On March 22, 1996, Capcom released a game for the original PlayStation that asked players to explore a creaking mansion, manage their inventory like their lives depended on it, and face down horrors that were genuinely terrifying on the hardware of the time. The fixed camera angles were a practical necessity. The tank controls were an acquired taste. The voice acting was, charitably speaking, of its era. And none of it mattered, because the atmosphere was extraordinary and the fear was real.
Thirty years later, the Resident Evil franchise is one of the most successful and critically enduring video game series in history. It has sold over 160 million copies across its mainline and spin-off titles. It has been adapted into a long-running film franchise, a Netflix series, an animated series, and more merchandise and collaborations than any reasonable person could catalog. Its most recent entry, Resident Evil Requiem, launched on February 27, 2026, reached over six million players worldwide, and landed with a Metacritic score of 88, making it the best-reviewed fully original title the series has produced in over two decades.
The anniversary on March 22, 2026 was marked by Capcom with a wave of celebrations: a landmark exhibition at CAPCOM CONNECT SPACE in Osaka, a Symphony of Legacy orchestral concert tour spanning Japan and European cities including London, Prague, Paris, Vienna, and Düsseldorf with a North American leg to follow, a collaboration with Universal Studios Japan, a new arcade game based on the Resident Evil 2 remake, and the re-release of the original trilogy on Steam.
This is the story of how a survival horror game about a mansion full of zombies became one of gaming’s most beloved and durable franchises. Thirty years in, it’s still making us afraid of what’s around the corner.
The Franchise: Thirty Years of Terror, Reinvention, and the Occasional Stumble
The Classic Era (1996 to 2002): Defining Survival Horror
The original Resident Evil arrived with a premise that was simple and terrifying: you are trapped, your resources are limited, and the things trying to kill you do not die easily. The fixed camera angles created sightlines that the game weaponized against you. The inventory management created genuine tension around every decision. The Spencer Mansion became one of gaming’s most iconic locations.
The game sold 2.75 million copies and established Capcom as a dominant force in the survival horror genre it had effectively invented. It was followed in 1998 by Resident Evil 2, which many fans and critics still consider the apex of the classic formula. Set in the Raccoon City Police Department with two separate campaigns following Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, RE2 expanded every element of the original while delivering one of gaming’s most satisfying dual-protagonist structures. The addition of Mr. X, the relentless Tyrant who stalked players through the precinct, introduced the franchise’s tradition of unkillable pursuers that would run through the series for decades.
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis arrived in 1999 and gave the franchise its most iconic creature: Nemesis, the hulking bioweapon in a trenchcoat who pursued Jill Valentine through a crumbling Raccoon City with the words “S.T.A.R.S.” carved into his agenda. The game was shorter than its predecessors but more intense, and Nemesis became the franchise’s defining image for a generation of players.
Resident Evil: Code Veronica, released on Dreamcast in 2000, sits in an odd historical position: it holds the second-highest Metacritic score in the franchise’s history behind only RE4, and yet it has never received a remake and has been largely passed over by the mainstream conversation. When it launched it was considered a high point for the series, but it hasn’t aged as gracefully as its contemporaries.
The REmake on GameCube in 2002 is generally considered to be the peak of the classic games, capturing the fear the original PlayStation game had and building on it with new shocks, better graphics, and voice acting. Nearly twenty-five years later, it still holds up remarkably well as a demonstration of how a remake should honor its source while surpassing it.
The Pivot (2004 to 2009): RE4 and the Action Turn
Resident Evil 4 is, by most measures, the most significant game in the franchise’s history. Released in 2005, it changed up the formula entirely, moving away from the confined locations of the first three games and putting a stronger focus on action. The over-the-shoulder camera, the inventory briefcase, the merchant, the castle, the village, the absolutely unhinged chainsaw-wielding Ganados: everything about RE4 was confident, inventive, and electrifying.
It received a Metacritic score of 96, still the highest in the franchise’s history. It redefined not just the Resident Evil series but third-person action gaming broadly. Its influence on the games that followed, from Gears of War to Dead Space to The Last of Us, is immeasurable.
Resident Evil 5 (2009) paired Chris Redfield with Sheva Alomar in an action-focused co-op experience. The pairing fell somewhat flat in terms of character dynamics, but the action was enjoyable and the co-op mechanics were genuinely innovative for the time. RE5 became the best-selling game in the franchise’s history at the time of release.
The Low Point (2012 to 2016): RE6 and the Identity Crisis
Resident Evil 6 is the franchise’s lowest point, and the community has been fairly unified on this for over a decade. It dragged on with a bloated campaign and a story that made no sense. RE6 is comfortably the low point in the series, and for a time it looked like it might be the end of the road as five years would pass before Capcom dropped another Resident Evil game.
The commercial performance of RE6 was strong enough to prevent immediate disaster, but the critical reception and the fan backlash sent a clear message to Capcom: the franchise had drifted too far from what made it matter.
The Renaissance (2017 to Present): RE Engine and the Remake Era
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard in 2017 was the reset the franchise desperately needed. After the struggles of RE6, Capcom went back to the drawing board, switching the viewpoint to first-person and recommitting to horror elements. RE7’s Louisiana bayou setting and Baker family antagonists delivered genuine terror in a way the series hadn’t managed since the early 2000s. It earned a Metacritic score of 86 and signaled that Capcom had rediscovered what the franchise was built on.
The RE Engine became the foundation for one of gaming’s most impressive creative runs. Resident Evil 2 (2019) took the original game’s structure and rebuilt it from scratch with third-person over-the-shoulder gameplay, completely redesigned environments, and a version of Mr. X that was perhaps the most terrifying pursuer in franchise history. It received a Metacritic score of 91 and became a new benchmark for what a remake could achieve.
Resident Evil 3 (2020) followed and was the closest Capcom came to a misfire with its remakes. They didn’t do enough to beef up the brief campaign, and the shooting felt like a step back from RE2’s precision. Coming one year after RE2’s excellence, the RE3 remake disappointed fans hoping for an equally comprehensive reimagining.
Resident Evil Village (2021) returned to first-person perspective, introduced the internet’s beloved Lady Dimitrescu, and delivered a broader, more action-oriented experience than RE7 while maintaining the RE Engine’s visual fidelity. It scored 84 on Metacritic.
The Resident Evil 4 remake (2023) is the most impressive entry in the remake era and arguably the best argument for the franchise’s current creative health. It polished the gameplay, reworked elements that hadn’t aged well, and made Ashley Graham a significantly more capable character. It earned a Metacritic score of 93. There is a valid case to be made that this is the franchise’s best game, which is an extraordinary thing to say about a remake of a twenty-year-old title.
Resident Evil Requiem (2026): The 30th Anniversary Game
Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline game in the franchise, arrived on February 27, 2026. Featuring FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft and veteran agent Leon S. Kennedy navigating a return to Raccoon City, Requiem combines the franchise’s two core identities, horror and action, in a way that feels like a genuine synthesis rather than a compromise.
Critics feel that Requiem is the best fully original project the series has produced in over two decades. GamesRadar called it “the most cinematic, bloody, surprisingly emotional moment for the franchise to-date,” praising its two protagonists, its combat, and its ability to pay homage to 30 years of franchise history without feeling gimmicky. It debuted with a Metacritic score of 88 and reached over six million players worldwide in its first weeks.
The Review: What Makes Resident Evil Endure
The question of why Resident Evil has lasted thirty years when so many other franchises have collapsed or stagnated is genuinely interesting, and the answer has several components.
It understands fear. The best Resident Evil games are built on a specific kind of tension: scarcity. Limited ammunition, limited inventory space, limited health resources. The games force players to make decisions about what to keep and what to sacrifice, and those decisions carry genuine weight because the consequences are real. When you’re down to your last two bullets and there’s something between you and the door, the game becomes deeply personal in a way that most action games don’t attempt.
It reinvents without abandoning. The transition from fixed-camera classic horror to RE4’s over-the-shoulder action to RE7’s first-person terror to the remake era’s combination of all of the above represents a franchise that has been willing to fundamentally reinvent its approach multiple times. Each reinvention has generated controversy and then, usually, acceptance and appreciation. The franchise’s willingness to change is why it’s still here.
It has iconic characters. Leon S. Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Ada Wong, Rebecca Chambers: these are characters with specific personalities, specific aesthetics, and specific relationships with the franchise’s mythology that fans have maintained affection for across decades.
It has Nemesis. And Mr. X. And Lady Dimitrescu. And the Regeneradors. And the Lickers. The franchise’s monster design is consistently extraordinary, producing creatures that are horrifying in appearance, terrifying in behavior, and iconic in cultural footprint. The image of Nemesis in his trenchcoat is thirty years old and still immediately recognizable to people who have never played the games.
Fan Response: Thirty Years of Community, Debate, and Devotion
The Resident Evil fan community is one of gaming’s most passionate and most opinionated, and the 30th anniversary has produced both celebration and the kind of franchise-ranking debate that these communities do best.
The release of Requiem reached over six million players around the world. The return to Raccoon City landed with the emotional weight Capcom intended, and the dual-protagonist structure with Grace and Leon generated genuine fan investment in a new character alongside one of the franchise’s most beloved veterans.
The 30th anniversary celebrations themselves have been embraced warmly. The Symphony of Legacy concerts in Japan sold out quickly, and the World Tour dates across Europe generated significant excitement. The collaboration with Universal Studios Japan, which promises to immerse fans in the world of Requiem like never before, is one of the most anticipated experiential events the franchise has ever staged.
The re-release of the original RE1, RE2, and RE3 on Steam on April 1, 2026 was particularly well-received by longtime fans. For newer players who entered the franchise through the remake era, the originals represent a genuinely different experience, and having them accessible on PC opened a conversation across fan communities about how the classics hold up.
The franchise ranking debates are in full swing. The community consensus broadly places RE4 and its remake at the top, with RE2 and its remake close behind. Requiem sits as a strong new entry whose final ranking in the franchise hierarchy is still being debated, which is exactly where a new release should be thirty years in.
The ongoing conversation about the franchise’s creative direction has been energized by Requiem’s success. After the divisive reactions to the Winters saga entries, the return to familiar characters and Raccoon City felt like a recalibration the community had been asking for. The debate about whether the franchise’s future lies in new characters and settings or continued returns to its classic mythology is one that shows no sign of resolving, which is exactly the kind of creative tension that keeps a fanbase engaged across decades.
What Capcom Got Right
Capcom’s approach to the 30th anniversary has been, by most fan measures, a genuine success. The combination of a major new mainline entry, orchestral concerts, physical exhibitions, classic game re-releases, and merchandise gave fans multiple ways to engage with the anniversary at different levels of investment.
Executive Producer Jun Takeuchi’s message to fans on March 22, 2026 captured the spirit of the occasion simply and sincerely: “Today marks the 30th anniversary of Resident Evil. We want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the fans who have supported us along the way since the release of our first game on March 22nd, 1996. Our team will continue to work hard to bring all of you even more wonderful experiences in the future, and it would be an honor if you continued along with us on that journey.”
That message is notable for what it is: a genuine expression of gratitude rather than corporate announcement language. Capcom has always had a specific relationship with its Resident Evil community, one built on the recognition that the franchise’s survival through its creative low points was sustained by fan devotion that the company genuinely needed and appreciated. The 30th anniversary feels like a thank-you as much as a celebration.
What the Next Thirty Years Looks Like
At thirty, Resident Evil is in as strong a creative position as it has occupied since the mid-2000s. The RE Engine has proven itself across six games as one of gaming’s most technically impressive and creatively flexible platforms. The remake era has demonstrated that the franchise can honor its history while surpassing it. And Requiem’s success with new protagonist Grace Ashcroft alongside legacy character Leon suggests that the franchise has the ability to introduce new voices without abandoning what made the old ones beloved.
The questions facing the next chapter are the same questions that have faced every chapter: how far can the franchise push its action elements before it loses its horror identity? Can new protagonists carry the weight that Leon and Claire and Jill have carried for decades? What does a Code Veronica remake look like in the RE Engine era? And will Capcom eventually return to the beloved RE1 Mansion with the full remake treatment that fans have been requesting since 2019?
None of those questions have answers yet. But the fact that they’re being asked with excitement rather than anxiety is the best possible sign. After thirty years, Resident Evil is not a franchise in decline. It’s a franchise in conversation with its own history, finding new ways to be itself while respecting everything it’s been.
The first game asked you to survive the night in a mansion full of monsters. Thirty years later, the franchise is still asking the same essential question in extraordinary new ways.
We’re still afraid. We’re still playing. That’s the whole story.
Resident Evil Requiem is available now. The original RE1, RE2, and RE3 are available on Steam. The Symphony of Legacy World Tour continues in 2026. Happy 30th anniversary to one of gaming’s greatest franchises.
What’s your favorite Resident Evil game? Where does Requiem rank for you? Sound off in the comments.
