

"It feels like one gigantic sequence. Things pop off about five minutes in and it basically stays like that until the end," said Cregger to Empire. "What I love about the games is that you move from set-piece to set-piece. Every location has a unique challenge... I’m borrowing from the games directly in that rhythm, where you’re just running through a gauntlet."

However, even though the upcoming movie is set in the second game, 1998's Resident Evil 2, the feature will focus on a brand new character. Rather than following highly capable rookie cop Leon through the zombie-ridden Raccoon City, the movie will focus on a medical courier named Bryan out on delivery who suddenly gets caught up in the outbreak. Bryan is played by Austin Abrams, who previously collaborated with Cregger on the 2025 horror hit Weapons.

But, unlike Leon, Bryan is not your run-of-the-mill hero. "The concept here is that we’re following an idiot. Not that he’s stupid, but he’s not your typical game character, with no combat skills whatsoever and completely inept at survival," added Cregger. "Bryan is very much an everyman who happens to be burdened with this kind of sacred mission that’s going to take him into the heart of everything. It’s kind of like Frodo going into Mordor."

When we caught up with Cregger on the set of Resident Evil, the director told GamesRadar+, "I don't think that me telling a story that's not about Leon is a violation of the Resident Evil world, because the games do that all the time... I'm just going to tell another story that feels like playing in the world of the game, but I'm not stepping on the toes of any of Leon's storyline."

But Cregger's adaptation will stray away from the game in more ways than one. In the Resident Evil trailer, we saw Raccoon City covered in snow. The winter setting contradicts the game, which takes place in a heatwave during September.

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming video game movies and upcoming horror movies heading our way.

Resident Evil 2 director and Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya has jokingly detailed a concept for a cozy life sim game starring a retired Leon Kennedy.

Outside of series creator Shinji Mikami, you could make an argument for Kamiya being the most impactful person to be involved with the Resident Evil series. After the original game was the first game he was credited on, Kamiya then directed Resident Evil 2 which is still considered by many to be one of, if not the best game in the series. That second game is also the one that introduced us to Leon Kennedy, who has gone on to be the series' most beloved character.

But despite his massive impact on the series and the survival horror genre in general, Kamiya has openly said he hates horror, and earlier this year he pitched Capcom creating a "'non-scary' mode" for Resident Evil Requiem so he could enjoy the game's puzzles in peace. Now, over on Twitter (translated by Automaton) Kamiya has responded to fan requests for him to return to the Resident Evil series – which he hasn't been involved with since his Resident Evil 4 turned into Devil May Cry – by detailing what he would do with a new game.

Kamiya says if he made a new Resident Evil title, "it'd be a game where a retired Leon spends his days in the countryside fishing, gathering wild vegetables, baking bread, walking his dog, tending to his garden, driving 50 kilometers to the nearest general store, inviting his old friends over for barbecues, fixing his elderly neighbour's oven, and selling homemade lemonade at the local festival. Would you still be OK with that?"

Given how huge the cozy game market is, people naturally are still OK with that, with one comment saying they'd be interested in "Resident Evil Pokopia." Kamiya acknowledges the fan response, saying: "Capcom, there seem to be a lot of people asking for a Resident not-Evil game like this. If you ever have the time, please consider making it… I'd like to play it too."

Are you playing the latest game in the series? If so, be sure to browse through our roundup of Resident Evil Requiem safe codes for an easier time progressing.

Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami believes that if a fan is satisfied with just watching a playthrough of a game, then it can't have been that good of a game in the first place.

With the advent of YouTube gaming content creators, popularization of let's plays in the late 2000s, and subsequent popularity of Twitch, people simply watching someone else playing a game has become a commonplace thing. While these streams and playthroughs have proven to work as great advertising in places – especially for the likes of Among Us, Five Nights At Freddy's, and Phasmophobia – for single–player games, some found that simply watching someone else play the game was enough for them.

As reported by Nikkan (translated by Automaton), comedian and YouTube creator Eiko Kano recently spoke on TV about an exchange he had with Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami after the popularity of his own streams of the series. When Kano asked Mikami about his stance on players streaming titles of his and potentially letting users get their fill of the game through someone else, he reportedly responded, "If viewers watch a playthrough of a game all the way to the end and are satisfied with just that, then it was only that good of a game."

Obviously, games are an inherently interactive medium, and as such you would miss out on a key facet of what it is by just watching it – the same way you would lose out on elements by reading a film's screenplay. Kano says Mikami explained: "Our job is to make games that leave people wanting to clear them with their own hands, even if they've watched someone else do it, so keep streaming."

Kano also recalls that Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii gave a very similar response to him when asked, while Final Fantasy 7 Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi said recently that RPGs "need to be careful" about a lack of player agency otherwise they "might simply watch a stream and feel satisfied without ever playing the game themselves."

Resident Evil Veronica's first-person trailer was a deliberate misdirect, Capcom producer confirms the horror game is fully third-person.

2026 has been good to me. My Resident Evil Requiem review points to the staggering impact of Capcom's latest, charting the path forward for a survival horror legacy by bringing us back to where it all began.

The moment I rolled credits, I already had my suspicions about what might come next. Requiem's ending builds two futures at once, seeding what might transpire in the mainline series as well as hinting at which remake could come next. Now that the Code Veronica remake has finally been revealed, I'm even more excited to see how Resident Evil's past might influence its future – but in order for that to work, I'm all too happy for Capcom to rewrite itself.

New nightmares

Resident Evil Veronica is my most-anticipated upcoming horror game of the next year. A huge part of that is down to two words in the official game description: "reimagined story."

It's no secret that much of Capcom's older material hasn't aged well. Subtle changes in Resident Evil 4 Remake suggest that the developer itself is keenly aware of it. I fully expected that any remake of Code Veronica/X would have a few nip-tucks to update the humor for a modern audience, so I would be very surprised if Claire still calls Alfred Ashford a full-on slur in 2027. The bigger mystery is how the eccentric villain will be presented at all, since the original game's big twist plays on outdated shock tactics that are in dire need of an update.

I won't spoil the above for you, but it does leave me wondering if Resident Evil Veronica's "reimagined story" will update more than just a dicey script. This is Capcom's chance to alter who these characters actually are and keep the game in line with the modern day.

That idea alone might have you clenching your jaw, but hear me out. Following on from three stunning remakes created alongside the series' mainline entries, Resident Evil is running out of viable options to choose from. Resident Evil 5 is still one of the most controversial games of the bunch, while even the best Resident Evil game spin-offs are such an acquired taste (including my beloved Morpheus from Resident Evil Dead Aim) that many of those might be discounted on principle.

If Capcom wants to maintain pace with its rapidfire releases – and I really hope it does – it's time for all of us to call a spade a spade and admit when something just would not hit the same in the 2020s as it did in the early 2000s. We need small, meaningful changes that maintain the series' integrity, preserving pivotal plot points while reframing the supporting narrative.

It's something we already see hints of in Resident Evil Requiem. Wesker is miraculously "back" again, perhaps another clone, since he was supposed to be dead as of Resident Evil 5. More than that, the game's finale suggests that Oswell Spencer was potentially not quite the palm-rubbing psychopath many of us had him pegged as for 30 years. None of this makes sense given the current canon laid out by Code Veronica and Resident Evil 5, but maybe it will once Resident Evil Veronica sheds a little more light.

At this early stage, there's no telling how big or small Capcom's changes might be. Maybe the lengthier exposition with Claire seeking Chris out in Paris, as seen in the announcement trailer, will be all there is to it. Or maybe Capcom will take the opportunity for reinvention that so few developers ever get, soldering the future of Resident Evil in the process.

Check out our best Resident Evil games list for more to play while you wait!

Capcom is on a bit of a roll at the moment. Resident Evil Requiem, Monster Hunter Stories 3, and Pragmata have all landed with solid success, and we're not even done with the year yet. Part of the secret, according to Capcom itself, has been shifting away from auteur-driven development and trusting in the wisdom of a wider team.

"In the game industry, when a title becomes a series, it often ends up depending heavily on a particular developer, becoming what you'd call an individual-driven title," president and COO Haruhiro Tsujimoto tells Famitsu (thanks, Automaton). "If that person doesn't make one, there's no next installment. The direction of the series becomes tied to the ideas of a single creator."

He's not wrong, as the industry's history throws up plenty of examples. We've yet to get a new Metal Gear Solid game at Konami without Hideo Kojima in the picture, for example. You can also see examples within Capcom itself. The likes of Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter are still going strong despite being created years ago – in many cases, with the original creatives having departed some time ago. For Capcom, shifting away from an individual approach meant they were caught out when that individual was no longer with the company.

“We discussed the issue with the central figures behind each franchise and ultimately agreed that we should abandon that approach," Tsujimoto says. "What we came up with instead was the idea that every title should essentially be rebuilt from the ground up. We didn't mind even if sales temporarily declined as a result, and by switching to a team-based approach to game development, Capcom changed dramatically."

Capcom's stance paints a hopeful picture for some of the games we haven't seen much of lately. The developer has said it wants to "nurture" games like Devil May Cry – with DMC 5 recently hitting a record number of yearly sales despite launching seven years ago. Creative lead Hideaki Itsuno's departure might be a hurdle to that, though it sounds like Capcom is more than prepared to trust a team to do the game right.

Resident Evil Veronica's first-person trailer was a deliberate misdirect, Capcom producer confirms the horror game is fully third-person.

Capcom remains surprisingly secretive about Resident Evil Veronica. Despite offering a behind-closed-doors presentation at Summer Game Fest, the company didn't show anything beyond what everyone got to see in the public reveal, but producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi did reveal a few details in a Q&A with members of the media. Perhaps most notably, this is a fully third-person game, despite the extended first-person segment we saw in the trailer.

Hirabayashi confirmed in the Q&A session I attended that the long-awaited remake will be a third-person game. Recent Resident Evil titles have typically included an option to switch between perspectives, and Resident Evil Requiem encouraged players to stick with first-person for Grace's horror-focused sections and third-person, but despite the fact that the original Code: Veronica also featured dual protagonists, there'll be no similar split here.

What, then, are we meant to make of the extended first-person sequence we saw in the announcement trailer? Hirabayashi hints that this scene wouldn't necessarily be the same in the final game, and Capcom wanted to build a bit of mystery to create some surprise for the trailer. He also suggests that this scene won't necessarily be at the very beginning of the game.

Hirabayashi notes that Capcom "loves surprises," and that includes the release date – sorry, there were no secret teasers about when in that vague 2027 launch window that Veronica will actually be released.

He also shoots down some speculation about the "REV" acronym that briefly appeared in the trailer, confirming that the V is not meant to be a Roman numeral. It does, indeed, stand for Resident Evil Veronica rather than Resident Evil 5. While this is technically the fifth entry in the remake series, Hirabayashi says that Capcom has no intention of trying to erase previous entries, including the original Resident Evil 5.

That said, Hirabayashi also emphasized that Capcom is treating Veronica as a full-fledged, main series entry in the Resident Evil story. Given just how gosh-danged weird the original Code: Veronica is, I'm desperate to find out what the devs will do with the remake.

Stick with us for more news on all the new games for 2026 and beyond.

For my money, Capcom couldn't have picked a better game to remake than Resident Evil: Code Veronica, the survival horror classic that made its debut on Sega Dreamcast all the way back in the year 2000. Capcom announced the remake during Summer Game Fest 2026, and I just about cried tears of happiness. Finally, after 26 long years, I'll get to experience one of the strongest stories in the Resident Evil franchise, hopefully through gameplay that doesn't make me want to chug a vial of T-virus serum and be done with it. Oh, and that voice acting. God, the voice acting.

In fairness to the English-speaking actors who brought characters like Steve Burnside, Alfred Ashford, and Albert Wesker to life, voice acting was universally bad in the late '90s and early '00s. But in the wake of the Code Veronica remake reveal, fans are lovingly revisiting some of the most egregious performances in the original game, a reminder of how far we've come in terms of video game production, and a moment of appreciation for folks like Nick Apostolides and Angela Sant'Albano, the actors behind Leon Kennedy and Grace Ashcroft in Resident Evil Requiem, a game whose top-notch performances make you feel connected to the characters and thus elevate the horror and emotional stakes dramatically.

Anyway, things were different back when Code Veronica came out, as evidenced by these, uh, memorable performances highlighted by a number of content creators and commentators. It's worth nothing that some of these clips contain story spoilers, so if you haven't played the original game and want to go into the remake completely blind, unfortunately you might want to revisit them later.

In this clip spotlighted by horror content creator DEERE, we hear Claire Redfield accuse bad guy Alfred Ashford of being a "cross-dressing freak," which I can only imagine won't make it into the Code Veronica remake. "Clair is a TERF confirmed," jokes DEERE.

Here's a compilation that I think does a really great job showcasing the distinct cartoonish quality of Code Veronica's acting. I simply can't watch scenes like the one with Alfred Ashford's ridiculously extended sigh of anguish and Steve Burnside's confused reaction and not laugh, which really puts a damper on the whole horror side of the game.

The grand finale of bad Code Veronica acting, seen in the video above, is the most infamous scene of them all. Another gem from the character Steve Burnside, in this clip we see a tortured son forced to shoot and kill his own father, which is objectively horrible, but again, any dramatic weight held by the situation alone is negated by the character's wildly inappropriate tone while screaming in agony.

Of course, plenty of fans want to see this masterclass in comedic acting preserved in the remake, but again, the idea is to scare people. You physically cannot be scared with scenes like these in the game, and thus, I'm pretty sure we'll have to keep watching them in clips online or, heaven forbid, by playing the original game.

ILL is the most violent horror game I've ever seen, it makes Resident Evil and Dying Light look kinda cute

The next Resident Evil remake has officially been announced: The 2000 Dreamcast classic survival horror game Resident Evil - Code: Veronica is getting the RE Engine treatment and releasing in 2027.

Capcom kicked off this year's Summer Game Fest by announcing the Resident Evil Code Veronica remake and showing off a good 3.5 minutes of cinematic footage, ending with a shot of the iconic Gold Lugers, which shimmer beautifully in the new engine. The remake, titled simply Resident Evil Veronica, is due out in 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.

Check out the reveal trailer:

Code Veronica was the first Resident Evil game to launch on a non-PlayStation platform, and it was also the final full-blown survival horror game before the series took a turn toward action horror with Resident Evil 4, and then 5 and 6, before Biohazard took it back to its roots and scared the crap out of everyone.

The story of Code Veronica centers around siblings Chris and Claire Redfield and takes place about three months after the events of Resident Evil 2. After escaping Raccoon City, Claire is captured by Umbrella and imprisoned on an island in the Southern Ocean, which is experiencing a T-virus outbreak. Chris eventually shows up in search of her, and gameplay is split roughly equally between the two characters.

Code Veronica is one a lot of casual fans skipped out on due to the inaccurate perception that it's a spinoff due to it not being a numbered entry, when in reality it's very much a mainline title with a story that's crucial to fully understanding Resident Evil 5. The gameplay is rough, there's no getting around that, but that's why I'm so excited about the remake. It'll give a whole new generation of fans a very good reason to play one of the strongest games in the series, at least in terms of story, world, and atmosphere, and it'll give old fans like me a much smoother experience.

Capcom producer teases a Resident Evil based in Japan: "It might make an appearance at some point"

Resident Evil Requiem put the power of nostalgia on full display with the return of longtime hero Leon Kennedy and with Raccoon City as a delightfully dilapidated playground, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a Resident Evil fan that hasn't fantasized about a future entry based in Japan, where developer Capcom is based. According to Resident Evil Requiem producer Masato Kumazawa, everyone at Capcom has considered the possibility too, and nothing's off the table at this point.

"I think a Japanese setting is something every Japanese Resident Evil fan has though about, and I've also considered it myself," says Kumazawa in an interview with Japanese publication Futaman (translated by Automaton).

"Since the development team is primarily based in Japan, I think every member has given it some thought. While Japan hasn't appeared as a game setting so far, it might make an appearance at some point in the future."

A Resident Evil set in Japan is a no-brainer, and you only need to look at the success of Konami's Silent Hill f for proof. If anything, Silent Hill is even more synonymous with its titular Maine resort town than Resident Evil and Raccoon City, even if the excellent Resident Evil Requiem triumphantly returned the series to its geographical roots.

If Silent Hill f can completely abandon the series' namesake, introduce a whole new cast of characters, fly off to the opposite end of the world, and still be a massive hit with fans new and old, surely Capcom can do the same with Resident Evil.

If that were to happen, however, Kumazawa says the series' identity would remain the same, which is something I struggled with playing Silent Hill f.

"We won't compromise the core elements of the series, such as the characters and the events that unfold, and we'll continue to preserve what the series holds dear," assures Kumazawa. He adds, "However, if we keep releasing the same kind of game over and over, players will eventually get bored, so we'd like to keep taking on new challenges moving forward."

I love almost everything about Silent Hill f, the combat being the key exception, but it doesn't really look, sound, or play like a Silent Hill game. That hasn't stopped me from thoroughly enjoying multiple playthroughs, but it created a void that Silent Hill Townfall is unlikely to fill. If Resident Evil does go to Japan, I hope it doesn't lose its Resident Evilness.

After 2 hours, this new Lovecraftian horror game feels like a faithful mashup of Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

Capcom isn't using generative AI to make any of the assets you see in Resident Evil Requiem or Monster Hunter Stories 3, for example, because the developers behind some of this year's very best games are simply better.

In an interview with 4Gamer, with quotes translated by Automaton, Capcom executive Shinichi Inoue, who serves as the company's vice president of game development platform and AI solutions, says the publisher isn't using the controversial tech for asset generation and has no plans to do so. The reason is pretty simple: Gen AI can't stand up next to the stuff Capcom's devs make.

"What we in the entertainment industry consider extremely important in contrast to artificial intelligence is human sensibility," Inoue says. "Even top-tier AI still cannot match our creators when it comes to sensibility. That's the current reality. Because of that, concentrating human effort on work requiring this kind of sensibility is more efficient from the standpoint of human capital management, and it's also important for coexistence with creators."

Capcom is embracing the tech in other areas, though, specifically when it comes to communication-related tasks and debugging. The publisher is apparently cutting down on this "routine work" with a playtesting system driven by Google Gemini and in-house AI that "reports its findings to debugging check agents, but rather than leaving everything to humans, another agent first evaluates the reports against the game director's concept."

"A huge volume of this checking and evaluation work is carried out while humans are asleep," Inoue adds. "After that, the system screens for issues that are highly likely to be 'incorrect when compared to the game's intended concept' and presents them."

As Automaton notes, just last year the publisher toyed around with the idea of using generative AI to make the hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of assets required for blockbuster games nowadays – your in-game TVs and trees and chairs and sinks and so on. But it seems, somewhere in that last year, Capcom's had a change of heart.

Just recently, the company stated that "we are currently testing out various methods" of AI usage "across our departments, including graphics, sound, and programming," but affirmed that "our company will not be implementing any AI-generated assets into our video game content."

Capcom's glad we hated Resident Evil Requiem's terrible DLSS 5 AI demo, because it means fans "really liked the original design of Grace."

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We all know Leon Must Die Forever, but what about Leon must wear his own face while doing so? Or Leon must have a slick mechanical typewriter keyboard to save his progress?

Resident Evil merch has been lining the shelves this year, what with Requiem's launch and the franchise's 30th anniversary earlier in the year. That means we've got plenty of gory kit to deck out even the barest of safe rooms.

Capcom has released some of its own celebratory t-shirts, but there's a far wider supply of brands producing high-quality Resident Evil merch beyond that. Controller holders, keycards, medallion replicas, board games, and controllers are all up for grabs here, and yes, Tofu's even made an appearance as well.

You'll find all the best Resident Evil gadgets I've found so far just below.

We're also rounding up all the best Legend of Zelda merch and the best Pokemon merch for more anniversary celebrations.

Stellar Blade developer Shift Up has confirmed that Unbound – the new studio founded by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami – is working on multiple titles.

Unbound was founded by Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami in 2022, with an action RPG having been in development at the studio for a while now. And while nothing is actually known about what Mikami and team are making, earlier this year it was announced that Stellar Blade developer Shift Up will be joining forces with Unbound, and is set to publish the studio's debut title – alongside the sequel to Stellar Blade – with the studio describing it as an "acqui-hire deal" in its latest earnings report.

The studio explained the partnership, saying, "Shift Up and Unbound share a strong alignment in strategic direction, and the synergies achievable through collaboration were clear, making the decision to join forces a natural one. We are already collaborating across multiple areas including worldbuilding and creative planning, generating positive outcomes for both parties on the game development front."

Shift Up continued, "Unbound's team of approximately 60 developers – many of whom have experience creating and successfully launching globally recognized IPs – is fully dedicated to bringing new titles to players. With multiple projects currently in development spanning both high-end and mid-scale titles, we expect a sequential rollout of new releases. Details on the titles under development at Unbound will be shared with the market and players progressively over time."

While the sequel to Stellar Blade and Shift Up's "Project Spirits" are set to be revealed within the year, the studio didn't elaborate on when we may be seeing what Unbound is working on. Although, whatever it is, I'm seated, because there's not many in this industry with the resume of Shinji Mikami, and I'm always willing to give a game by the director of God Hand and Vanquish my full attention.

Stellar Blade lead believes AI is essential for South Korea to compete with studios in the US and China, with the government to provide financial backing to support the use of the tech.

In Resident Evil Requiem Leon Must Die Forever, golden spiders are often seen skittering about, and you can even hear them twinkling in the background, but what are they for? Thankfully, they won't hurt you, and the fact that they're gold might give away that they have a beneficial use.

Leon Must Die Forever is the first minigame to be added to Resident Evil Requiem, and it features roguelike gameplay as our protagonist makes his way to Victor once again. You're on the clock, though, and these golden spiders might be worth your attention when time's running out - here's what they do.

What do golden spiders do in LMDF?

In Re 9's Leon Must Die Forever mode, golden spiders appear with a number above their head, which relates to the amount of extra time given when they're killed - simple as that.

Since they give you more time, they are worth killing, but obviously don't waste more time chasing them down. I also strongly recommend killing them with your hatchet so you don't waste valuable ammo - though you'll find there is plenty of it, at least in the earlier ranks.

Speaking of ranks, once you've completed you first runthrough at Rank 1, you'll unlock Wolf Leon, one of four LMDF skins available, each with their own starting weapons and enhancements. They might not be among the best LMDF enhancements, but these unique starting criteria can make your playthrough a little easier - or provide an extra challenge.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

It might not be Cat Leon, but one of the Leon Must Die Forever skins in Resident Evil 9's minigame turns the horror hunk into a wolf - complete with a cute, fluffy tail - so you might be wondering how to unlock this furry favorite.

This Resident Evil Requiem minigame takes on a roguelike format, as you defeat enemies in different 'rooms', moving between areas via glowing red doors, before finally beating Victor at the end - all, hopefully, before your timer hits zero. With the Leon Must Die Forever skins below, you can then restart again with a new challenge, thanks to varying starting equipment - and a new look to boot. Here's how to unlock them all.

How to unlock the Leon Must Die Forever wolf skin

To unlock the Leon Must Die Forever Wolf Mode skin, you just need to complete the minigame once - AKA Rank 1. From here, head into the Special Content section from the LMDF main menu, where you'll be able to equip your new costume.

Leon's wolf skin starts you off with a powerful SMG, the Stiri REVO3 SA1, as well as your usual hatchet, making the next Rank that much easier to complete. You'll also start with Surveyor, one of the many Leon Must Die Forever enhancements.

How to get the Leon Wolf skin with different effects

Leon Must Die skins aren't just to look pretty, they also grant special starting gear for an easier time or an increased challenge. However, if you don't want flashing lights on your head (see below), you can equip one skin but still have Leon look like a wolf by unlocking the Accessory Appearance upgrade.

Unlock this by completing Leon Must Die Forever in Forever mode, Rank 4. Then you can equip any of the other costumes for their effect and press the left and right buttons on your controller to scroll through all unlocked skins in-game - including cat, I mean wolf, Leon.

Other Leon Must Die Forever skins

Aside from the obvious choice, there are three other Leon Skins in Leon Must Die Forever. They're a bit daft, but they do have unique effects that you might want to consider.

• Turbo GT - Turbo GT headgear
  • Start with the MSBG 500 and a hatchet
  • Start with the Strategist enhancement
    • Complete LMDF on Forever - Rank 2
• Hot Fuzz - Flashing light headgear
  • Start with a Classic 70 and a hatchet
  • Start with the Big-game Hunter enhancement
    • Complete LMDF on Forever - Rank 3
• Axe-orcist - Glowing red eyes
  • Start with just a Hatchet
  • Start with the Maverick enhancement
    • Complete LMDF on Forever - Rank 5

Again, once you've unlocked the Accessory Appearance upgrade, you can equip any of these while wearing any unlocked costumes, but you'll have to beat the mode a few times first!

While you're looking at Resident Evil Requiem unlocks, have you tried playing the base game with infinite Re9 ammo yet? And if you're unsure, here's what those glistening LMDF Golden Spiders do.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Capcom has announced the free minigame for Resident Evil Requiem, giving Leon Kennedy a sequel to Resident Evil 7's Ethan Must Die minigame.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi announced that Resident Evil Requiem DLC is in the works earlier this year, but ahead of the DLC, we were also told that a mystery free minigame would be added to the game. Then, last week it was teased that players in Japan will want to beat the main storyline during Golden Week, suggesting its release could be imminent, and this turned out to be true. This morning, Capcom surprise-dropped the brand new Resident Evil Requiem update, adding Leon Must Die Forever.

The roguelike mode sees you take control of Leon throughout areas of the main game, with Capcom explaining that you must "clear numerous stages while using randomized enhancer abilities as you race against the clock." It's not The Mercenaries, another staple mode of the Resident Evil series, but its the type of mode that gives you a way to play about with the action gameplay. The enhancer abilities and stage-based layout were a part of Resident Evil Village's version of Mercenaries, so fans of that version may be happy.

This mode also gives Leon some new costumes, including one where he wears his Porsche on top of his head like a bicycle helmet, and one that gives him wolf ears and a tail that definitely isn't going to send a contingent of the Leon Kennedy fanbase into overdrive.

If the "Must Die" suffix sounds familiar, you may remember that Resident Evil 7 had Ethan Must Die, which is a similar mode to this (or you're thinking of the Dante Must Die difficulty from Devil May Cry). And, funnily enough, the answer to what this minigame would turn out to be was right in front of us for months. As a fan points out, in the video where Nakanishi announced the DLC, he was wearing an Ethan Must Die t-shirt, which in hindsight was a definite hint of what was to come.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

If you were somehow worried that Resident Evil Requiem was a send-off for Leon Kennedy, I wouldn't stress, as the game's director is down to bring him back after retirement age.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi explains: "It's not a cast iron rule that whenever we come up with a new game and we decide to release it here, that we have to exactly age everyone up to match it or anything like that." Granted, age has never really been a factor – Leon himself is pushing 50 in Requiem, but he moves and looks far younger than that (especially at the end of the game).

And while the passage of time in the series should necessitate its characters passing the torch as they age out of zombie-killing territory, Nakanishi says Capcom doesn't "feel the need to replace [its most recognizable faces] with younger characters... we don't really think of it in those terms."

Even at his older age, the people loved Leon, dubbing him a "hot unc" almost the second he was revealed for Requiem. Nakanishi seemingly agrees with this assessment, saying: "I mean, I think Leon is really appealing in his current form." And if you thought there was a chance that Requiem would be a final send-off for the character, he may have good news for you, saying: "Who knows, we could bring him back when he's 70, and I'm sure he'll still be a great character."

Normally I'd stress the importance of boosting the series' longevity by introducing new characters, but Resident Evil is already pretty good at that. Sure, Ethan was – intentionally – a bit bland at times, but he's become a faceless icon of the series, and shared the screen with Chris in Resident Evil Village. Meanwhile, Grace was a great addition to the series and managed to hold her own alongside Leon. Plus, with how little Claire and Jill have been used since the early years of the series, they may as well be new characters if this point if Capcom ever decides to go back to them.

If you're yet to play the newest Capcom horror game, be sure to take a look at our Resident Evil Requiem review. You can also check out our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes if you're looking to uncover all its secrets.

When Nvidia unveiled its AI-powered DLSS 5 tech earlier this year, Resident Evil Requiem was one of the titles on display. The yassified versions of Leon and Grace that accompanied the announcement were presented as next-generation graphics technology, but most people with eyes pretty quickly recognized them as a serious insult to the original game's art direction. For its part, Capcom is glad people hated the demo, since that means they liked the real Grace's look.

"The fact a lot of players commented they really liked the original design of Grace and didn't want to see it changed was a positive," producer Masato Kumzawa tells Eurogamer. "It meant we got the design right [and] points to the fact that Grace quickly established herself as a fan favourite, that people had such strong opinions on her design."

It's unclear how much input Capcom had into Requiem's appearance in Nvidia's DLSS 5 demonstration, but as part of the announcement executive producer Jun Takeuchi called the tech "another important step in pushing visual fidelity forward."

I guess some might argue that Grace did, indeed, look "better" under the DLSS 5 filter, but that's largely because of all the traditional beauty markers. She's got brighter eyes, plumper lips, and clearer skin with DLSS 5 on, but it's tough to say the actual graphical fidelity has actually improved at all. And, personally, Grace doesn't strike me as the type to apply her finest lipstick before delving into unknown horrors.

Nvidia has issued contradictory explanations of how DLSS 5 works, with CEO Jensen Huang insisting that it integrates with a game's internal rendering in order to apply its questionable magic. A few days later, another Nvidia employee confirmed that, nah, it really is just an AI filter applied over 2D images. DLSS has, up to this point, encompassed some genuinely cool and useful machine learning based upscaling tricks, but DLSS 5 is doing an incredible job of throwing that goodwill away.

As Garry's Mod successor quickly becomes overrun with gen-AI after launching on Steam, Garry himself commits to "taking action to promote human creativity."

Naturally, a Resident Evil Requiem fan appreciates the delicate nature of heroes Grace Ashcroft and Leon Kennedy, but a true connoisseur reaches in the back for something rough and bleeding from the eyes. They're loyal to mutant Selena Corey, the septic diva Capcom clearly made as more zombie meat to cut through, but who – to actor Isabella Inchbald's delight – has instead become a star.

After seeing so much Resident Evil cosplay, fan art, and even soft rock songs dedicated to the zombie, I had to talk to Inchbald about Selena Corey's current status as the It-girl of Rhodes Hill Care Center. The actor – whose past credits include morally dubious scientist Lucy in Dying Light: The Beast, and the English voice of the eponymous nun Indika in the existential horror hit from 2024 – can't believe it.

Though, when I first had my head split open by Selena's witch scream in Resident Evil Requiem, I could tell she was special. It doesn't hurt that, compared to the other patients of Rhodes Hill Care Center, where T-virus has popped everyone's brain like a birthday balloon, Selena Corey is somehow still gorgeous.

The mutant, whose name and story players only know through patient records strewn throughout Requiem, is a red rose with all its petals plucked. She was originally admitted to the Care Center for her histrionic personality disorder, which provides a clinical explanation for the romantic white ruffles she sways with, despite the various bile stains on her dress, as well as the way she lingers in the West Wing lounge, crooning fluttery oohs between nonsensical giggles.

During our recent interview, Inchbald tells me she takes no credit for Selena's history. She didn't provide motion capture movements for the character, and Capcom hadn't given her enough details during recording for her to invent her own. But Inchbald says, "I think what I was channeling when I was recording her was kind of half-child and half-siren. She's an attractive zombie, who is really a little girl that wants attention."

"Thankfully, that matches her backstory a little bit," she says.

It seems that Capcom – which, deep in Pragmata's release cycle, declined to comment for this article – never anticipated Selena's status as fan-favorite. The developer didn't even mention the character's name as Inchbald recorded her distinctive mermaid melody.

The 2024 audition that led to Inchbald getting cast as the Resident Evil Requiem lounge singer required her to do "a bunch of zombie noises" for 20 minutes, and she didn't know – even during recording – that she was working on a Resident Evil game. Inchbald says, "I didn't even know that my character was called 'Selena Corey,' actually, when I was recording. I didn't even know that."

Capcom did, at least, share its goal to make Requiem's monsters more empathetic. The T-virus victims were meant to seem as if they were creatures "in between human and zombie," says Inchbald, "so they still retain some of their memories, and they're still sort of behaving like humans at certain points."

"That obviously fed a lot into the direction [for Selena Corey], rather than just, 'Be a zombie on a killing spree," says Inchbald. "It was a bit more cerebral than that."

Without hardly any other guidelines to use, Inchbald describes her work on Resident Evil Requiem as a "let loose kind of recording experience." She was told to sing, but not what to sing, or how. Ultimately, "It was quite liberating to be emoting in that way, rather than being restricted by words – words that you haven't written," says Inchbald.

In-game, surrounded by vomit and hospital rooms, Selena's song is a drama queen's proclamation that no doctor, no hazardous smell, and not even T-virus itself can kill her misguided ego. For many female horror fans who have rallied around similarly sadistic princesses, like Mia Goth's Pearl, or Katharine Isabelle's American Mary from the 2012 cult hit, these characters represent the cycle of self-obsession and self-destruction that comes when little girls are encouraged their whole lives to seek (a man's) approval.

But, from a practical standpoint, "I really am shocked in the best way possible that fans love her so much," Inchbald says to me. "Obviously, when you're playing a big role in a video game, you might think, 'Oh, where might this go?' But when you're playing a smaller role – and, frankly when you're playing a zombie, you don't think that's going to really amount to any kind of recognition."

Resident Evil Requiem changed that expectation. So "I'm glad that I've made them feel something," Inchbald says of Selena Corey's admirers, "and they've, in return, made me feel something, too."

Capcom uses Pragmata star Diana to make fun of Resident Evil heartthrobs Leon Kennedy and Chis Redfield.

The new Resident Evil movie will take inspiration from one of the video game franchise's more controversial installments: Resident Evil 6.

"You'll see a lot of Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 6," production designer Tom Hammock says during a set visit attended by GamesRadar+. "So Zach [Cregger, director] and I went through and pulled specific creature elements that we like from the games, whether it's tentacles, the teeth integration, and then tried to take that language and move it over to these creatures."

"I spent a lot of time in medical research libraries, so everything comes from nature," he adds. "But we also went as far as diseases. I used to work as a virologist long ago, so just having access to medical libraries gave us a really grounded starting point for all the creatures. And then you try to mix that with, you know, the insanity."

Released in 2005 and 2012, respectively, the fourth game is widely considered a classic (and was remade only a few years back), but the sixth installment was a more controversial entry in the franchise (GamesRadar+'s own Resident Evil 6 review criticized the game's "mostly terrible boss battles" and "nearly nonstop quick-time events").

The game was a maximalist effort that contains four different storylines, so there's plenty to wrap your head around in the creature department. Based on what GamesRadar+ saw on the movie's set, creature FX designers Legacy Effects seemed to be cooking up some messed-up monsters that could be drawing from the HAOS and Ogroman. Still, we'll have to wait until the movie hits the big screen to get a proper idea of just how it takes inspiration from Resident Evil 6.

As for Resident Evil 4, Cregger has already pointed out a subtle nod to that game that eagle-eyed viewers might have noticed in the first Resident Evil trailer. "I took the green herb from Resident Evil 4 and replicated the bucket exactly… which is probably the game I've played most out of the series," he said.

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. In the meantime, check out our list of the other best upcoming video game movies.

Capcom is using Pragmata star Diana to hack a number of its games' accounts, and has used it to clown on the Resident Evil series, and the fans' need to know Leon Kennedy's marriage status.

Earlier this week, the Pragmata account on Twitter posted (posing as the game's star Diana), "After I hacked into those strange objects, I got access to a whole bunch of new data," with an image showing trinkets from Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, and Onimusha, with Diana alerting that she'll be showing up on other accounts now. Some of these posts just have Diana commenting on goings on in the various series', such as talking about how cool Alma from Monster Hunter is, or reacting to the flat earth joke in Onimusha.

However, aside from fun nods to the series, Capcom is also using Diana to clown on various fans. One post pokes fun at Chris Redfield's antics in Resident Evil 5, saying, "I'm having so much fun getting all this data! Ooh, I found out that one time, someone PUNCHED a boulder just because it was in his way!" Meanwhile, there's a post poking fun at the insatiable need Resident Evil fans have to find out who Leon Kennedy is married to, with a post reading, "I found a file with a bunch of details on different agents. Ooh! There’s one on someone named Leon too...but I can’t crack the security! But I bet there’s nothing important in there that everyone’s dying to know, right?"

But Resident Evil fans aren't the only ones being teased, as the Monster Hunter account posted "I found a file in the 'Monster Hunter Stories 3' folder that says 'DeviljhoTail.mp4' but I'm not sure what that means. It says 'highly confidential' so I guess I'll leave it alone for now!" This is in reference to a popular misconception / Mandela effect within the Monster Hunter community that the big pickle dino Deviljho eats its own tail in the games… which has never actually happened.

Diana also noted that she tried to hack the accounts of Mega Man and Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, to no avail. That and she's commenting on fanart, including one crossing her over with Metal Gear Rising Revengeance villain Senator Armstrong, which brings everything full circle as the very first game Pragmata director Yonghee Cho was credited on was Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, where he helped design the likes of Armstrong. The director reposted this on Twitter, simply saying "OMG" to this collab.

Resident Evil Requiem devs cut an entire chapter from the game like they did with Resident Evil 7

Nobody could have quite predicted the cultural impact of Weapons' red-haired antagonist Aunt Gladys, which culminated in an Oscar win for actor Amy Madigan – least of all Zach Cregger. With a new horror movie on the way, this time an adaptation of the Resident Evil video games, does the director think lightning could strike twice?

"That was kind of an amazing moment with Amy and I think we were all surprised at how much it resonated with people," Cregger says in an interview attended by GamesRadar+. On top of an Academy Award win, Gladys spawned many, many Halloween costumes, memes, and Oscars host Conan O'Brien even dressed up as her for the show's opening skit (and, most prestigious of all, GamesRadar+ named her our villain of the year for 2025.

"I think I would be deluding myself if I thought that was something I'd be able to just recreate at will," he continues. "So who's to say? But there are some very unique adversaries in this [movie] that I think are really fun and that people haven't seen before, that still kind of belong in the world of the games. They're going to fit in. They're not going to break the lore of Resident Evil. But I also think that they're new.

"And so I'm excited to see how people respond to those, but I think that Austin [Abrams] is going to be what people really, really resonate with. Because, for me, what's so fun about this movie is that the character that Austin's playing is very much like an avatar for me, and how I would behave and how I would respond if I was dropped into a Resident Evil game. I am not a badass at all. I don't know how to use guns very well. I miss 99% of the shots I take, and I would be running in terror and cussing my face off at every encounter. And I think it's going to be really fun to be following somebody through this gauntlet that is not, like, SEAL Team Six-level prepared, you know. And so I think that's going to be something that hopefully people will really get a kick out of."

Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier and original character who finds himself swept up in the chaos of Raccoon City during a job gone wrong. "I never wanted to tell the story of any of the characters from the games," Cregger tells us.

"I figure if I am honoring the games, I'm just going to tell another story that feels like playing in the world of the game, but I'm not stepping on the toes of any of Leon's storyline. I'm not recasting Leon, god forbid. You know, I'm letting Leon stay Leon. And I feel like that's the most respectful thing I could do."

The Resident Evil movie arrives in theaters on September 18. While we wait, check out our guide to all the other upcoming video game movies on the way.

Zach Cregger may have revealed that his new Resident Evil movie takes place "on the periphery" of Resident Evil 2, but don't expect a familiar big bad to show up.

"My favorite [creature in the movie] is kind of the big baddie that sort of evolves and changes and follows [Austin Abrams' Bryan] over the course of the movie," Cregger says in an interview attended by GamesRadar+. "And I don't want to say too much about it, but it's not a Nemesis. So I know people are going to read this and be like, 'He's putting a Nemesis in there.' No, there's no Nemesis."

The film, which tells an original story centering new character Bryan, is set in the same timeline as the second game in the video game franchise. "You know, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but [we're telling] just another story that could be happening in parallel to that," he explains.

That story entails medical courier Bryan biting off more than he can chew when a fateful job takes him into the heart of zombie-infested Raccoon City.

Of course, the Nemesis appears in Resident Evil 3 rather than 2 but, as that game takes place concurrently with the second installment, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder if the Tyrant might feature in this movie too.

The Nemesis, used as a trench coat-wearing weapon by the Umbrella Corporation, is highly intelligent and stalks the player through the game, and has become somewhat of a fan-favorite villain over the years.

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. While we wait, get up to speed with our guide to all the other upcoming video game movies on the way in 2026 and beyond.

GamesRadar+'s visit to the set of the Resident Evil movie does not quite go to plan. Just after we arrive at the cavernous Jordan Studios on the outskirts of Prague on a cloudy December afternoon, everyone else starts to leave. Director Zach Cregger is unwell, and filming has been shut down for the day. Instead of housing its usual hive of activity, the sound stages are abandoned, and I'm tempted to call out, "Hello? Is anyone there?", final girl-style, as I embark on an eerily quiet walk through the deserted warehouse from the press tent to the bathrooms. Here be zombies, after all.

In Cregger's new take on the survival horror franchise, rather than video game mainstays Leon S. Kennedy or Chris Redfield, it's Bryan who takes on the undead. He's a hospital courier on a job from hell, as he encounters horrors even worse than the gig economy over the course of one fateful night. Played by Weapons breakout Austin Abrams, Bryan is an original character with no link to the Resident Evil games. "I never wanted to tell the story of any of the characters from the games," Cregger tells us over Zoom a few months later.

"Leon exists in the games. I don't want anyone to ruin that for me," he continues. "I don't think that me telling a story that's not about Leon is a violation of the Resident Evil world, because the games do that all the time. Leon's not in 7 or 8. So I figure if I am honoring the games, I'm just going to tell another story that feels like playing in the world of the game, but I'm not stepping on the toes of any of Leon's storyline. I'm not recasting Leon, god forbid. You know, I'm letting Leon stay Leon. And I feel like that's the most respectful thing I could do."

Return to Raccoon City

Back in Prague, everyone, including leading man Abrams, is incredibly apologetic about the disruption on set, but there's still plenty to see, and people are still busy behind the scenes – including our guide for the day, production designer Tom Hammock. "I play video games, but I'm not… I mean, Zach is obsessed," Hammock, who worked with Cregger on Weapons, tells us with a laugh as he shows us around. "I remember being in college in '96 and my roommate got Resident Evil 2, and I'd come home and he'd be playing in the dark and completely petrified himself. That's what Zach wants to capture. The first time you played the game, you didn't know what was going to happen, so he's trying to recreate all the scares, the flashlight work, the amount of darkness, the tension as you move through these spaces."

Don't be fooled by the film's first trailer, which sees Bryan arrive at a creepy remote farmhouse in need of a phone: Raccoon City is still on the map. "It takes detours," says Cregger. "The whole point of the movie is he's got to get from hospital A, through the mountains and into Raccoon City to deliver something to hospital B. And as he's going over this mountain pass, things turn bad." There's no hint of rural America in Jordan Studios, though: we've touched down in Raccoon City.

Hammock gives us a tour of a handful of sets: a dark, damp sewer, a hospital ward (sticky with the residue of 500 gallons of fake blood), and a few floors of a skyscraper, complete with working elevator, all built from scratch. We also venture into the production design office, which is a veritable treasure trove of storyboards, models, and a "creature wall", which does what it says on the tin, showcasing mock-ups of zombified rats, dogs, and more. "You'll see a lot of Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 6," Hammock says, gesturing to the creature wall. "So Zach and I went through and pulled specific creature elements that we like from the games, whether it's tentacles, the teeth integration, and then tried to take that language and move it over to these creatures.

"I spent a lot of time in medical research libraries, so everything comes from nature," he adds. "But we also went as far as diseases. I used to work as a virologist long ago, so just having access to medical libraries gave us a really grounded starting point for all the creatures. And then you try to mix that with, you know, the insanity."

Although this movie may be a standalone piece, Cregger explains that the story occurs "on the periphery" of the second game. "You know, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but tell just another story that could be happening in parallel to that."

That extends to the production design, too. "We really designed the city based on Resident Evil 2, trying to get that look," says Hammock. "Lots of brick, lots of texture, lots of rain, and then the only change we really made was going heavier with the snow. We even found somewhere that looks exactly like the police station, by chance here, by the Opera House, which is pretty exciting."

But the hardest part of recreating Raccoon City in Prague? "It sounds so foolish, but one of the hardest things on the movie is Zach had me make Raccoon City manhole covers for the top of the sewers," Hammock says. "So hard to do. Everybody made their manhole covers, like, 50 years ago. It's not such a thing anymore."

Cregger reiterates that the movie is a "very simple and self-contained" story that doesn't depend on the viewer being as big a fan of the games as he is – but, if you are, there'll be some fun extra nuggets. "A lot of the references to the games, if you don't know them, they're just gonna go right over your head, and they're not gonna waste your time. I don't spend a whole lot of time talking about stuff that's only in the games," he explains. "The pacing of the games is very much in the movie. But if you don't know the games, that's not going to penetrate; you won't realize it. And the graduation of guns. You start with a pistol, you graduate to a shotgun, and then by the end, he's holding a machine gun. All the gamers are going to understand exactly what's happening, but if you've never played it just won't register."

Along with the pacing, Cregger says he also pays homage to the visual "vocabulary" of the Resident Evil games. "Sometimes I jump into first person, sometimes I use standard coverage if he's having a conversation with someone. But I really, really wanted to embrace that immersive feel that I get when I play the games, and so I feel like, to use their visual language… why wouldn't I do that? It's so cinematic anyway," he says, after flicking through a hardbound book of the movie's storyboards for us. "People who love the games are going to feel seen in a lot of ways, I hope, when they watch this movie, but I hope that the visual vocabulary is something that's really going to punch."

Away from the PlayStation, Cregger notes that he took inspiration from movies as far-reaching as Son of Saul and Evil Dead 2, but he wasn't thinking about any of the previous Resident Evil adaptations (six movies were released between 2002 and 2017, with a reboot following in 2021) – because he hasn't seen them. "Frankly, the reason I didn't see them is because I was such a fan of the games, and they just didn't look like the games to me, you know? And it was so obvious that they were not the games that I was like, it's not for me," he says. "Maybe they're great. I have no idea. But I just wasn't interested in that, because I feel like what's great about the games is they're shrunk down into this single perspective, and it's about this pacing and this horror, and those movies just didn't look like horror things to me."

Labor of love

If the work of Legacy Effects is anything to go by, however, Resident Evil certainly will look like a "horror thing." The Legacy team, who have worked on everything from Avatar to The Mandalorian, has set up camp in what appears to be a dressing room, lined with lightbulb-studded mirrors and furnished with makeup storage, but instead of lipsticks and powders, they're covered with displays of "messed up" models. Legacy is showcasing their favorite creations from the shoot for us: a mottled stretch of life-like skin, freakishly long limbs, something with three eyes. "I suppose it's a compliment when people think it's all done with computers," creature FX designer Shane Mahan (an industry veteran whose career began four decades ago with The Terminator) tells us amidst this gleefully gory tableau.

"Within the first two minutes, the audience should not be aware what they're looking at and just believe what it is," he adds. "Otherwise, there's no fun in that. If you don't believe that it's really there, there's no fear. Part of the fun is being frightened."

Some of these creatures will appear in a scene in a hospital ward. But, this is Resident Evil, after all, so this hospital has huge, fiberglass egg-like membranes and an assortment of tentacles clinging to its walls, and Hammock points out some cleverly concealed holes when we walk through the plasticky smell of fake blood to take a closer look at the set.

"There's a whole steel structure above with grids and pulley rigs. And what's going to happen is stuntmen, upside down, have been training to hold their breath so they're there against that membrane," he explains. "They pour, like, 50 gallons of slime in with the stunt guys, and it oozes down. And then the membrane breaks, and they fall into the sets, in-camera, which is pretty cool… It took, like, 15 people two weeks to glue the tentacles. Every one is hand-cut and then glued, and then held up. So it's this labor of love."

Lastly, we're taken to see a real, working elevator built on a sound stage, a short drive from the rest of the set. Construction is still underway, and Hammock has to raise his voice to be heard above the drilling and hammering. After climbing a flight of metal stairs, we find ourselves in a fresh paint-scented corridor with six doors on it. Cregger noticed that there are "too many doors" in Resident Evil, Hammock notes, and is working with "misdirection" in this set piece. "Just like in the game, you go to the side [just] to have something burst out of the other door, out of your peripheral vision."

Now we're inside the skyscraper itself, which is based partly on Guy's Hospital in London (the tallest hospital in the world), partly on a brutalist Swiss ski resort, and partly on '20s Czech cubism as "an homage to where we're shooting." Climbing a flight of concrete stairs, we get a better look at the elevator itself. The team has modified a sports stadium-style cable camera to operate vertically. "It goes all the way up and down, so it could track next to Austin as the elevator moves with him." It really is a fully functioning elevator, built from scratch, which will be involved in an action-packed set piece that we're not allowed to allude to further.

While it seems there's going to be some pretty gruesome stuff in this movie, Cregger says he never had any pushback from the studio. "They gave me the keys of the car, and I got to drive it where I wanted to drive it," he says. "And honestly, the person I feel the most responsible to is the [person] who loves the games, so that really was who I'm trying to please with this."

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other upcoming video game movies to add to your watchlist.

After debuting behind closed doors at CinemaCon, the first trailer for the new Resident Evil movie is finally available to watch online. Directed by Weapons helmer Zach Cregger, the film serves as a reboot to the beloved survival horror franchise, bringing an original story and characters to Raccoon City.

The trailer opens with a man walking through the snow up to a quiet house. He knocks on the door to no answer, and walks inside. "Hello?" he calls out. "I had a little bit of a problem on the road, I was wondering if I could use your phone?"

That man is Bryan, played by Weapons breakout Austin Abrams. Per the movie's official synopsis, he's "a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos." The supporting cast includes Paul Walter Hauser, Kali Reis, and Zach Cherry.

But back to the trailer. "Hey, babe. I'm sorry that we got disconnected earlier, but some things have, uh, happened," Bryan says, once he gets his hands on a phone. "I'm, like, in a seriously messed-up situation right now, and it looks like we might not get to talk to each other again. I just wanted you to know, I love you."

With an eerie dial tone soundtrack in the background, we see Bryan running through the snow to a barn and trying to get some keys off the belt of a corpse... that suddenly moves. In another shot, he falls through a manhole into a sewer, where he's confronted by a bloated corpse, while disembodied limbs jump around of their own accord, and zombies fall from buildings onto the city streets. There's also a particularly creepy sequence in a hospital.

"I never wanted to tell the story of any of the characters from the games," Cregger said in an interview attended by GamesRadar+. "Leon exists in the games. I don't want anyone to ruin that for me. I don't think that me telling a story that's not about Leon is a violation of the Resident Evil world, because the games do that all the time. Leon's not in 7 or 8. So I figure if I am honoring the games, I'm just going to tell another story that feels like playing in the world of the game, but I'm not stepping on the toes of any of Leon's storyline. I'm not recasting Leon, god forbid. You know, I'm letting Leon stay Leon. And I feel like that's the most respectful thing I could do."

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other biggest upcoming video game movies on the way in 2026 and beyond.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi has revealed that the developers cut a chapter from the game before release.

In an interview with Denfaminico Gamer (translated by TheGamer) Nakanishi recalled a cut chapter from Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, saying, "Up to now, I’ve talked in interviews about how Resident Evil 7 had a 'phantom Chapter 2' that got cut during development. It was supposed to be the section where you move from the guest house to the main house." He then segued to the latest entry, saying, "Actually, Resident Evil Requiem had its own 'phantom Chapter 2' as well."

Nakanishi explained, "As we lock down the structure of the game, we go through a pretty intense process of deciding things like, 'Let’s push this scene further back,' 'Let’s just cut this entirely,' or 'Let’s add something different here.'" Although he reiterates that this isn't uncommon when it comes to developing the series and that "It’s not like we suddenly remove things at the very end of development, of course. More often, we build a rough version early on and keep revising it over and over." He adds, "It’s actually pretty common for an entire chapter to get cut."

Aside from Resident Evil 7, there have been substantial bits of cut content in other titles in the series, most notably, Resident Evil 4's remake originally had an introduction sequence that had you playing as Ashley Graham; this got far enough into development that scenes from it actually featured in trailers for the game. But in the case of Resident Evil 4, that segment likely would've been a chore in replays (shoutout Resident Evil Requiem and 2 remake's orphanage segments), so perhaps this missing chapter was also for the best.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Hideki Kamiya has confirmed a long-standing fan theory that Leon Kennedy is named after the titular character in Luc Besson's Léon: The Professional (or simply Léon for those outside of the US).

Over on Twitter, Kamiya recalls that during the result of his directorial debut, Resident Evil 2, he consulted Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami about what he should name the protagonist of the game. He claims that after being shot down on a few ideas, he suggested taking the name of the character of a film he had recently watched, which just so happened to be Leon.

Leon Kennedy and the titular Jean Reno-played hitman don't have very much in common, mind you, but the connection was made through other references found in the series. In the film Léon, takes in a 12-year-old girl after her family is murdered, the girl in question is called Mathilda (played by Star Wars' Natalie Portman in her first film role), and in Leon Kennedy's next game, you can unlock a gun named Matilda, which is also unlocked alongside the "Professional" difficulty setting, further referencing the film.

Kamiya notes that naming the gun Matilda – which is based on Leon's fully upgraded handgun in Resident Evil 2 – wasn't actually his idea; rather, he credits someone else at Capcom, which is a given considering Hideki Kamiya's version of Resident Evil 4 was a lot more Devil May Cry-esque than Resident Evil, and ended up being released as… Devil May Cry. Still, that's another long-standing fan theory that has been put to bed by someone simply tweeting it out, and I'm sure the cross-section of Resident Evil theorycrafters and French cinema enthusiasts are feeling victorious on this day.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi has teased some details about the upcoming free mini game set to release in May, and it sure sounds like we're getting Mercenaries.

In an interview with Denfaminico Gamer (translated by Genki_JPN), Nakanishi was asked about the free mini game, with the director confirming that it will be a single-player minigame, and teased that it will focus on the game's combat: "For those who have cleared the main game and are thinking 'I still haven't done enough rampaging yet' I think you might enjoy it and go 'Whoa!!', so please sharpen your tomahawk and wait."

We know the free mini game will release in May, since Capcom announced the Resident Evil Requiem DLC is in the works. However, it may end up being in our hands sooner rather than later, as Resident Evil Requiem producer Masato Kumazawa explained that the mini game will be unlocked for players after completing the game's main story, and that Golden Week may be a good time to clear the main story of the game for anyone interested. Golden Week in Japan runs from April 29 to May 6, so Kumazawa's comment could be seen as a teaser that the minigame may be in our hands as soon as next Thursday.

Nakanishi's comment about "rampaging" and the implication that the mini game may be combat-focused certainly suggests we're getting Mercenaries mode in Resident Evil Requiem. And given that Leon's combat is perhaps the best in the series in the latest game, that's certainly an exciting prospect. Mercenaries has long been one of the best parts of many Resident Evil games (or the best part, in Resident Evil 6's case), and Capcom's latest version of it in Resident Evil 4 remake certainly set a high bar for it. Let's just hope it's not as limited as Resident Evil Village's was before it was updated to add extra characters as DLC.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Resident Evil Requiem has hit a new sales milestone, with seven million units sold within the game's first two months.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi posted an image to his Instagram story (spotted by TwistedVoxel) featuring two cakes. One reads "Grace Congratulation on 7 million," with a cookie version of Grace Ashcroft sitting atop it, while the other features a Leon Kennedy cookie and is in the style of Resident Evil 2's iconic banner, saying "Welcome to 7m Leon" (and they didn't even make the spelling mistake that the RPD officers did, either).

Capcom hasn't released an official announcement about the milestone yet, but after announcing that Resident Evil Requiem had sold five million copies within the first week, it was seemingly already the fastest-selling Resident Evil title of all time, beating 2023's Resident Evil 4 remake, which took about two days to sell three million copies. Capcom then outright confirmed this when Requiem hit the six million mark just over two weeks after launching.

Earlier this week, industry analyst Mat Piscatella also noted that it's already one of the top five selling games in the series in terms of "all-time US dollar sales," and that's not to mention that it became the US's best-selling game of the year in just a day.

If anything, this is proof that Capcom's strategy of simply releasing good games works. Resident Evil has been on a hot streak since Resident Evil 7 Biohazard almost a decade ago, and with the extremely well received Village, two all-time great remakes, and the underrated Resident Evil 3 remake, fans are all-in on the series.

But we've seen the inverse from Capcom too. Monster Hunter World and Rise's love is also what propelled Monster Hunter Wilds to sell eight million copies in three days last year, becoming the company's fastest-selling game ever, but it didn't keep its momentum due to its performance issues, with sales stalling as a result.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Resident Evil Requiem is off to a hot start, and whether you want to attribute its success to Grace's old-school horror or Leon's UILF action hero persona, early sales figures have been extremely impressive. It launched as the fastest-selling game in series history, and that momentum seems to be continuing. A new US sales report suggests that, just two months after launch, Requiem is already one of the top five best-selling Resident Evil games ever released.

"After just two months in market, Resident Evil: Requiem now ranks among the top 5 best-selling Resident Evil games in all-time US dollar sales," according to Mat Piscatella of analysis firm Circana, posting on Bluesky. "It trails only Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 4 (2023), Resident Evil: Village and the original Resident Evil 4."

Circana only analyzes the US market, so all the data we're looking at here applies exclusively to that country. But even discounting the global numbers, these results are still extremely impressive. While technically, yes, that is two months of sales data, remember: Resident Evil Requiem launched on February 27. Circana's last report covered February 1 through February 28, so it became the best-selling game of the year in just a day.

This month's Circana report covers March 1 through April 4, so all told, Resident Evil Requiem actually reached the series' top five in just 36 days. There's some irony in the fact that the grand return to Raccoon City has, in fact, outsold any of the previous games set in that location.

While Resident Evil Requiem remains the best-selling game of 2026, it actually placed second for the month of March behind MLB: The Show 26, Sony's venerable baseball series. The rest of the top five was made up of new releases WWE 2K26, Marathon, and Pokemon Pokopia, but there's another important caveat here. Circana does not track digital sales from Nintendo, so Pokopia's ranking comes purely from sales of the physical game-key cartridge – it's possible that game has done better than the rankings show.

Still, it seems that Resident Evil Requiem is the title with all the momentum here in 2026. Personally, I loved half of it and merely liked the rest – I'll let you guess which half is which – but I'm delighted to see Capcom continuing to release banger after banger. The fact that these excellent games are all single-player titles with definite endings just makes Capcom's resurgence all the sweeter.

Requiem ranks pretty high on our list of the best Resident Evil games.