Most Resident Evil fans consider Resident Evil 7 the triumphant moment Capcom turned things around with a full-throated embrace of the series' single-player, survival horror roots after the highly divisive turn toward multiplayer action horror with Resident Evil 5 and 6. However, according to former Capcom manager Miguel Corti, there's a direct precursor to the dark period of action-heavy Resident Evil games, and it's actually one of the most beloved games in the entire series.
While Resident Evil: Code Veronica was universally acclaimed when it released in 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast, its legacy has wavered in the decades since due to what I consider straight-up dated game design that can come across as unnecessarily punishing these days. I'm confident the recently revealed remake will fix most of those problems, but it's safe to say the original release is among the most divisive games in the series, and for Corti, it's single-handedly to blame for what are undoubtedly the most hated Resident Evil games in 5 and 6.
In an exhaustive series of since-deleted Bluesky posts, Corti shared an enormous level of insight into Resident Evil 7's development as well as various tidbits on other games in the series. According to official Capcom materials, Corti joined the studio in 2007 and worked his way up to senior manager, so he's definitely someone who can speak on the series with some authority. In one of his Bluesky posts, he suggested there wouldn't be a Resident Evil 5 and 6 if it weren't for Code Veronica setting the stage first.
"Everyone always mentions the first 3 RE games and they seem to forget about Code Veronica," said Corti. "There is a direct line from CV to RE 5 and 6; CV is the game where the series went off the rails by trying to cram as many locales and plots as a Dreamcast disc could hold." The "real problem" with Code Veronica, in Corti's view, is that "many of the devs consider CV the best of the pre-RE4 titles," even though he "would argue constantly that RE2 is much better."
Is this even a debate? Resident Evil 2 is a universally beloved and iconic pillar of the survival horror genre, while one would be forgiven for calling Code Veronica a cult classic. Corti also points out that Code Veronica's opening cinematic is "a straight-up Die Hard/John Woo pastiche and there's nothing horror about it," which does in retrospect seem to be a tonal setup for Resident Evil 5 and 6. While the rest of the game definitely leans further into traditional survival horror, you wouldn't know it going off the very beginning.
"No shade on CV fans, but seeing how it had a direct, negative development on the franchise means I am pretty biased against it," Corti said. "Take my bias with a grain of salt."
Honestly, this is all water under the bridge for me. Resident Evil 5 and 6 weren't so bad that they permanently stained the franchise. Capcom has been dropping back-to-back survival horror bangers for almost 10 years at this point, and Zach Cregger's awesome Resident Evil movie proves the brand is healthier than ever on the film side, too. I'd say that more than makes up for a couple of so-so action games from 20 years ago, whether or not Code Veronica had anything to do with them.
