Last weekend, Resident Evil turned 30 years old – can you believe it? The original game launched on the PS1 all the way back on 22nd March 1996, kickstarting an enduring franchise that’s arguably more popular now than it's ever been.
I still vividly remember borrowing the PS1 trilogy from my brother, completely entranced by the terrifying enemies, the loading door animations, and the god-awful voice acting. I was acutely aware that I was way too young to be playing such games, since my own collection largely consisted of Pokémon Blue on the Game Boy Color and Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation. Yet if it weren’t for those jaunts through the Spencer Mansion, R.P.D, and Raccoon City, I’m not sure I’d be as passionate about horror as I am now.
I think it’s a shame, though, that Capcom doesn’t seem particularly interested in revisiting some of the earlier games in the series. Titles like Survivor, Outbreak, Gaiden, and Dead Aim are all officially locked to the consoles on which they originally released, and while more prominent entries like the original trilogy and Code Veronica have seen re-releases on other platforms like PS5 and GOG, Nintendo fans have largely been left in the dark.
I understand why, to a certain extent. Since Capcom began its streak of RE Engine remakes in 2019 with Resident Evil 2, these have supplanted the originals in the official canon. Requiem, the latest mainline entry, definitively confirmed this by including flashbacks of Leon’s first visit to the R.P.D as a rookie cop, with the building itself modelled after the remake instead of the original.
So, for Capcom, the question of why it should release the original 32-bit trilogy when the remakes are sitting right there is legitimate, but I would argue that both can exist at the same time. The PS1 games, while certainly dated in many ways, perfectly encapsulate Capcom’s original vision for the franchise, one that has shifted and morphed multiple times over the years, yet nevertheless largely remains intact.
They also offer a beautiful glimpse into the wider pop culture scene at the tail end of the ‘90s. Play Resident Evil on the PS1, then go watch a few episodes of The X-Files from the first season, and you’ll see just how similar some of the musical scores are. It’s wild.
The spin-offs are a bit trickier, if only because their quality isn’t quite up there with the mainline entries, particularly Survivor and Gaiden. I’m not too sure Capcom will be keen on putting such games out in the wild again now that they’re riding high on consistent critical acclaim.
I’ll repeat what I said earlier, though: these games can exist together, and I think it’s important that they be easily accessible in some way. Do I think the Bubsy games are good? No, not particularly. But the fact that they’re playable on Switch via the Purrfect Collection is wonderful.
The N64 and GameCube NSO apps give me some hope that we might see re-releases at some point on the Switch 1 and 2, but I’m not going to hold my breath. The GameCube library specifically is almost exclusively made up of Nintendo-published titles, and my theory is that third-party publishers probably want to cash in with their own retro collections. So where the heck is Resident Evil’s retro package?
We’re entirely at the mercy of Capcom, and whether it’s willing to put out a couple of old-school collections to celebrate the series. We’re already past the actual 30th anniversary, so any hope that I have of an announcement is admittedly dwindling with each passing day.
Still, Mega Man and Capcom Fighting collections indicate that the company is willing to revisit its past, so I remain hopeful that Resident Evil will one day receive the same treatment.
What do you think, dear readers? Would you like to see some of the earlier Resident Evil games return in some fashion? Which one are you most itching (tasty) to play? Let us know with a comment.