By Quinn Smalley
It has been two years since the release of Resident Evil 4 Remake was released and it doesn’t seem like that universe’s struggles with Bioterrorism is subsiding anytime soon with the newest installment, Resident Evil 9 Requiem.
The series is well known for its gore, striking visuals, disturbing monster designs, iconic cast of recurring characters and its rich lore. Across eight, going on nine mainline entries, the lore runs deep and with the newest entry seemingly attempting to bring the series full circle with the one of the settings being a ruined Raccoon City, the tragic viral zombie infested city where the series began.
With Resident Evil 9 (RE9) releasing at the end of February, for newcomers to the series, there’s a lot of ground lore-wise. For those people jumping in with the newest entry or just need a refresher, this detailed timeline of the major events throughout the series leading up to RE9 will get you up to speed.
So first and last warning, spoilers are ahead.
- Resident Evil (1996)
The S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team, from left to right, Joseph Frost, Albert Wesker, Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Barry Burton, Brad Vickers.
The series opening, taking place in what else, an abandoned mansion deep in the woods settled at the base of the Arklay Mountains. Raccoon City’s Police department Special Tactics And Rescue Service or S.T.A.R.S., comprised of twelve members and split in two, alpha and bravo teams, were dispatched to investigate the forest after a series of reports of cannibalism happening in the area.
Bravo team was sent in first, and quickly went radio silent. Alpha team, comprised Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Barry Burton, Brad Vickers and their leader Albert Wesker, along with two others. Upon arriving in the area, Alpha team locates Bravo team’s downed and abandoned chopper, not long after they are attacked by a pack of vicious and seemingly rabid dogs. The team is cornered by the dogs and the team is forced to enter the seemingly abandoned Spencer Mansion.
The iconic Spencer Mansion, the setting for the first Resident Evil.
There they experience a night of countless horrors: loss of their comrades, halls filled with cannibalistic monsters, and conspiracy far greater than any of them could have predicted. The mansion served as the base of operations for the local pharmaceutical company, Umbrella, who were developing a Bio Organic Weapons or B.O.W.s, with the use of a virus they synthesized called the T-Virus, the United States was deeply interested in their research.
The team also discovers that Wesker is one of the lead scientists and had been tasked by Umbrella to lead S.T.A.R.S. to the mansion to then use them as guinea pigs to capture combat data of the B.O.W.s. This plan backfires, Wesker is impaled and killed by one of Umbrella’s ultimate B.O.W.s called, Tyrant. In the end most of Alpha team escapes, along with Rebecca Chambers, the sole survivor of Bravo team. Alpha team’s discovery of Umbrella’s experiments starts at the beginning of the Umbrella and their headquarters city, Raccoon City.
The team’s only medic and the biochemist prodigy, 18 year old Rebecca Chambers. Bravo team’s sole survivor.
- Resident Evil 2 (1998)
The main cast of Resident Evil 2, from left to right: Sherry Birkin, Claire Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy, Ada Wong.
Taking place two months after the Spencer Mansion incident, Raccoon City is in the middle of a complete viral outbreak and the city is in a dire state of emergency.
Zombies fill the streets, the whole city has become a testing facility for Umbrella, after the virus leaked and was carried into the water supply by infected rats. We meet two new main protagonists, Claire Redfield, a college student and motorcycle enthusiast, is in search of her brother, Chris Redfield, a member of S.T.A.R.S., who has gone silent as he was launching an investigation on Umbrella.
The other protagonist, Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie police officer reporting for his first day and last day on the job. The pair meet by chance in the middle of the city as Claire was cornered by zombies. The two escape into an abandoned police vehicle but get run off the road and separated by a truck that was being operated by a man that just turned into a zombie at the wheel.
In Resident Evil 2, your characters are caught in the middle of a viral outbreak turning all the citizens into zombies. Your characters run to the Raccoon City Police Department for shelter, but soon find themselves pulled into a web of conspiracy and bio-terrorism.
The duo agreed to meet up at the police station where they presumed it to be safer, they were deeply wrong. The police department has been overrun by zombies, with no signs of life with the exception of a little girl Sherry Birkin, and a mysterious woman, Ada Wong. All of them are forced to find an exit, the only one leads down the path of uncovering the same conspiracy that Alpha team discovered, but only deeper.
Claire and Leon learn that Sherry is the daughter of two head researchers for Umbrella is is under pursuit by her father, William Birkin, who has voluntarily injected himself with his life’s greatest work, the Golgatha Virus or G- Virus, who has now turned into a monstrosity with the only instinct to fight or pass on its genetics. Sherry is the closest biological match and thus William is after her. She gets infected after being separated from the team.
Claire is forced to synthesize a cure, after being instructed how to do so by a dying Annette Birkin, Sherry’s mother. Leon learns that Ada is actually a highly skilled corporate spy, sent to the city to steal a sample of the G-Virus for another company, Ada is mortally wounded while attempting to save Leon, and they must leave her behind in the underground Umbrella research facility nestled underneath Raccoon city’s sewers. Leon, Claire and Sherry escape the facility in a train, with no time to waste Claire splits from the group determined to find her brother.
- Resident Evil 3 (1999)
In the same city, as the same time as Claire and Leon’s nightmare, Jill Valentine is making her last escape, while being relentlessly pursued by an unstoppable bioweapon by Umbrella programmed to search out any remaining S.T.A.R.S members in the city, called Nemesis.
Jill Valentine, returns to the forefront as she makes her final escape from Raccoon City in Resident Evil 3. There’s no telling what horrors she must face and sacrifices she must make to survive with little more than her life and a blue tube top.
Carlos Olivera, a dashing South American guerrilla hired by Umbrella to help evacuate civilians. Little did he know, his real objective was to be cannon fodder for Umbrella. Carlos joins Jill to take a stand against Umbrella as they escape the undead city.
Jill discovers that Umbrella is using the city as a combat test and have sent in mercenaries under the guise of helping citizens, when in actuality the supervisors of each mercenary squadron have reported combat data back to headquarters. Jill meets Carlos Oliveira, a mercenary that was not aware he was made a test subject, aid each other in their escape of Raccoon City. The two escape from another Umbrella facility after finally destroying the Nemesis from a helicopter piloted by Barry Burton, one of the four remaining members of S.T.A.R.S. Raccoon City is seemingly wiped off the face of the planet after the United States government launched two thermobaric missiles at the city in an attempt to cover up their association with Umbrella.
Nemesis, the seemingly unstoppable main antagonist and Jill’s pursuer, is under orders to eliminate any remaining S.T.A.R.S. in the city. Brad Vickers runs into Nemesis in the middle of Raccoon City.
- Resident Evil Code Veronica (2000)
Code Veronica brings about the end of the separated siblings saga and reunites Claire and Chris Redfield. Steve Burnside joins the fray all too aware of Umbrella’s evil research thank to his father’s involvement, that lead his entire’s family capture. He’s now a prisoner along with Claire on Umbrella’s remote South American prison island.
Two months after Raccoon City, Claire is following her brother’s movements and has lead her to Europe. There she infiltrates the European Umbrella research facility, where she is abducted and brought to an Umbrella run prison island. The island has a viral leak and is the epicenter of another T-Virus outbreak. Claire escapes with the help of Steve, a prisoner of the island, and finally, Chris who comes looking for her after catching wind of her capture. The sibling’s reunion is crashed by a once thought to be dead, Albert Wesker, now sporting superhuman strength and speed, he has also become a bioweapon. Chris and Claire learn that the outbreak on the island was coordinated by Wesker and was an attempt at revenge against Chris for what happened at the Spencer Mansion. The two barely escape Wesker with their lives after skirmish with Wesker, with him ominously vowing to kill Chris in time.
- Resident Evil Outbreak (2003) and Resident Evil Outbreak File 2 (2004)
The cast of the first Resident Evil online title, Resident Evil Outbreak. From left to right top row then bottom row: George Hamilton (the bitter divorcee doctor), Kevin Ryman (the irresponsibly RPD police officer), Mark Willkins( a family man and Vietnam vet turned security guard), Jim Chapman (a chatty subway rail employee), Yoko Suzuki (a college student with a foggy past), Alyssa Ashcroft (a sassy no nonsense reporter for the Raccoon Times), Cindy Lennox (a the charming waitress at Jack’s Bar), David (the quiet plumber). All characters are meant to represent an everyday citizen in Raccoon City trying to escape the terrors thrusted upon them.
The Resident Evil Outbreak spinoffs don’t necessarily push the greater story of Resident Evil further, rather supplements it with lore within Raccoon City. You get to control 8 playable characters, Alyssa, Yoko, Kevin, Cindy, Mark, Jim, David and George. These characters serve as representations of everyday people of Raccoon City escaping the city as our hero’s in the previous entries did once before.
The biggest takeaway is that, after years of debate of Outbreak’s canonicity, Capcom is now attempting to canonize the characters from Outbreak in the newest Resident Evil, with featuring Alyssa and her daughter Grace in the newest trailers. It might be safe to say we can expect more Outbreak characters to be mentioned or appear on screen.
Alyssa Ashcroft, the outspoken reporter that was trapped in Raccoon City and lived to tell the tale. A comparison of what she looked like in 1998 during the outbreak and what she looks like 28 years later in Resident Evil 9 Requiem. She is the only protagonist from Resident Evil Outbreak to be canonized and brought into the main resident evil storyline.
- Resident Evil 4 (2005)
The president’s daughter, Ashley Graham has been abducted while on a class trip to Spain. Enter, Leon S. Kennedy, who is now a highly specialized government agent and apparently part time b-movie action hero, is sent in alone to rescue her. He travels to the Spanish country side, in the heart of the wood he discovers a small village.
The villagers are immediately hostile, and soon Leon learns they are all part of a local cult called Los Iluminados, who also just so happen to be the people that captured Ashley. Leon is captured after finding a bound and gagged Luis Serra, a washed up scientist, that detail will be important soon.
Leon S. Kennedy, Ashley Graham and Ada Wong find themselves in Spain being pursued by violent villagers in the countryside. They aren’t bloodthirsty, but they don’t seem reasonable either…
Leon escapes the cult’s imprisonment and soon learns he was injected with an egg of something called a Plaga, this game’s trademark infection is a living parasite. Putting together that the all the villagers are also infected with the same parasite, Leon learns from Luis that there are no dumb, flesh mongering zombies here, these infected are semi-sentient and are under direct orders by the holder of the dominant species plaga, Salazar Saddler, the cult’s leader, to kill any interlopers.
Luis is not only a scientist, but he’s also helped the cult cultivate and engineer the Plaga from fossils found in the area. Leon recovers Ashley and learns she also was injected with a plaga, Luis offers to help and knows of a way to kill the parasite growing within them, except the device is in a lab on the other side of the village past a castle and on an offshore island crawling with cultists that are far too well armed.
In the shadows, a feminine figure watches Leon and Ashley navigate their way through the village at night and the castle, only revealing herself when Leon is separated from Ashley. Ada Wong, the corporate spy thought to have perished in Raccoon City, fully healed and just as catlike as ever.
She’s under orders to kill Leon if she makes contact with him, but after a brief face off, she stands down and we learn she is after a sample of the dominant Plaga, and is working for Wesker. Ada makes a slick exit out of a window using a grapple hook, leaving Leon to deal with the horrors ahead by himself. Eventually reuniting with Ashley, they find their way to Luis’ lab and remove the plaga from their bodies just in time.
Saddler, who has been watching from afar, explains that he planned to take over the United States using the Plaga within Ashley to infect the president, then systemically the rest of the U.S. government. Angered that his plan is failing, and desperate to claw back his advantage, Saddler mutates in order to kill Leon; he fails as Leon kills him with a RPG missile to the face. Ada swoops in to claim a sample from Saddler and takes off on a helicopter to deliver the sample. Leon and Ashley escape on a jet ski as the island self-destructs.
- Resident Evil 5 (2008)
Chris Redfield returns and is on a mission in Africa, now an agent for the newly created Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, or the B.S.A.A., an organization created in response to the Raccoon City incident. He is joined by Sheva Alomar, another B.S.A.A. operative from the West African branch.
They discover Wesker is planning a worldwide genocide by means of spreading a deadly virus he developed called Uroburos, alongside TRICELL, Umbrella’s former rival company before Umbrella was put out of business and liquidated. Prior to the events of Resident Evil 5, Jill, who was thought to be dead after being launched out of a window onto a rocky coastline the last time they caught up the Wesker, has beeb drugged and is being forced to do Wesker’s bidding.
Chris and Sheva save Jill from Wesker’s control and make their way to stop Wesker, this time permanently. Resident Evil 5 ends with Wesker falling into a volcano and being blown up by Sheva and Chris with rocker launchers. The Albert Wesker reign of ternary is finally over, or is it? The ripples his research created can never be stopped and has only served as a springboard for other shadowy organizations to take his place.
Jill emerges from the shadows behind Wesker, thought to be dead she’s different now. She’s cold, silent, distant, and moves like a combat android pulling off superhuman acrobatics with unparalleled agility. What happened?
- Resident Evil 6 (2012)
One of the most bloated stories in Resident Evil history, we learn that Wesker has a son that hates him, and also has uncanny super human traits, Sherry is grown up and is a government agent against her will and her previous G virus infection has given her eternal youth and superhuman healing. Leon returns even more badass than before and with a partner, Helen Harper, a secret service agent who in the opening scene kills the president.
The largest main cast in Resident Evil history, from left to right: Piers Nivans, Chris Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy, Sherry Birkin, Jake Muller, Ada Wong and Helena Harper. Sherry returns for the first time since Resident Evil 2, all grown up and with super healing powers, a left over from her G-Virus infection as a child, and the final gift her parents left her before perishing in Raccoon City.
We learn that she was being manipulated into killing him by using her sister as a test subject for something called the C- Virus. The C-Virus is released in the middle of a fictional city in China called Lanshiang. Leon, Helena, Jake and Sherry all head to the scene and stop the terrorist attack. Chris and his new partner Piers cross paths with the other duos and together they take down Derek Simmons, a United States Security advisor that has been behind the research of the C- Virus, was the one that ordered the destruction of Raccoon City all those years ago, forced Sherry to choose to be a government agent or a test subject for the rest of her life and the one that ordered the assassination of the president.
Ada Wong returns as an observer for most of the events of the game, and serves as Derek Simmon’s infatuation that acted as launching point for his attempts to take over the world. She broke his heart. The game ends and somehow Helena gets away with murdering a president.
- Resident Evil 7 Biohazard
The first game to be completely in first person view, we witness the birth of a brand new reluctant protagonist, Ethan Winters. He is lured to an abandoned plantation house in fictional Dulvey, Louisiana. He’s in search of his wife, Mia Winters, who went missing two years prior on a work trip. Ethan soon finds himself entangled in a web of deceit and viral conspiracy just as S.T.A.R.S. did all those years ago.
Ethan quickly locates his wife in the guest house of the plantation in the swamp, but she’s different, soon goes crazy and attacks Ethan as they escape. Ethan has no choice but to kill Mia and soon he realizes he was never alone. Knocked out and dragged into the main part of house Ethan is introduced to the Baker Family, Jack, Marguerite, Lucas and a mysterious old woman that no one acknowledges. Forced fed rotting flesh, the scene is interrupted by a noise outside, a cop investigating the mansion.
Ethan makes his escape, and finds himself learning that this violent family used to be a sweet and quiet one until Mia and a girl named Eveline appeared. Periodically, Ethan receives phone calls from within the house from a woman named Zoe, Jack and Marguerite daughter, who somehow is not deranged and also is being held against her will.
As he explores the manor, Ethan encounters these tall, black mold-like creatures that serve as this game’s zombie. After systematically killing most of the family, Jack, Marguerite and Lucas, Ethan discovers that Eveline is a bioweapon, one that employs mold as its contaminant. She takes form of a seemingly normal, albeit highly emotional little girl when is getting regular injections of a stabilizer, she now appears as the old woman from the beginning.
She has infected and controlled the Baker family with her for the past two years forcing them to do horrendous things as they are forced to watch within their sub consciences as prisoners. What’s worse is that Mia is Eveline’s caretaker has has known this entire time, working for the shadowy organization “The Connections.”
Due to Eveline’s infection, Mia didn’t die after Ethan defended himself and recovered completely. Zoe knows of a way to cure the infection and Ethan recovers the necessary competes to synthesize the cure. Two doses are created, one Ethan uses on Mia, and leaves Zoe behind to send help for her.
Ethan kills Eveline, who is now a giant mold creature, with the last dose. Ethan and Mia go into hiding in eastern Europe.
- Resident Evil 8 Village
Resident Evil 8 Village closes the Winters family saga. From left to right: Chris Redfield, Ethan Winters and his wife Mia Winters. Photo by IGN.
The Winter family drama comes to a head in Village, Ethan and his Mia have a very special baby named, Rosemary. They have carved out a peaceful life in the eastern European countryside until Chris returns and seemingly murders Mia in cold blood in what clearly was a surgical and highly coordinated effort to eliminate her. Ethan and Rosemary are detained by Chris and as they leave the house with Mia’s body, something happens and their vans crash, allowing Ethan to escape into a neighboring village, which of course is overrun with infected.
He learns that this village is run by four lords and an overload referred to as Mother Miranda, and all of them are infected by a precursor of the mold that Eveline was dispersing. Ethan also learns that Mother Miranda has their baby and will be used to rebirth Mother Miranda’s long dead daughter through the power of the mold. The reason this is possible is because Ethan himself is a very special mold monster, Mia reveals to Chris Ethan died at the Baker plantation shortly after he found her.
His dead body was dragged to the mansion and revived through Eveline’s spores, Mia had a baby with mold monster. Ethan eventually kills Mother Miranda and the Megamycete, a giant fungal root growing beneath the village that serves as the core pillar to the mold hive mind, triggering the destruction of his own body but saving his Rosemary at the very end.
And now you’re caught up and ready to jump into Resident Evil 9 Requiem, which was released Feb. 27, 2026.
Resident Evil 9 Requiem gives us a new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, Alyssa’s daughter. Can she face the terror that her mother faced all those years ago?