Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Trivia / Resident Evil

Go To

    open/close all folders 

    The games 
  • Approval of God: Julia Voth, the face model for Jill in REmake and 5, supports the Jill/Chris ship, joking in the comments of her Instagram post announcing her pregnancy that Chris got her pregnant.
  • Cash-Cow Franchise: Resident Evil is one of Capcom's most popular and successful franchises. By 2020, it actually became their best-selling franchise period, surpassing even Street Fighter and Mega Man.
  • He Also Did: Hideaki Utsumi, the lead sound engineer for most of the classic games up until Resident Evil 5, is also the same guy whose pet chattering lory "Gumi" is the star of the Red Birb meme. WUEWUEWUEWUE!
  • No Dub for You: Prior to the 2010s, the games are only voiced in English for quite some time, being released with subtitles for different regions but without the corresponding voice tracks even in Capcom's native Japan. The trend later got averted when Chris, Jill, Wesker, Leon, Ada, and others received Japanese voice actors for the live-action films and Crossovers like Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the Project × Zone games, and TEPPEN. Revelations marked the first time players could choose between Japanese and English audio and 6 released a free DLC update which provided a Japanese voice track.
  • The Other Darrin:
  • Playing Against Type: A surprising number of characters throughout the series (particularly in Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 4) are voiced by actors who previously only appeared in children's entertainment.
  • Preview Piggybacking:
    • Resident Evil: Director's Cut included a demo for Resident Evil 2.
    • Earlier prints of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis contained demos for Dino Crisis, which also returned the favor.
  • Referenced by...:
    • Bio Zombie is a zombie film where an outbreak occurred inside a Hong Kong mall, and at one point a video game store is playing the first Resident Evil. The characters even lampshades their movie is like one of those zombie games.
    • Last Empire: War Z, a Zombie Apocalypse base-building game for smartphones, has an item that looks identical to the T-Virus samples; i.e. a glass jar with a double-helix decoration down the middle, capped with a metal plug on each end, filled with green liquid. To really ram it home, the item is called "Virus Stock" and is used to manufacture zombie-based Super Soldiers — basically Tyrants and other B.O.W.s.
    • Not Dying Today, references the RE franchise alongside a ton of other zombie media, with it's zombified Doberman looking exactly like those from the Resident Evil sequels and a hulking zombie boss wearing a green trenchcoat called Z-Lord, who's loosely based on Mr. X. There's also a zombie mook with an insectoid head, not unlike the Plagas from the fourth Resident Evil.
    • Plague Inc. has the Necroa Virus as DLC, a highly mutagenic virus that induces a Healing Factor in its victims strong enough to bring them Back from the Dead. (Sounds an awful lot like the T-Virus, doesn't it?) In the American backstory, it's a bioweapon created by an unscrupulous pharmaceutical MegaCorp that throws their considerable resources behind covering it up. Unlike Umbrella (that is, until the reveal of "Blue" Umbrella in RE7), said company has a Heel–Face Turn and uses its Red Shirt Army to try and fix things. Eventually.
    • Karolina Żebrowska discusses the historical inspiration behind Lady Dimitrescu's outfit.
    • The Wind Road has a gigantic Sewer Gator boss lifted directly from the second RE game, where the gator pursues you first before fighting you in a large cavern. As the boss takes damage, its injuries even makes it look like the game's zombified gator.
    • Miasma Chronicles: In the Undertown, you can find a note from Mayor Burton, saying that from next Monday, "three bronze medallions will be required to enter the records room. In addition, to prevent unauthorised public access, restrooms will be accessible by placing a shotgun-sized object in the statue's open arms."
  • Shipper on Set: Nick Apostolides (Leon's English VA for the remakes of 2 and 4) is very vocal about his support for the Leon/Ada (Aeon) ship, liking and sharing fan art of the ship and even taking part in cosplay. In streams and posts he also regularly refers to Ada as his (Leon's) wife despite the characters not being married.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • The original game didn't originally have the auto-aim mode, and its item boxes weren't interconnected. Both these features were added to the game due to criticism from play testers (through the original North American release didn't have the auto-aim). However, the "Real Survival" mode from the remake removes those options again, bringing the game back to how it was originally planned; something that the mode's unlockable message lampshades.
    • The original versions of RE2 and RE4, known as Resident Evil 1.5 and 3.5, respectively. Both versions were scrapped due to the developers being unsatisfied with the direction they were taking. One of the scrapped Resident Evil 4 ideas had Leon going through a castle fighting living dolls. Which was deemed too "supernatural" for a series based on science. The two versions of Resident Evil 4 before that got retooled into Devil May Cry (the "Stylish" build) and Haunting Ground (the "Castle" build), respectively. At one point, according to an interview with the actor who played Leon, Leon was actually supposed to be killed as a result of the virus mutating inside of him, but this tested poorly even among Capcom executives and the idea was scrapped (Paul Mercier was kept, much to his delight, however).
    • Resident Evil 2 went through a slightly less drastic rewrite, but nonetheless the only elements which really stayed the same were Leon's inclusion as a police officer and the main antagonist being Birkin. To whit:
      • Claire was another character named Elza Walker. note 
      • Leon would've already been in the RPD and would've begun his scenario trying to rally the rest of his devastated force to combat the zombies, Chief Irons would've filled the role of Marvin Branagh. note 
      • Robert Kendo was originally Ada's boyfriend John. note 
      • There were beta versions of what appear to be the Eliminators from Resident Evil Zero, an infected gorilla which could swing from the ceiling in gorilla-like fashion, though they were far larger than the final version of the Eliminators.
      • Birkin constantly cried Sherry's name.
      • It would have featured some kind of human/spider hybrid monster.
      • In addition to the trusty Remington 870, the player also would've gotten a SPAS-12 semi-auto shotgun, a Ruger Super Redhawk, characters showed damage, there was an armor system, an assault rifle, more than one melee weapons, and grenades.
      • The game's models are less detailed but as a result the game can make better use of the PlayStation's processing power, as more zombies were visible on screen at a time, they had more variants, and could be gibbed in much more varied ways.
      • Leon had a different voice actor at this stage; what dialogue was recorded (grunts of pain) using this actor was recycled for Chris Redfield in the PC port's Extreme Battle Mode.
      • The overall design of the game also changed, with the RPD building going from an ultra-modern police HQ to the renovated art museum it was in the final version.
    • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was originally going to be a side story set in Raccoon City, involving civilians trying to escape. A game titled Resident Evil 3 was in development at the same time by Hideki Kamiya's team, and involved HUNK on a cruise ship (following from RE2's story). The escape story then got an upgrade to a main game and Jill was added as the main character, while Kamiya's "RE3" got scrapped and he and his team moved onto what would become the first version of Resident Evil 4 and after that Devil May Cry. This meant that the number 3 was now free for Jill's game and the game was titled Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, just in time before being released as Resident Evil 1.9 instead.
    • In 2001, Capcom announced that the Resident Evil franchise was going to be exclusive for the Nintendo GameCube. In addition to straight ports of Resident Evil 2, 3, and Code: Veronica X, a total of two new games, one of which was the REmake, were released; Resident Evil 4 was also announced as a GameCube exclusive before Capcom decided that due to poor sales of Zero and the REmake, they would release the game on the PlayStation 2 as well.
    • Resident Evil Zero was originally supposed to be one of the final N64 releases, still making it an exclusive Nintendo title. Not much is known about this game apart from Rebecca sporting a drastically different uniform resembling Jill's (complete with shoulder pads & beret), and a fully playable demo was released. Capcom later released more information in the run-up to a re-release of the finished game, including they'd at one time planned for two-player co-op. note  As a continuity nod, the HD port of Zero features several DLC outfits for Rebecca and Billy, including Rebecca's beta Zero uniform.

    The novels 
  • Executive Meddling: S.D. Perry's editor encouraged her to write the two original novels (Book 2's Caliban Cove and Book 4's Underworld), suggested creating Trent, and suggested she focused on a canon character (Perry chose Rebecca).
  • Overtook the Manga: S.D. Perry's Underworld was set after the events of RE2 and featured plot elements that diverged from what was revealed in later games. Perhaps the biggest offender is the original character "Trent", who is the son of the scientist team who created the T-Virus and were murdered for it and who thusly serves as The Man Behind the Man for all of the good guys (including Ada) out of his desire to bring Umbrella down, being quite effective at helping because he's secretly working amongst the upper echelons of Umbrella.
  • Troubled Production: The S.D. Perry novels (nicknamed "The Perryverse") became this, due to Capcom's lack of communication. It's the biggest reason there are so many contradictions in her book series because Perry developed the narrative with her publishing house through the gameplay and the limited information from the game manuals. After the fourth installment published, the rest of the series began with an Author's Note section apologising for inconsistencies and narrative contradictions.
    • An example of this in characterisation is Perry's version of Jill Valentine, whose short bio in the first game's manual mentions her lockpicking talents. From this, Perry gave her a Dark and Troubled Past as the daughter of famed and now-jailed thief Dick Valentine (her lockpicking teacher and mentor) who joins S.T.A.R.S. as The Atoner that is Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life. Canon!Jill's Delta Force backstory wouldn't feature in a game manual until Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.
    • The first chapter of City of the Dead (the novelization of Resident Evil 2) shows Jill, Barry and Chris sneaking out of Raccoon City before sunrise to catch a late-night flight out the country and continue their Umbrella investigation in Austria.note  After 3: Nemesis released, the novelization backtracked to adapt the game's plot, revealing Jill to still be in Raccoon City preparing to meet up with Barry and Rebecca, and join Chris in Europe.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top