Taking a trip through gaming’s historic horror franchise
I’ve always been the type of person that has the neurotic need to experience a franchise in the “right” order, typically release order. Whatever armchair diagnosis you just gave me, it’s probably right, though I don’t have anything official from a real doctor, but there’s something fun about starting from the literal birth of a series and seeing the good and the bad in the same order as a fan that’s been there from the beginning, rather than just picking up the shiny new thing and just enjoying it.
Resident Evil has always been that exception to me. My first real experience with the series was Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, and despite enjoying it well enough and later rebuying the game on both PS3 and PS4, I’ve never actually finished this monolith of gaming history until February 6th, 2026, just 8 days ago at time of writing. The first piece of the franchise I rolled credits on was probably the first CG movie, Resident Evil: Degeneration, and I’ve hopped, skipped, and jumped around the whole series like a tourist getting all the highlights, but never the full experience.
Over the past few months I’ve been trying to fix that, and while I’m not going to meet my original goal of getting through the whole series before the release of Resident Evil Requiem, I am happy that I’ve now fully experienced the early days of the series, the ones mostly lost to time with the onslaught of remakes. In fact every game I’ve played either has a remake available, or is on the short list of fan expectations to be next on the remake train. With all of this modernization of old classics, and new stories to be told, is it worth it to take the scenic route nowadays? Let’s talk about that.
To address the El Gigante in the room, do I think this is the definitive only way that anyone interested in Resident Evil should experience the series? No, I can admit that most, especially younger gamers, may not have a tolerance for a number of different things in the older games in the series. But you know yourself better than anyone, if there is something appealing to you about fixed cameras, or you think pre-rendered backgrounds are gorgeous, or you have a morbid fascination to learn tank controls, then I think it’s worth it to go back. And Capcom has done an excellent job, I mean absolutely stellar job, of remaking these games without replacing the old ones. Resident Evil 2 the remake is not the same game as Resident Evil 2 the original. It has a similar story, Leon and Claire are still there, iconic locations like the RPD are still there… But they are two completely different games that cannot replace one another.
Even the original Resident Evil, the very first 1996 PS1 game with its hammy acting and infamous intro and classic stilted line deliveries, there’s a charm there that goes beyond just making fun of it. It’s very primitive by today’s standards, and the remake from 2002 probably comes the closest to outright replacing another game in the series. But there is something about seeing the surprisingly colorful original PS1 mansion and learning its hallways, seeing where the 2002 remake changed the script.
And as I’ve written on this site before, I’m a nut for a horror game that incorporates puzzles, and these older Resident Evil’s are the granddaddy of all that I love. Give me some nonsensical keys with card suits on them inside a police station, make me push some statues to unlock a door and the only explanation is that it’s a renovated art museum, I love that. Seeing the original RE3’s water sample puzzle and solving it in a heated push to finish the game that night was just as thrilling as walking into a room full of zombies and hurriedly switching to your shotgun.
While I didn’t play every game in the series (sorry Dead Aim, I had to draw the line somewhere), and some I skipped due to not being legally available on modern platforms (Capcom, this is your Official Call to Action to Remake Outbreak), even the games people remember less fondly I had fun with. While Code Veronica doesn’t have the pre-rendered backgrounds or the original trilogy, there is a beauty in those Dreamcast/early PS2 environments that speaks to me specifically and my fondness for that exact generation. I feel like it’s illegal for me to love how the game looks that much, but it was gorgeous to experience, and the best save room theme in the series. The story was also peak goofiness, Alfred and Alexia are all timer villains, and even Steve Burnside deserves his flowers. (Not a lot, but like, give him a daisy or something). And while RE0 was… Kinda boring, I’m glad there’s at least one other game that exists that uses the same beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds as the remake for RE1.
If you are interested in following in my footsteps, but you’re afraid of the harsh difficulty curve of some of these older titles, every game I’ve played has ways to mitigate that, some more official than others. The original trilogy are all available on PS5 via the Classics Program, which means you have access to save states and rewinds which can help while you come to grips with tank controls or if you just don’t like the idea of Ink Ribbons. Code Veronica has an insanely easy to trigger glitch which gives you an infinite Green Herb, which was admittedly the only way I finished that game. RE1 Remake and 0 both have Easy modes so easy that you can literally kill every enemy in the game (which I did in 0) and still be flush for ammo, on top of an alternate more modern control scheme.
As for me, I’m currently in what I’ve affectionately dubbed the “Co-Op Zone” for Resident Evil. I’m currently playing through Resident Evil 5 with my wife, which effectively puts it in a different slot in my gaming schedule than games I play by myself, and I’m kind of just in a holding pattern for Requiem. Once I’ve finished Requiem and I’ve exited the Co-Op Zone, I’ll keep going, and at the very least let this marathon/history lesson end with a replay of the newest game in the series to cap it all off. And if you finish Requiem and find yourself wanting to really understand where this series came from, I would genuinely recommend taking the same road, and without the pressure of a new game to get to, really take your time and understand where Resident Evil’s roots grew from.
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