Resident Evil Stopped Being Resident Evil—At RE7 (Despite What You've Been Told)

Resident Evil Stopped Being Resident Evil - At #7 (Despite What You've Been Told)

Note, written in retrospect after finishing this piece:

I realized something important while writing this, and I think it explains a lot about why my opinions on RE7 and RE8 are so vastly different from 90% of others.

At the heart of it, I think the split comes down to this:

• Players who love RE7 and RE8 tend to love Resident Evil for its horror elements only.

• Players who don’t love them (myself included) love Resident Evil for its characters and narrative.

RE7 and RE8 are so radically different from the first six games (and their spin-offs) in terms of story and character focus that this distinction feels important to point out.

For me, the real heart of Resident Evil has always been the characters, the villains, the organizations, the conspiracies, and the messy interwoven relationships that carried the series forward. That’s why my perspective on RE7 and RE8 clashes so strongly with most of the fanbase.

Though there are others like me who will probably agree with this article, do know that I understand the side I do not agree with, and we will probably never agree, as I really, really, like RE6 and I know you probably don't.

I just wanted to make that distinction clear before diving in.

Oh boy, I’m going to step on some toes with this one.

But what if I told you that every Resident Evil game from 1 all the way through 6, including the Revelations titles and even the oddball spin-offs like Dead Aim and Survivor, are all undeniably Resident Evil games… but Resident Evil 7 and Village (RE8) aren’t?

I know… I know… I can already hear your arguments echoing from the shadowy corners of the interwebs:

“But… but… RE7 took the franchise back to its ROOTS!”
“Capcom made the series SURVIVAL HORROR again!”
“RE7 is the best game ever!”

But no. You’re wrong.

And I don’t mean the kind of “wrong” where I’m dismissing your opinion or threatening to kick down your door for saying it online. I mean objectively wrong. Not because RE7 and RE8 are bad games—far from it. In fact, I’d argue:

• RE7 is an okay, stripped-down horror title,

• RE8 is a bombastic and excellent horror-action adventure,

• and RE7 in VR is legitimately a life-changing experience.

But…

What you are “wrong” about is how these two games fit into the franchise as a whole—and, more importantly, what Resident Evil even is. Starting with:

The "Roots"

The first argument always offered when speaking in defense of Resident Evil 7—and to a lesser extent Village (RE8)—is that the “new direction” (following the action-heavy RE4, RE5, and RE6) was a course correction back to the roots of the franchise.

That argument usually goes something like this: since RE7 strips everything down to pure survival horror, and you’re playing as a defenseless, ordinary man trapped against overwhelming Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style evils, the series has gone back to where it all began. No more bloated shootouts, no more QTE-heavy boss fights, no more Michael Bay explosions. Gone are the zombie hordes filling entire city blocks, the giant B.O.W.s, the zombie sharks, the Wesker supervillain theatrics. All of that, people say, was the problem—so RE7 fixed it by reclaiming the series’ roots.

But… wait. Wait just a second.

What if I told you that Resident Evil was never solely “survival horror” in the sense RE7 frames it?

What if you go back and actually play the original trilogy—Resident Evil, RE2, and RE3: Nemesis—and realize these are not minimalist, pure horror experiences at all? They are campy, pulpy, 80’s–90’s action-horror games dressed up in creepy ambience, limited ammo, and puzzle-box mansions. Yes, you had to manage inventory, yes you had to conserve your shotgun shells, but you were never Ethan Winters with nothing but your trembling hands. You were a S.T.A.R.S. operative, a rookie cop, or a badass college student with a grenade launcher. You had a combat knife from the jump. Within minutes you’d find a pistol, a shotgun, or even a magnum if you explored. By the midpoint of every game you were mowing down monsters in hallways, blowing up Plant 42, or unloading rockets into a Tyrant.

The true DNA of Resident Evil wasn’t just “helpless survival.” It was a hybrid:

• Action and horror in balance — claustrophobic corridors filled with monsters and big set-piece boss fights.

• Cheesy B-movie flair — Jill sandwiches, bad voice acting, giant alligators in the sewers.

• A sense of empowerment — Action heroes against horror foes, and you actually believe you can handle it.

The “roots” weren’t about being powerless—they were about being underprepared at first, then adapting. They were about learning which hallways to avoid, which ammo to save, and which monster to fight or flee. They were about science experiments gone wrong, shady corporations, and escalating bioweapons.

So when people say RE7 “went back to the roots,” what they’re really saying is that it went back to horror. And sure, it did. But it also convinced people something else other than what those roots actually were.

If we’re being honest? The true roots of Resident Evil look a lot more like cheesy survival-action with horror dressing than the minimalist “powerless victim” horror that RE7 leans into.

What were Resident Evil's "Roots" really?

In Resident Evil 7—and for about 80% of Resident Evil Village—you play as a faceless, cardboard-cutout everyman named Ethan Winters. And when I say “faceless,” I mean that both figuratively and literally. In the original release of RE7, Ethan didn’t even have a modeled face. He was never intended to be more than a vessel for the player, an anonymous POV camera with arms.

Ethan isn’t trained. He isn’t a soldier. He isn’t a fighter. He has no real personality beyond being vaguely scared, vaguely determined, and—though he doesn’t know it—made of mold. He doesn’t even start out armed; he becomes armed, sure, but he’s really just a guy who wandered into hell because he was looking for his missing wife.

And this, people say, is what takes the series back to its roots.
The vulnerability. The lack of action-hero bravado. The helpless everyman thrust into unimaginable terror.

Right?

Or… wrong?

Because here’s the thing: in the very first Resident Evil game, you don’t play as a faceless nobody. You don’t play as an unarmed, unprepared cardboard cutout. You play as a member of S.T.A.R.S.—a crack team of special forces operatives sent to investigate mysterious disappearances in the Arklay Mountains.

These people are highly trained. Many of them have military and law enforcement backgrounds. The game opens with them being chased by zombie dogs through the woods after their helicopter is forced down. They barely make it into the mansion—and from there, the nightmare begins. But even when they’re frightened, they’re professionals. They’ve seen combat. They’re equipped. They know how to handle themselves. And handle themselves they do.

This carries straight into Resident Evil 2. Claire Redfield might be a college student, but she’s not helpless—she’s spent years training with her brother Chris, honing her shooting and self-defense skills. Leon Kennedy? He’s literally a rookie cop reporting for duty—wearing body armor, trained, and ready for action (hangover or not).

Then comes Resident Evil 3. You’re back in control of Jill Valentine—the same special forces operative from the first game—as she teams up with trained Umbrella mercenaries to survive the destruction of Raccoon City… which ends not in some creepy farmhouse showdown, but in a fucking nuclear strike.

Do you see the difference here?

The “roots” people like to cite when defending RE7 and RE8 simply never existed. Resident Evil has never been about faceless nobodies stumbling terrified through haunted houses. Ethan Winters feels less like a Resident Evil protagonist and more like a character ripped out of Silent Hill. And that’s not inherently bad—there’s nothing wrong with having an everyman protagonist in horror. But this isn’t some generic Steam shovelware horror title.

This is Resident Evil.

And every true Resident Evil character before Ethan (excluding the Outbreak games, which deliberately put you in the shoes of civilians during Raccoon City’s collapse) was capable, armed, and trained. They were survivors who could crack one-liners in the face of death, 80’s and 90’s action-horror archetypes brought to life. They had combat training, they had personality, and they were more than just a pair of hands fumbling through a nightmare.

The Biggest Reason? The Characters

By the end of Resident Evil Village—Ethan’s second game—I’ll admit it: Ethan Winters isn’t a bad character.

As a parent and a husband, I can relate to him. His struggle makes sense. His willingness to literally die for the people he loves is heartbreaking, and his sacrifice at the end left me with tears in my eyes.

But here’s the problem: it takes two full games to get him there. For the majority of RE7 and 80% of RE8, Ethan is nothing. He isn't even on screen, we don't get to spend time with him or come to admire him for most of his time as the main character, because he's just a car for us to drive. Even his decision near the end of RE7 to save Mia or Zoe has no impact on anything, whatsoever, and regardless of which choice you make doesn't feel as though it changes anything for him, especially considering the sequel doesn't care which choice you made.

For most of his arc, he is less a protagonist and more an empty suit filled with mold and determination.

Now compare him to the actual Resident Evil roster.

Jill, Leon, Claire, Chris, Rebecca. Even secondary characters like Ada, Wesker, Barry, Carlos, Sheva, Jake, Sherry—even Brad Vickers—all had more depth and personality in a single outing than Ethan gets across two full games.

Take Brad. A side character, barely present, and yet by the time Nemesis kills him in RE3 we know exactly who he is: the coward who abandoned the team at the mansion, the man who tried to make up for it, the guy who went down scared but ultimately loyal. That’s characterization, even with the famously clunky dialogue of the PS1 era.

Now compare that to Ethan—the main protagonist of two games. Until his final moments, there’s just nothing there. He’s resilient. He’s determined. But that’s about it.

Meanwhile, Jill Valentine’s first game (RE1) gives us an entire profile:

• She’s a pianist.

• A “master of unlocking.”

• Former Delta Force, highly skilled and trained.

• Trustworthy to a fault, resourceful under pressure, and clearly respected by her team.

That’s from a game released in 1996 with some of the worst voice acting in history. And yet Jill feels more like a person than Ethan ever does. Claire, Chris, Leon, Ada—they all arrive with personality, quirks, and style, then grow more fleshed out as the series evolves.

And then we have Mia.

Is there a more unlikeable character in the entire franchise? Maybe Steve Burnside. Maybe Irving. But not many others.

Think about it: the entirety of RE7 and RE8 could have been avoided if Mia hadn’t made lying to her husband into a lifestyle. Ethan risks his life—and eventually loses it—for a woman who keeps burying him in half-truths and secrets. By Village, it only gets worse. The lies go deeper, and the fallout passes directly onto Rose, their daughter.

And Rose? Bland. Forgettable. A character so uninspired that I honestly have nothing to say about her beyond, “she exists.”

Now stack the Winters family against the franchise’s roots. Jill, Chris, Leon, Claire, Ada—characters who fought zombie sharks, giant snakes, man-eating plants, B.O.W. monstrosities, superhuman Weskers—and then blew them up with rocket launchers before hopping on a helicopter.

There is simply no comparison.

Ethan isn’t a bad horror game protagonist. But as a Resident Evil protagonist? He and his entire family are a failure.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the greatest sin of RE7 and RE8.

But they are TOTALLY better than RE4, RE5, and RE6, right?

This is really the true argument, isn’t it? This is the one people default to when all the others stop working.

This is the “proof” they bring to the table when declaring RE7 and RE8 the best in the series.

And I’ll be honest: I’m not a huge fan of Resident Evil 4. I’m just not fond of the setting—it doesn’t work for me on a personal level. But to act like it isn’t widely regarded as one of the greatest games ever made? That’s ignorance, or madness. One of the two. Maybe both.

Resident Evil 4 changed the way the world viewed the franchise. It sold a gazillion copies. It gave a beloved character (Leon) even more personality than he already had. Then Resident Evil 5 followed it up with co-op, a new setting, and even more development for two of the series’ most beloved characters, while also introducing another great one in Sheva. It sold a trazabilliagillion copies. And Resident Evil 6—one of the most content-rich, intense, and well-written games in the entire series—continued from there, selling a googol’s worth of copies and being widely hated as complete doodoo by people without eyes.

But here’s the thing: these three games aren’t just some of the most fun in the entire series, bar none. They are, in fact, the original direction Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami said the franchise always would have been had the technology and resources been there from the start. Jun Takeuchi doubled down on this, stating that RE5’s “action-centric focus” wasn’t a betrayal of the series, but rather the natural evolution of their original intent, made possible by better tech.

All three were true to the characters. They raised the stakes. And they continued to reinforce the key distinction that separates Resident Evil from every other horror franchise: 90’s action movie camp, and scary bad guys.

Even RE6—which is hated on a profound level by people who’ve never played it (because everyone else says it’s bad)—has all the veins of the original Resident Evil “roots.” Just bigger. Grander. With more characters and a logical continuation of the overarching story. It gave us 8 playable protagonists, 4 of them returning, across 4 interlocking campaigns. It gave us zombie sharks, giant man-eating snakes, and all the personality and camp the series had built up to by that point.

But it’s hated. And RE7 is loved.

Why?

We forgot

The truth is… the fans forgot.

We just forgot. We forgot what Resident Evil was—what it really was. With so many sequels, spin-offs, remakes, and gimmicks, somewhere along the way we lost the plot.

We slapped the “Survival Horror” tag on the franchise and said, “That’s what Resident Evil is! Nothing more!” All the while missing the bigger picture. Because the truth is, Resident Evil has always been less about “pure survival horror” and more about everything else that made it unique.

We remembered the inventory management and the claustrophobic hallways. But we forgot the man-eating plants and zombie sharks. We forgot the hunters, the lickers, the hidden labs. We forgot the flamethrowers, grenade launchers, and bosses that exploded into gore under a four-barreled rocket launcher. We forgot about barely escaping the city in a helicopter after using a FUCKING RAILGUN to incinerate a tentacled monster while Jill Valentine quipped, “You want S.T.A.R.S.? I’ll give you S.T.A.R.S.”

We decided all that—the action, the camp, the over-the-top spectacle—wasn’t real Resident Evil. That it belonged only to those games, the 4s, 5s, and 6s that supposedly “ruined” the series. We hated—HATED—RE5 and RE6 for doing exactly what RE1, RE2, and RE3 had already done, just on a bigger scale.

And then RE7 arrived. And we said, “Oh yeah… this is the Resident Evil I remember.”

But it wasn’t.

Because we didn’t remember.

RE7 threw decades of worldbuilding and character arcs in the dumpster. It ignored the established heroes, the new characters we’d already been introduced to, the ongoing conspiracies and escalating stakes. In their place it handed us Ethan Winters. A man defined only as, “He’s… uh… a guy? I guess?”

It abandoned the camp, the personality, the spectacle. Instead of a menagerie of grotesque monsters, we got one enemy type with three variations. A handful of puzzles. A few boss fights. And we were told: “This is Resident Evil now. Just as it always was.”

And we believed it.

Worse—we convinced others to believe it too. And outside of the remakes, Resident Evil as it was—and as it has always been—died.

Because we forgot.

We forgot our Jill Sandwiches. We forgot our grenade launcher shells that are “especially effective against living things.” We forgot our “You want S.T.A.R.S.? I’ll give you S.T.A.R.S.”

We forgot the fun.

And in that forgetting, we accepted bland characters, bland settings, and a hollow facsimile of the franchise we once loved. We told them we loved the new direction, and as such, the old direction was gone.

In Closing

I’ll say it again: Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 8 are not bad games—though 7 comes dangerously close.

But they are not good Resident Evil games.

They lack the charm and charisma. They lack the personality and variety. They lack the connections to characters, organizations, and conspiracies that had been built over decades through seven mainline games (Code Veronica included) and countless spin-offs. RE7 and RE8 abandoned all of that, leaving only the thinnest threads to pretend they still belonged to the same world.

For me, that was the breaking point. RE6 was the last true Resident Evil game, and everything that came after has felt like something else entirely. My personal canon ends there, and I’ve mourned the series ever since.

What I can only hope now is that we keep getting remakes of the originals. That we continue to see Chris, Jill, Leon, Ada, Claire—characters who defined the series—brought to life in ways that feel true to them, true to Resident Evil. That characters like Sherry and Jake, who still have so much potential, are allowed to move to the forefront instead of being discarded like scraps of forgotten history.

Maybe that’s why I bristle at what 7 and 8 became. Because deep down, I still chase the feeling I had watching Death Island in theatres—seeing Chris, Leon, Claire, Jill, and Rebecca all standing in the same room, fighting side by side. It was a dream come true for any fan.

But as the series keeps drifting, and with RE9 looming on the horizon looking more like RE7—or even Silent Hill—than the “roots” Capcom insists it’s returning to, I can’t shake the feeling that those dreams are slipping further and further out of reach.