Why Resident Evil Should Never Abandon Zombies Fully

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 6, 2025 5 Views 5 Min Read
Why Resident Evil Should Never Abandon Zombies Fully



Nearly every Resident Evil game has had some disturbing, abhorrent enemy design that eclipses anything in the entry that preceded it, but it wasn’t until Resident Evil Village that the series cracked a mythological book spine and dissected the denotation of what a bioweapon could be. Here, inventive yet familiar interpretations of werewolves and vampires intersect with other ghoulish nightmares, which are about as starkly opposite in design as Resident Evil’s enemies could get from the lackluster Molded that players are obstructed by in Resident Evil 7.

Indeed, while Resident Evil 7 doesn’t have great enemy variety, that is evidently not a characteristic the Resident Evil franchise as a whole shares. Plus, as Village has also proven, it’s impossible to predict what gruesome creatures might be featured in any future Resident Evil installment based purely on what enemies were featured beforehand. Traditional zombies used to be ubiquitous in Resident Evil, for example, though they’ve more or less been back-burned after being around for so long. Because of how seminal and classic they are, zombies will hopefully always have a bed to crash on in Resident Evil.

Black Ops 6 Zombies

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Resident Evil’s Zombies are Basic But Not without Endearing Character

‘Living dead,’ ‘undead,’ ‘reanimated’—zombies have been iterated endlessly, leading to the concept of zombies in general becoming trite. Of course, the premise of a zombie apocalypse has always been best explored as a mere backdrop for poignant character-driven stories, and the same is largely true about Resident Evil. It would be dismissive to address Resident Evil as a ‘zombie’ series since its original game also had Yawn, Hunters, Chimeras, giant spiders, and much more to contend with, but zombies making as big of an impact in the franchise as they have is no mistake and goes a long way in demonstrating how terrific Resident Evil’s portrayal of zombies is.

Resident Evil’s Zombies are as Much Part of the Environment as They are Enemies

Resident Evil 2’s remake was a great re-entry point for zombies as bullet sponges in narrow corridors that could quickly overwhelm either Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield. It’s undeniable that zombies may have been featured one too many times in the series when so many other excellent enemy designs have followed, and yet zombies being fodder for the player or a simple environmental obstacle is a key element of what makes early Resident Evil games extraordinary.

Maps are meant to be investigated thoroughly in Resident Evil for items players may have overlooked, and it’s within these meticulous room or hallway searches that zombies regularly have an opportunity to groan and pace their way into players’ paths. Resident Evil Village’s lycans may be twice as threatening, but they lack the nuance of a well-positioned zombie who happens to be idly blocking access to a desired doorway or stairwell, especially if players are desperately attempting to reserve ammunition or defensive items.

It may feel rather reductive if zombies return in modern-day, mainline Resident Evil games given how outlandish the franchise’s enemies have become. Still, zombies being littered throughout a Resident Evil game as threats to circumvent is a crucial crux of the series that hasn’t been wholly abandoned yet, and discarding zombies themselves wholesale would be a huge mistake as well.

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