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Resident Evil Lore

So I saw the new DLC for Resident Evil Village and was pretty surprised how good it looked and the direction they took the story in since I read about it and spoiled it for myself.

So I'm sort of "getting back" into Resident Evil in a way but wow, I just can't wrap my head around all the background lore.

So to be specific, it seems like there's a zombie outbreak every four or five years in the Resident Evil universe. It's sort of Marvel levels of crazy on how often there are zombie outbreaks or epidemics that happen in the world. It's a completely different world than ours at this point and I wonder how the government and other people just keep dealing with this?

Do they also ever point to an origin for these outbreaks and zombies in general? I remember looking up some stuff the other day and all I could find was something called a Progenitor virus which apparently was discovered in West Africa? It's also millions if not billions of years old. It makes me wonder if all this is going to lead into some kind of Lovecraftian or extraterrestrial explanation? I know the series tries to keep more scientific and the supernatural out of it but there does seem to be in recent times more weirder things going on in the Resident Evil universe.

For what it's worth, I haven't played a Resident Evil game since I think Resident Evil Code Veronica on the original Dreamcast. I had the first, second and third game on the original PlayStation and Code Veronica on the Dreamcast.

Yes, it's been that long!
 
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F0rneus

Tears in the rain
Mother Miranda was the start. Once she became fully absorbed by the Megamycite, she started developing bioweapons like over a hundred years ago. Then she met Oswell Spencer, and saved him. They worked together for years, but eventually Spencer decided to go solo and continue his research down a different path. He created Umbrella, and used the Four Houses of Miranda's village, as the logo for his company.
 
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Mother Miranda was the start. Once she became fully absorbed by the Megamycite, she started developing bioweapons like over a hundred years ago. Then she met Oswell Spencer, and saved him. They worked together for years, but eventually Spencer decided to go solo and continue his research down a different path. He created Umbrella, and used the Four Houses of Miranda's village, as the logo for his company.
Yeah that's what I heard for the human beings. Although now I kind of wish I put spoiler in the title here since it's obviously going to go that way.

But I was more curious about the virus itself. Apparently there's the Progenitor virus and one guy in West Africa thousands of years ago or whatever got infected and became superhuman and was worshiped as a god, so there have been instances before where people have been infected.

I'm curious what direction they're going to go in like is this all from outer space? Maybe there's some extraterrestrial reason for all this? I know Capcom does try to keep the scheme more grounded in a way and avoid aliens in the supernatural but when you look at some of the more recent stuff it makes you wonder if they're starting to diverge into the weirder aspects of all this?

Edit: in fact, I would argue that Resident Evil isn't even really about zombies probably since the first game. These things are more than typical zombies.
 
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F0rneus

Tears in the rain
Yeah that's what I heard for the human beings. Although now I kind of wish I put spoiler in the title here since it's obviously going to go that way.

But I was more curious about the virus itself. Apparently there's the Progenitor virus and one guy in West Africa thousands of years ago or whatever got infected and became superhuman and was worshiped as a god, so there have been instances before where people have been infected.

I'm curious what direction they're going to go in like is this all from outer space? Maybe there's some extraterrestrial reason for all this? I know Capcom does try to keep the scheme more grounded in a way and avoid aliens in the supernatural but when you look at some of the more recent stuff it makes you wonder if they're starting to diverge into the weirder aspects of all this?

Edit: in fact, I would argue that Resident Evil isn't even really about zombies probably since the first game. These things are more than typical zombies.
Spencer's research started fully after he left Miranda, and it was a very amicable breakup. He never stopped sending her letters to thank her and keep her updated. They just had different views. She wanted to create the perfect vessel for the consciousness of her daughter Eva through the Megamycite. He on the other hand, wanted to control the world through bioweapons, which yes started with the Progenitor Virus.

I don't think there is anything alien. Everything is grounded. They just used things that already existed and built on them and twisted them to the max.
 
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Doom85

Member
I love Lovecraftian stuff, but no I would not want in RE, doesn’t fit. And I don’t think the Progenitor stuff should be explored more than that. Horror generally as a rule gets lamer the heavier the explanation of where the threat came from.

As for the universe, yes by this point millions have died to bio weapons. All of Raccoon City in RE 0-3, at least a thousand people in 4, probably a few thousand at least in 5, probably millions in 6, and an entire new city Terragrigia in Revelations 1.

It‘s why I consider Mia the worst RE character.

So despite bio weapons being super illegal (this is confirmed in a note in 7), she still voluntarily joined a bio weapon development organization along with Miranda as we see in a photo near the end of 8 (why Chris never comments on this to her despite picking up the photo baffles me, he should have arrested her post game, amnesia doesn’t absolve one of their crimes). They created Eveline and thus were partially responsible for the deaths of all the Bakers (minus Zoe and Joe who survived) and the dozens of people they captured prior to Ethan arriving at the estate (granted, Lucas was willing to kill, but Eveline was who got the ball rolling). Mia suffers no moral comeuppance for this at the end of 7 by the game conveniently giving her amnesia.

Then in 8, when Chris frees Mia from her cell, this bitch has the audacity to give Chris shit for not protecting Ethan. Okay, I know she can’t remember what she had done, but Chris Redfield actually saved ALL OF HUMANITY at the end of RE 5. If it weren’t for him (and Sheva, and some help from Jill and Josh), then Mia and Ethan would have died well over a decade ago. Like, god, I thought Steve from Code Veronica was the worse, but this moment cemented Mia as the most unintentionally unlikable RE character in my book. Thank god she doesn’t appear in Shadow of Rose, I hope to never see this piece of shit again.
 
Spencer's research started fully after he left Miranda, and it was a very amicable breakup. He never stopped sending her letters to thank her and keep her updated. They just had different views. She wanted to create the perfect vessel for the consciousness of her daughter Eva through the Megamycite. He on the other hand, wanted to control the world through bioweapons, which yes started with the Progenitor Virus.

I don't think there is anything alien. Everything is grounded. They just used things that already existed and built on them and twisted them to the max.
Yeah I understand that and appreciate the response. But apparently the virus was around for millions or billions of years originally. If it's billions, then it could predate the Earth since the Earth is only 4 billion years old I think.

Of course that would sound like it's more out of something like Dead Space with the Marker and all.

I kind of do hope they go into some weird aspects eventually and say the viruses from another world or whatever. It wouldn't even have to deal with aliens themselves but some interesting kind of explanation.

Also, since I'm not really up to the lore in all this, how does the average person and the government deal with all these zombie outbreaks every few years or whatever? I'd be afraid to sleep.... anywhere!
 
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Doom85

Member
Also, since I'm not really up to the lore in all this, how does the average person and the government deal with all these zombie outbreaks every few years or whatever? I'd be afraid to sleep.... anywhere!

tom hiddleston GIF by BBC
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
Yeah I understand that and appreciate the response. But apparently the virus was around for millions or billions of years originally. If it's billions, then it could predate the Earth since the Earth is only 4 billion years old I think.

Of course that would sound like it's more out of something like Dead Space with the Marker and all.

I kind of do hope they go into some weird aspects eventually and say the viruses from another world or whatever. It wouldn't even have to deal with aliens themselves but some interesting kind of explanation.

Also, since I'm not really up to the lore in all this, how does the average person and the government deal with all these zombie outbreaks every few years or whatever? I'd be afraid to sleep.... anywhere!
Well from the lore, we know the Megamycite was the first bioweapon. It was hidden in a cave for possibly millions of years, until a grieving mother crawled in to die and became...well the main antagonist of pretty much the whole franchise. From what I understand the Progenitor virus was around for a few thousand years.

But again not alien or unexplained. It's why scientists dissected it and applied it to projects.
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
Honestly the more lore resident evil gets the less I like the series.

While I know RE4 is the favorite game for a lot of people I saw it as the move away from the "virus" and cemented a parasite being the new main form of transmission which resulted in more constantly goofy and stupid boss fights that start to get more fantasy vs the mutations caused by the Virus in 1-3.

It's like the suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far, and while 4's gameplay was inotive at the time, it was at the expense of everything else.
 
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RavageX

Member
Well I like simple explanations, so I was cool with a virus. Now its something fungus. Might as well be aliens and some shit. OR.....people from the future went back and planted the virus/fungus to solve a problem that occurs in the future somehow. There we go.
 
Well I like simple explanations, so I was cool with a virus. Now its something fungus. Might as well be aliens and some shit. OR.....people from the future went back and planted the virus/fungus to solve a problem that occurs in the future somehow. There we go.
There's rumor the 9th game is going to get even weirder and go back into these supernatural type creatures like goatman or whatever.

Maybe they'll go with the virus at the Skinwalker Ranch or something. At this point who knows.
 

.Pennywise

Banned
"Grounded" RE > Stupid over the top RE

We're going into another RE6, slow but steadily, after getting back to its roots, we're almost there again with stupid over the top action RE with non-sense plot and laughable enemy designs.
 
"Grounded" RE > Stupid over the top RE

We're going into another RE6, slow but steadily, after getting back to its roots, we're almost there again with stupid over the top action RE with non-sense plot and laughable enemy designs.
Since I'm still sort of new to the series again, I admit my bias and just don't care that much I'm kind of want it to go over the top of it. I'm sympathetic to people who don't want it that way but I felt the game was over the top to begin with. So I don't think subtly moving towards stranger explanations is going to ruin it that much but hey, what do I know?
 

Elysion

Banned
It’s been a while since I played any of the pre-RE7 titles, so I’ve forgotten a lot, but I’ve got a question:

Is the Las Plagas parasite from RE4 in any way related to the fungus stuff from RE7 and 8? And does either of them have anything to do with the various viruses from the early games? Because if not, then that means there are three different, totally unrelated sources for zombie/monster outbreaks in RE: the letter-viruses from RE1-3, the Las Plagas parasite from RE4 and 5, and the fungus thing from RE7 and 8. Is there any connection between these?

Also, can someone remind me what the threat in RE6 was? Was it still Las Plagas, or did they go back to virus stuff? I’m pretty sure RE6 had normal zombies again, and I do remember that Jake’s blood had anti-bodies of some kind. But it also had these Chinese guys with the weird masks, and I’ve no idea what they were supposed to be. Was the Las Plagas plot thread ever resolved? I don’t exactly remember how they dealt with that in RE5 either, all I remember is that Wesker died in a volcano lol.
 
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FUBARx89

Member
It’s been a while since I played any of the pre-RE7 titles, so I’ve forgotten a lot, but I’ve got a question:

Is the Las Plagas parasite from RE4 in any way related to the fungus stuff from RE7 and 8? And does either of them have anything to do with the various viruses from the early games? Because if not, then that means there are three different, totally unrelated sources for zombie/monster outbreaks in RE: the letter-viruses from RE1-3, the Las Plagas parasite from RE4 and 5, and the fungus thing from RE7 and 8. Is there any connection between these?

Also, can someone remind me what the threat in RE6 was? Was it still Las Plagas, or did they go back to virus stuff? I’m pretty sure RE6 had normal zombies again, and I do remember that Jake’s blood had anti-bodies of some kind. But it also had these Chinese guys with the weird masks, and I’ve no idea what they were supposed to be. Was the Las Plagas plot thread ever resolved? I don’t exactly remember how they dealt with that in RE5 either, all I remember is that Wesker died in a volcano lol.

Yeah, it's all different sources.

Virus from RE 1-CV was derived from a plant as part of Spencers super human program. Now they've tied Spencer into being Mirandas protégé originally who fucked off to start his own virus research.

4 & 5 where plagas that where from fossils or some shit found in Spain. 5 was a modified plaga virus.

6 is plaga and t virus iirc.

7 & 8 are from the fungus. MM was experimenting with the megamycete for her own reasons and gave a sample to whatever organisation in 7 to try make a perfect vessel for her dead daughter to inhabit.

Couldn't tell you for the spin offs.
 
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I was lost since the first one.

Yeah, it's all different sources.

Virus from RE 1-CV was derived from a plant as part of Spencers super human program. Now they've tied Spencer into being Mirandas protégé originally who fucked off to start his own virus research.

4 & 5 where plagas that where from fossils or some shit found in Spain. 5 was a modified plaga virus.

6 is plaga and t virus iirc.

7 & 8 are from the fungus. MM was experimenting with the megamycete for her own reasons and gave a sample to whatever organisation in 7 to try make a perfect vessel for her dead daughter to inhabit.

Couldn't tell you for the spin offs.
Yeah I don't know what it is but as much as I love Japanese games they really do seem to have convoluted stories a lot of times. A lot of jrpgs are so needlessly complicated when it comes to the stories as much as I love them. I cannot even tell you of the clusterfuck that is Trails/Kiseki. It's like they had this story going on about certain organizations and whatnot and then all of a sudden they're just forgotten and never brought up again or barely. It's one of my favorite jrpgs of all time and I can't follow it.

Resident Evil just seems to be another product of very confusing Japanese storytelling. The lore seems to be all over the place with different origins for the zombies that are not even really zombies anymore or whatever they are.
 

Soodanim

Gold Member
When I started seeing lore for 7/8 I skipped the thread because I haven't played them yet, but I still wanted to post because RE lore is an interesting one.

I don't think they need to go to space or anything like that, because Progenitor has its natural roots and Las Plagas is a parasite. Not IRL scientifically accurate, but works within that universe.

I used to love the world and how it all connected when Umbrella was about. I don't like 5 as a game, but it contributed an origin story so it's valuable.

RE lore is fine until you start getting into the nitty gritty, so never talk to the people that are involved in the fandom wiki. They will tell you things like no zombie is dead, so even the many buried zombies you come across were all alive the entire time.
 

ssringo

Member
I like the lore but only in the casual sense these days. It gets rather ridiculous when looking at the big picture of the world of RE.

I do have fond memories of Presidentevil on gamefaqs doing plot guides though. Great stuff. I have several of his Brady Games strategy guides.
 

TastyPastry

Member
RE lore was the best when it was an outbreak and some shadowy organization behind it. they should have never revealed who spencer really is in RE5, he should have stayed this illumnati type figure
 

Reizo Ryuu

Gold Member
Maybe this post helps OP:
It's not really a retcon though, It's just filling in information that didn't exist before, RE4/5 did it too.
Timeline of BOW research:
Progenitor flowers get discovered in africa (RE5)
Miranda discovers the megamycete and experiments with it (RE8)
Miranda becomes the village "deity" (RE8)
Spencer meets miranda and he becomes her temporary student (RE8)
Spencer recalls the discovery of the progenitor flowers, finds and experiments with them (RE5/1)
T-phobos is under development (RErev2)
veronica strain gets discovered in ants (RECV)
Spencer develops two progenitor strains and tests on people (RE1)
T-veronica is developed and experimented on people (RECV)
Marcus develops t-virus proto, Albert W steals his research and alters it to the final version of the t-virus (RE1)
One of the two progenitor strains mutates and research on it becomes the g-virus (RE1)
Carla combines t-veronica with progenitor and creates t-2 (RE6)
Carla combines t-2 with the g-virus and creates the c-virus (RE6)
The plaga shows up in spain, seems to be connected to the area where the progenitor flowers were discovered (RE4/5)
T-abyss virus is developed (RErev)
Albert W steals the plaga samples (RE4)
Albert W starts working on uroboros, uses jill's t-virus antibodies to make it stable(RE5)
Albert W experiments in west africa with plaga (RE5)
Alex W finishes t-phobos (RErev2)
The connections contact miranda and develop BOW "eveline" with her from megamycete research (RE7/8)
Alex W modifies uroboros (RErev2)
Carla causes C-virus outbreak (RE6)
BOW eveline causes the baker incident (RE7)
Ethan dies and is reborn through megamycete (RE7/8)
"BOW" Rosemary is born (RE8)
BSAA conducts research into, develops BOW soldiers(heel turn? live long enough to become the villain etc.) (RE8)

That's from memory so I might've missed some, but they afaik they never removed any part of the history, just added to it.

So there's no real supernatural stuff going on, the RE8 stuff is no different from say, scarecrow's hallucination poison in batman.
 
I preferred all of the games made before RE4. While 4 is a great action game, it to me at least felt like "the beginning of the end." After that, survival horror was mostly action horror for about a decade or so.

Since 2012, I think the games have all been rather ridiculous, and hard to understand, and just don't live up to the hype anymore.

I really miss games about Jill or Claire. I think Leon is good too, but too overpowered. The same with Chris. His awful redesign was quite off putting in 7, as it didn't look like him, and his cameo felt tacked on. But these games stopped being scary in general, mainly because the characters are too used to the dangers in front of them and tell corny jokes, and kick ass effortlessly. I still want to know the whereabouts of Jill, however.

As for everything else...

Convoluted nonsense, really. It's as if Capcom just puts things in games because it looks cool to the player, rather than being in the least bit logical.

It's a shame, but they clearly do these games now more for the commercial appeal rather than for the story.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
Darkmakaimura Darkmakaimura , I didn't read all the replies so not sure if someone mentioned it but the pinnacle of lore explanation comes from the team at the Resident Evil Podcast.

These guys, mostly from the UK, have been doing a podcast for I think over a decade now and they go in-depth on the lore. One of the hosts, 'Batman' had an article written about him in Eurogamer, he has a PDF document that's over 2,700 pages long that explains the entire timeline, it's insane, lol.

I 100% recommend the podcast, they are super funny, super casual but also entertaining and informative. It's not a weekly thing too, it's every few months and they always have something interesting to go over. They're probably the leading experts on the planet when it comes to the lore, I'd wager they know the ins and outs more than the current RE team at Capcom.

https://residentevilpodcast.com

Meet the Resident Evil superfan who's spent a decade putting together a 2700-page timeline of the entire series - Eurogamer (2020 article)
 
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Madflavor

Member
I'm a lifelong Resident Evil fan, and it's in my Top 5 favorite game franchises ever.

In my bluntly honest opinion, there was no reason to pay attention to or care about Resident Evil's story and continuity, post Code Veronica. Much as I love RE4, when they timeskipped 6 years and resolved the Umbrella and Spencer threat offscreen, that was the moment continuity stopped mattering. The first few games there was always an air of mystery surrounding the protagonists on where they were and what the were doing, but they all shared a common connection on being survivors of the Raccoon City outbreak, and that Umbrella was the enemy. Every game ended with the protagonist saying they were going to take down Umbrella, all building up toward a game where all characters would be present in taking down Umbrella and Spencer. Then RE4 happened, and from there the series has been doing whatever it's wanted with each new entry. Not that that's a bad thing, but character and story consistency definitely stopped mattering from that point on. It's best to just treat the story and lore of Resident Evil as just a backdrop to compliment the gameplay.

The franchise was at it's best and most iconic in the early days. Raccoon City, STARS members, Umbrella, Zombies, Chris/Jill/Leon/Claire were the GOATs, it was just simple times with an easy to follow story. Then it went completely off the rails. That's part of why RE7 was a breath of fresh air. It was back to basics, had simple story, a simple setting, and a regular dude as the protagonist. It truly felt like a new beginning. I like Village, but Village was a step in the wrong direction and fucked everything up. They had the opportunity to build something brand new off of RE7.
 

Neff

Member
Some things to keep in mind regarding catching up to the series

1. Plot threads and characters are frequently discarded without explanation, sometimes for a decade or more
2. Approach any unfamiliar title as its own self-contained thing, Village is more or less the only straightforward sequel in the series
3. Mold is to RE what nanomachines are to MGS and can basically do/explain anything the writers come up with

Just go with it. Don't over-think it. While there's an impressive level of dedication to making sure everything is canonically consistent on behalf of the writers, tying the what, why, where and how together can be a headache because the series likes fresh starts and has a famous habit of dumping baggage.


Yeah Mia's a scumbag. For someone who isn't a straight up villain she's done some nefarious shit. Ada's no angel but at least she's made concerted efforts to help the good guys on numerous occasions.

Steve's cool in my book. His only crime was staring at a hot girl's ass, and we've all done that.

In my bluntly honest opinion, there was no reason to pay attention to or care about Resident Evil's story and continuity, post Code Veronica.

I look at every new game like a new Bond movie. It's the same ridiculously contrived formula subtly reshuffled to give the player a good time. It's hugely entertaining but hard to take seriously. And yet, I'm so invested in the RE universe and its characters that I can't help myself. I love this stuff.
 
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Doom85

Member
Steve's cool in my book. His only crime was staring at a hot girl's ass, and we've all done that.

Pretty sure we all haven’t nearly killed said girl. That part where he freaks out and shoots the zombie countless times when Claire is right underneath it. It was nothing short of divine intervention that none of those bullets went straight through the zombie’s body and into Claire.
 

Neff

Member
Pretty sure we all haven’t nearly killed said girl. That part where he freaks out and shoots the zombie countless times when Claire is right underneath it. It was nothing short of divine intervention that none of those bullets went straight through the zombie’s body and into Claire.

Nah he's just a good shot. And a qualified pilot. And drill vehicle operator. And bullet time master. At age 17.
 

Madflavor

Member
I look at every new game like a new Bond movie. It's the same ridiculously contrived formula subtly reshuffled to give the player a good time. It's hugely entertaining but hard to take seriously. And yet, I'm so invested in the RE universe and its characters that I can't help myself. I love this stuff.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but imo Resident Evil should've been an anthology series. Have a few games centered around one plot and set of characters, and then move on to the next one.

Yep.

Narrative-vise Village is really underrated.

I have mixed feelings on Village. When it's good it's good, but there are parts of it that are just such a slog. Pacing wise, it's probably one of the worst Resident Evils. There's about 3 sections of the game that are not fun at all on a replay.
 
I wish Capcom would do an Outbreak type game with online co-op. But it is Capcom, we're talking about.

Don't hold out for much hope with them.
 
People say that Umbrella never truly went away. But then who's the Connections? The Family? Neo-Umbrella? HCF? Blue Umbrella? Etcetera, etcetera. 😩

Are Capcom just pulling shit out of their assholes now to keep the franchise going?

Meh. It's a joke. 😖

I preferred the old RE games when it was basically one company behind everything. One primary problem. Now they're oversaturating the franchise with these remakes and spin offs, and sequels, that don't even feel like sequels. But whatever.

It's hard to piece it together anymore.
 

Neff

Member
Are Capcom just pulling shit out of their assholes now to keep the franchise going?

Yep. It's no secret that they've struggled to come up with organisations and enemies which resonate with fans in lieu of Umbrella/Wesker, so they just keep trying new stuff.

I fully expect them to take advantage of Wesker being alive and well timeline-wise in the RE4 remake.
 
So one cool aspect to RE8 is that we learn where Spencer got the idea for the Umbrella logo. It's supposed to represent the four lords in the region that Ethan explores.
 
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