Resident Evil franchise



Resident Evil, known as BIOHAZARD (バイオハザード) in Japan, is a highly successful franchise owned by Capcom that started its life as a video game created by Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara released in 1996.

Resident Evil is Capcom's best-selling video game series as of 31 March 2019 having sold 91 million units. The success of this franchise has spawned numerous video games, several comic book series, novelizations, a Hollywood action film series, CGI movies, stage plays, an expansive variety of merchandise and cross-over promotions with other franchises.

Since its debut, most of the games and certain other media installments follow and continue to tell one on-going story while other installments and spinoff series' have followed their own shorter or self contained stories or canons. The primary story's plot involves a series of accidental viral outbreaks caused by the Umbrella Corporation creating "Bio-Organic Weapons", which prompts a handful of reoccurring protagonists to venture into different careers to fight against the threat of bioterrorism. A reoccurring antagonist named Albert Wesker spurred on many important events while alive and continues to postmortem through his lasting influence on the world.

The games follow a concept known as "Bio-real" as a word given and engineered by Capcom staff that were working behind the concept phases and the major video game releases are designated by Capcom as of the "Survival horror" genre.

1994–1998
The franchise's inception was by Capcom in 1994 as a project for the PlayStation mandated to be a horror game similar to their earlier developed title Sweet Home with Shinji Mikami chosen as director.

Although the title Bio Hazard was chosen in Japan, the Director of Communications at Capcom pointed out that it would be impossible to trademark such in the United States due to another game and a band already using the name. A contest was held within company to find a new name leading to "Resident Evil". As standard of Capcom to designate their own genres, "Survival horror" was applied to the game. Resident Evil the game was released in March 1996 to critical acclaim which solidified it as one of Capcom's flagship series'. Work on a sequel called Resident Evil 2 began soon after and was heavily advertised appearing at Tokyo Game Show while still in early development.

Before its release, Capcom expanded the series with other media. Along side the original game's release, a guide book called "BIO HAZARD Perfect Capture Manual" was published. In that same year, the Marvel comic book tie-in also called "Resident Evil" and a CD soundtrack were released. In July 1997, the first Resident Evil was released as a port for Sega Saturn in Japan alongside the supplement books Inside of BIO-HAZARD and BIO HAZARD The True Story Behind BIO HAZARD which contained additional story and information that added the to the universe's lore. Later that year, a new version of the game titled Resident Evil: Director's Cut which contained additional content, and the first audio drama called "Makoba Village Tradegy" were released. This trend of different media releases, supplement materials, and game ports & updates would continue for the rest of the franchise's history.

Most of these spinoff media were not released outside Japan and the lore would be subject to unsupervised localization changes and additions. While the novella within BIO HAZARD The True Story Behind BIO HAZARD received an English release as Resident Evil: The Book, the game manual notably contained newly written backstory information which carried over to the pack-in book for the soundtrack CD and the game itself was subject to many translation errors.

Meanwhile, Resident Evil 2 was facing troubled development and was thusly scrapped and restarted as partially advised by newly hired writing consultant Noboru Sugimura and Mikami who was a producer on the project. The scrapped phrase became known as BIOHAZARD 1.5 by fans and eventually Capcom.

1998–2005
It was during Resident Evil 2's rebooted phase it was decided there would be an on-going story to the games and Capcom began planning the future of the series by having multiple game scripts written concurrently by Flagship and Sugimura.

Capcom heavily expanded on licensing the brand to other companies in this time-span.

In 2001, Capcom launched the first anniversary campaign to celebrate Resident Evil's 5th anniversary which involved releasing specially marked merchandise and a website to advertise such. Capcom would continued to do anniversary campaigns every five years.

Due to declining sales, Mikami made the decision to take Resident Evil 4 in a more modern and action-oriented direction.

2005–2012
After Resident Evil 4's release, Capcom heavily dialed back licensing out the brand and kept most project in-house.

Along side Resident Evil 6's reveal, the web service RESIDENT EVIL.NET was announced.

2012–2016
Following the release of Resident Evil 6 Capcom began a internal company restructuring with the goal of making digital distribution more efficient. These investments allowed the releasing of Resident Evil: Revelations 2 episodically and remasters of more games via download viable products.

With the development of Resident Evil: Revelations 2, Capcom revealed their intent to make the Revelations title into a full companion series to Resident Evil. Revelations will be used to fill gaps and expand on already existing mythology while the main series pushes forward. Furthermore, producer for the Revelations series Michiteru Okabe has said that the main series will remain more action-oriented, wanting to reach a mass audience. However, the new Revelations series will be for the fans at the heart of the series. With promises of a stronger focus on the survival horror aspects that made Resident Evil so well-known to begin with, Capcom hopes to use the Revelations series to support their long-time fans and provide them with something closer to a classic Resident Evil experience.

Partially tied to Capcom's initial attempts to expand further into eSports, Resident Evil: Umbrella Corps was devolved.

2016–present
During E3 2016, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was revealed and along with the rebranding and refocusing of the franchise image under a new logo.

Influences
This franchise has been heavily influenced by George A. Romero's Dead movies, as well as the Alone in the Dark series of PC horror games, early seminal examples of the genre. It should also be noted that the Resident Evil series was inspired by a 1989 Capcom game, based on a Japanese horror movie, called Sweet Home. Most Resident Evil games carry over themes from Sweet Home such as multiple characters, each with their own strengths, weaknesses and special items.

Devil May Cry
When Resident Evil 4 was still in production, it went under many changes. Whilst still under the working title "Biohazard 3.5," one of its versions included supernatural monsters. The difference from the other games caused a completely new game to be made, and for RE4 to be rebuilt from scratch.

This game became known as "Devil May Cry".

Similarities
Some enemies and locations still bear resemblance to Resident Evil enemies and locales:
 * Phantom and Kyklops are giant spiders resembling Web Spinners;
 * Marionettes are slow moving enemies similar to Zombies;
 * Blades are reptilian enemies similar to the Hunters;
 * Mallet Island bears some resemblance to the castle;
 * Leon S. Kennedy, the lead protagonist for Resident Evil 4, bears a striking resemblance to Dante, the protagonist of the Devil May Cry franchise.

Dino Crisis
The Dino Crisis series is yet another game series developed by CAPCOM that follows similar gameplay to the earlier Biohazard Titles and is created by Shinji Mikami himself.

External

 * Resident Evil - Official Website (English)