Resident Evil is a 1996 survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom for the PlayStation. It is the first main installment in Capcom's Resident Evil series. Set in the fictional Arklay mountain region in the Midwest, players control Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, members of the elite task force S.T.A.R.S., who must escape a mansion infested with zombies and other monsters.
Resident Evil was conceived by the producer Tokuro Fujiwara, inspired by the limitations on his 1989 horror game Sweet Home. It was directed by Shinji Mikami. It went through several redesigns, first as a Super NES game in 1993, then a fully 3D first-person PlayStation game in 1994 and finally a third-person game. Gameplay consists of action, exploration, puzzle solving and inventory management. Resident Evil established many conventions seen later in the series, and in other survival horror games, including the inventory system, save system, and use of a vitals-monitoring system instead of a health counter.
Resident Evil was praised for its graphics, gameplay, sound, and atmosphere, although it received criticism for its weak dialogue and voice acting. It was an international best-seller, and became the highest-selling PlayStation game at the time. By December 1997, it had sold about 4 million copies worldwide and had grossed more than US$200 million.
Resident Evil is often cited as one of the greatest and most influential video games ever made. It is credited with defining the survival horror genre and with returning zombies to popular culture, leading to a renewed interest in zombie films by the 2000s. It created a franchise including video games, films, comics, novels, and other merchandise. It has been ported to Sega Saturn, Windows and Nintendo DS. Its sequel, Resident Evil 2 was released in 1998. Both the game's remake and prequel were released on GameCube in 2002.
Gameplay In Resident Evil, the player chooses to play as either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine as they explore the Spencer Mansion to find their missing compatriots and secure an escape route. The environment is presented from a third-person perspective, using fixed camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds, while the player uses tank controls to move. Certain parts of the environment can be examined, items can be collected, heavy objects can be pushed around, and the player can navigate from room to room using doors, stairs, or elevators. Both characters have different perks: Chris has more health and handles heavy weapons more effectively, while Jill has an increased inventory capacity and starts with a lockpick that opens several locked doors which Chris must find keys for.
Chris and Jill begin with only a survival knife and a Beretta M92FS, and zombies and various other monsters scattered around the Mansion will attack them on sight. While the player can procure other firearms to defend themselves, including a Remington Model 870 and a Colt Python, there is limited ammunition throughout the area, preventing the player from killing everything they come across. Taking damage depletes the player's health, shown on an electrocardiogram in the inventory screen – it can be restored using herbs and first aid sprays, but if the player takes too much damage, they will die and must restart from their last save.
The player has a limited inventory capacity of 6 slots as Chris, or 8 as Jill – spare items can be deposited in item boxes found inside various safe rooms, alongside typewriters that let the player use ink ribbons to save their progress. In the inventory screen, items can be examined, equipped, discarded, or combined with each other to produce various effects – e.g. combining two herbs to increase their potency, or making an item needed to progress. Certain items are needed to solve puzzles and either provide the player with more supplies or open new areas.
Each character has a supporting partner that joins them during the story – field medic Rebecca Chambers for Chris, weapons specialist Barry Burton for Jill. Depending on the player's actions, their partner can either die or accompany them throughout the entire game – different endings exist depending on whether the player is able to save their partner and/or the other playable character and escape with them.
Plot On July 24, 1998, the Bravo Team of the Raccoon City Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) is sent out into the surrounding Arklay forest to investigate a recent string of cannibalistic murders. When contact with them is lost, Alpha Team is sent out to investigate – consisting of Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Barry Burton, Joseph Frost, Brad Vickers, and captain Albert Wesker. They discover Bravo Team's helicopter crashed in the forest, with pilot Kevin Dooley dead at the scene. Alpha Team continue to explore the surrounding forest, but are suddenly attacked by a pack of ravenous Dobermanns. Joseph is mauled to death, while Brad flees in their helicopter – the survivors flee from their pursuers, eventually taking shelter in a mysterious mansion.
One member of Alpha Team (Barry in Chris' story, Chris in Jill's story) is separated and does not make it inside – the player character splits off from the others to investigate noises coming from the west wing, but discover Bravo Team member Kenneth J. Sullivan being eaten by a zombie. When Wesker mysteriously vanishes (alongside Jill in Chris' story), the player is left to explore the mansion alone and attempt to find their allies. As they explore, they find that Bravo Team has been massacred – Forest Speyer was pecked to death by infected crows, while Richard Aiken dies from venom poisoning after being bitten by Yawn, a giant mutated snake, and captain Enrico Marini is shot dead in the torso by an unseen person just after revealing that there is a mole in S.T.A.R.S.. The only Bravo Team survivor, field medic Rebecca Chambers, is rescued by Chris.
The player eventually comes to discover that the mansion was a research facility of Umbrella, a pharmaceutical corporation that was secretly producing Bio Organic Weapons (B.O.W.s) for unknown purposes. The cannibalistic murders were caused by an outbreak of the "Tyrant Virus" (t-Virus for short), a virulent agent capable of turning any species it infects into flesh-eating zombies. At an underground laboratory beneath the mansion, the player discovers that Wesker is the mole, being an employee of Umbrella placed in S.T.A.R.S. to keep an eye on their operations; He also blackmailed Barry into helping him under the threat of Umbrella killing his family, but if Barry survives, he turns on Wesker upon learning that he was bluffing as he betrayed Umbrella for his personal interests.
Wesker releases the prototype Tyrant, a B.O.W. super soldier which he calls the ultimate bio-weapon, in order to demonstrate its potential after the survivors mock it as a failure, but his plan backfires as it kills him first before focusing on the player, who defeats it. Optionally, the player can save the other playable character from a holding cell if they collected a set of MO disks scattered around the mansion, and, if their partner survived (Barry for Jill and Rebecca for Chris), the self-destruct sequence for the mansion will be activated. The player and anyone they saved escape to a helipad where they fire a flare to signal Brad, who is still flying his helicopter looking for them. The survivors are ambushed by the Tyrant, and battle it until Brad drops a rocket launcher for the player to finally destroy it. All remaining survivors of the incident then fly out of the mansion. The ending varies depending on whether the partner survived and/or the supporting character was freed. If the partner did not survive, the self-destruct sequence is not activated and the mansion does not explode, while the Tyrant is now loose in the wilderness. If the supporting character was left in their cell, they are presumed dead. Canonically, all four protagonists (Chris, Jill, Barry, and Rebecca) survive and the mansion is destroyed.
Development Design Resident Evil was created by a team of staff members who would later become part of Capcom Production Studio 4. The inspiration for Resident Evil was the earlier Capcom horror game Sweet Home (1989), itself a video game adaption of the Japanese horror film of the same name. Shinji Mikami was commissioned to make a game set in a haunted mansion like Sweet Home. The project was proposed by Sweet Home creator Tokuro Fujiwara, who was Mikami's mentor and served as the game's producer.Shinji Mikami, « Resident Evil » et la source du jeu d'horreur , Le Monde (October 10, 2014) Fujiwara said the "basic premise was that I'd be able to do the things that I wasn't able to include" in Sweet Home, "mainly on the graphics front", and that he was "confident that horror games could become a genre in themselves." He entrusted Mikami, who was initially reluctant because he hated "being scared", with the project, because he "understood what's frightening."The Man Who Made Ghosts'n Goblins: Tokuro Fujiwara Interview , CONTINUE, Vol. 12, 2003
Resident Evil adopted many gameplay systems from Sweet Home, including the limited item inventory management,Resident Evil Creator Shinji Mikami Reflects on the Series' Roots , GameSpot (March 22, 2016) the mansion setting, the puzzles, the emphasis on survival, the door loading screen, the use of scattered notes and diary entries as storytelling mechanics, multiple endings depending on how many characters survive, backtracking to previous locations in order to solve puzzles later on, the use of death animations, individual character items such as a lockpick or lighter,Before Resident Evil, There Was Sweet Home, 1UP, 2012 restoring health through items scattered across the mansion, the intricate layout of the mansion, and the brutally horrific imagery.
Part of the inspiration for limited ammunition came from the MSX port of the game Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress, according to scenario writer Kenichi Iwao. The idea of having limited ammunition was inspired by the limited amount of supplies in the game's randomized dungeons. Iwao wanted to take more elements from the game, such as adding more ways to attack zombies with items such as mines and traps, but was unable to due to schedule constraints.
Production Production began in 1993, and the game took three years to develop. During the first six months of development, Mikami worked on the game alone, creating concept sketches, designing characters, and writing over 40 pages of script. The project was originally planned for the Super NES, before moving development to the PlayStation in 1994. Koji Oda was working on the Super NES version, after having worked on Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (1991). Oda revealed that the setting was originally more of a hellish place, before being changed to a more realistic setting.