Summary
Capcom has made a lot of influential games over the years as they are one of the biggest developers out of Japan alongside Konami, Bandai Namco, and Square Enix. For example,Street Fighter 2can be thanked for blossoming the fighting game genre as players know it today.Mega Manmelded action games and platformers well,Monster Hunterredefined boss battles, and the list could go on.
Resident Evilis a big trendsetter as well, maybe not so much past the first and fourth titles externally, but internally, one title can inspire another. Let’s go through how the series has evolved over time and rank its contributions toCapcom and video gamesas a whole.
Resident Evil: Revelationswas released first on the 3DS before eventually getting an HD remaster later down the road. There were two sets of campaigns that switched automatically between chapter breaks. The shorter episodes made sense for a handheld game, designed for on-the-go gameplay.
These campaigns includedJill Valentine partneredwith Parker Luciani, and Chris Redfield working alongside Jessica Sherawat. This episodic nature of the chapters inspired Capcom to get even more experimental with the sequel,Resident Evil: Revelations 2, which literally released episodic content starting in 2015. While Capcom has not returned to this sub-series or episodic releases yet, it was an experiment worth noting in the franchise’s grand history so far, and it was a proof of concept for other episodic games, includingHitmanand Telltale Games' narrative adventures.
Resident Evilwas released in 1996 on a few platforms, most notably the PS1. Six years later, Capcom saw fit to remake the game as a GameCube exclusive in 2002, which seemed a bit too soon for some. It’s often referred to as theResident Evil Remake,but officially it’s just calledResident Eviland kept the two main playable characters as Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield.
It took a long time, but eventually, Capcom went back to the remake well to redoResident Evil 2,Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, andResident Evil 4. The GameCube remake served as a model for Capcom to follow, and other developers have been inspired too, fromSquare Enix andFinal Fantasy 7to EA andDead Space.Resident Evil Remakeis the gold standard for how to preserve a game’s identity while adding new content that doesn’t look out of place.
Resident Evil 5was the first mainline game to offer co-op in a big way.Chris Redfield wasjoined by a new character, Sheva Alomar, in their research into Umbrella’s whereabouts in a new country. Players could swap items and equipment to make each encounter a bit more harrowing, especially when hordes of infected tried to encroach upon their positions.
In single-player, Sheva is controlled by AI and is not that great to work with, as she wastes a lot of ammo.Resident Evil Outbreakwas an online spinoff that offered co-op gameplay on the PS2, but it wasn’t a story-heavy affair and the mechanics were a bit more obtuse. Going forward, Capcom experimented more with co-op, including withResident Evil 6and the aforementionedResident Evil: Revelations 2. Co-op does indeed work for the horror genre, andResident Evil 5was proof of that.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazardbegan a new age for the series, seemingly ditching everything that had worked before. It finally combined both the Western and Japanese titles for the franchise and switched the perspective to first-person from third-person. It wasn’t the game first to do this, as the light gun games, includingResident Evil Survivor, were all shot in first-person, butResident Evil 7: Biohazardwas different since it wasn’t an on-rails experience. It was also a reaction to the success ofPT,Hideo Kojima’s now-infamous playable announcement for the canceledSilent Hills,and ushered in a new era of first-person survival horror games.
It also introduced a new character to the series and didn’t show any familiar faces until the end. The storyfocused on Ethan Winters,who was trying to find his missing wife Mia in the deep south. Despite fracturing the community a bit, the game did get a direct sequel starring Ethan withResident Evil Village,which continued the first-person perspective. WillResident Evil 9keep the trend going, or it will switch things back to third-person?
Resident Evil 4was the first big refresh of the franchise, which was starting to feel a little stale by the early 2000s. It didn’t ditch longtime favorite characters, and instead brought backLeon S. Kennedyfor his most harrowing journey yet. Tasked with finding the U.S. President’s daughter, Leon heads to a vague Spanish area in Europe to find local villagers who have been infected, not with a zombie virus, but something else that scares Leon to death.
Gameplay was more fluid, offering players more ways to fight back, from weapon upgrades to barricading doors. Its third-person, over-the-shoulder camera inspired the likes of other third-person horror games, includingDead Space,and maybe even non-horror shooters likeGears of War.Resident Evil 4, no matter what version players engage with, will be a memorable playthrough.
Resident Evil 4is probably the overall best game in the franchise, made even better by the 2023 remake. However, it would not exist without the most influentialResident Evilgame of all time, the original. It was not the first survival horror game, asAlone in the Darkpredated it along with other titles, including one fromCapcom on the NEScalledSweet Home.
The unique mixture of puzzle-solving, backtracking, tank controls, and shooting mechanics madeResident Evilunlike anything that came before. It soon became the benchmark for horror games, and so many developers in the 90s tried to chase the look and gameplay mechanics, includingSilent Hill,Fear Effect,Countdown Vampires, and too many others to name from the PS1 era. It may be dated in its original form now, butResident Evilwill never be forgotten by fans, Capcom, and the industry as a whole.
