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Gladiator

2021-06-25T07:08:55Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:487A:F101:E4E9:B860: /* Pathfinder 2nd */

A '''Gladiator''' is a combination of a fighter and a performer, being a character who partakes in live combat displays for the entertainment of a crowd. Gladiators are usually associated with slavery, as risking one's life for money is seen as the sort of thing usually only a crazy person would do if they had the choice.

The iconic gladiator in most peoples' minds stems from basic knowledge of the [[Roman Empire]], in which they were hugely popular. Misconceptions about the empire fuelled by old "swords & sandals" films further fuel beliefs about gladiators, like that they were regularly expected to kill each other for the amusement of the baying hordes of spectators. In actual fact, true gladiators of the Roman Empire were probably closer to professional wrestlers today; they did fight, and they did bleed, but a lot of what they did was staged for entertainment purposes. Gladiators were big money makers, but they also ''cost'' a fortune to train up in the first place; death matches in a Colosseum were usually fought between executed criminals - it was ''very'' rare for a professional gladiator to fight to the death. Nonetheless, the image of a scarred, battered thug who kills to survive or for money as decadent nobles cheer him on remains embedded in the collective consciousness.

Roman Gladiators came in a number of archetypes, like stock characters: there was the popular Murmillo, who fought with sword and shield and wore a distinctive closed helmet, the retiarius who fought with a trident and net, or the venator, who mostly fought wild animals. Unfortunately, archaeology suggests most classes fought only a limited selection of other classes instead of any class fighting any other class.

A slight note on the Latin if you're curious: Latin is a gendered language. The "Tor" in "gladiators" refers to the gender of the person. That's why a female "gladiator" would be more properly called a "gladiatrix", the "trix" means woman. It's also why Dominatrix ends with the "trix", it's a woman "trix" dominating "Domina". Many such words derived from Latin, like Senator, have lost this distinction in modern English.

==DnD==
In [[Dungeons & Dragons]], gladiators first appeared as a variant [[Fighter]] class from ''[[Dark Sun]]'' in the [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] game. While the ''Dark Sun'' fighter got lots of social powers revolving around leading armies and attracting followers, the gladiator stood out as the meanest bitch on the block in an edition where the fighter was already the king of combat.

The Athas Dot Org update of Dark Sun to third edition made Gladiator a weird class that got a bunch of random exotic weapons, a good reflex save, some support abilities, passable skill points per level and variant bardic music. They'd probably be a [[Tier System|very low Tier 4 or high tier 5]]. The [[Dragon Magazine]] update said they're just Fighters with particular builds.

This would later be remade into a character theme in 4th edition, whilst [[Dragon Magazine]] would have articles on playing gladiator-themed characters in general, for both 3rd edition and 4th edition. Returns in 5th edition as an alternate for the Entertainer Background that grants Proficiency in Acrobatics and Performance, as well as, oddly, a disguise kit and a musical instrument that can be replaced with a more traditional weapon like a trident. ''[[Pathfinder]]'', naturally, gave the fighter an archetype that focuses on gladiatorial combat, and one sourcebook features a whole system of "Performance Combat" centered around gladiatorial contests.

In 5e the Gladiator comes back with a variant background for Entertainers. Rather then a more traditional entertainer, singing or music of the like, you can be a Gladiator, a show fighter. You can swap out your musical instrument for a ''inexpensive but unusual weapon, such as a trident or net'', and you can use your feature to find places to fight for money.

==Spheres of Might==
Gladiator is a sphere in ''[[Spheres of Power|Spheres of Might]]'' for [[Pathfinder]] and [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]]. It focuses on demoralizing enemies and "boasts" which buff and debuff.

==Pathfinder 2nd==
An archetype that any class can take to extenuate a charismatic pit fighter. You gain bonuses when spectators are around as you wow them with your killing and showmanship. Also, get some exotic weapons and learn how to non-lethal better.
{{Pathfinder-2nd-Edition-Archetypes}}

[[category:history]][[Category:Dark Sun]]

Yugoloth

2021-06-25T06:36:03Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:487A:F101:E4E9:B860: /* If You Gotta Use 'Em */

[[File:Yugoloth puppetmaster.png|thumb|right|[[Furries]]: the purest distillation of evil]]
Also known as '''[[Daemon#Dungeons_.26_Dragons_and_Pathfinder|daemons]]''' (no, not [[Daemon#Warhammer|''those'' Daemons]]), '''Yugoloths''' are the [[Alignment#Neutral_Evil|neutral evil]] grid-fill for the [[devils]] and [[demons]] in post-1980 [[Dungeons & Dragons]].

The first published were the Mezzodaemon and Nycadaemon of [[Drow trilogy|D3]], just chillin' in [[Erelhei-Cinlu]] as fiends do; whence they went into the [[Fiend Folio]], and then got more buddies in the second Monster Manual. A decade later, [[2e]] did to daemonkind what it did to the [[Baatezu]] and [[Tanar'ri]] (and [[Demodand|Gehreleth]]), changing the name to some babble (which, as near as anyone can figure, is probably derived from [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]]'s not-Pluto, Yuggoth), because it SOUNDED too much like "demon" for [[Lorraine Williams]] to allow in an [[RPG]].

But in this (rare) case That Woman had a point. Their name was always redundant with "demon"; and as spelled out, it conflicts with the ancient Greek word for “spirit” or even "lesser god" - Socrates had a daemon with him, for instance. And the eeevil daemons never enjoyed anything like the popularity as the two major fiendish races on either side, nor were they as well known. Her name-change didn't help their case, though. We'll get to some reasons why not.

Originally the Neutral Evil outworlders daemons got allocated to the Gray Waste of [[Hades]], though ''[[Planescape]]'' shifted most of them to [[Gehenna]] because Hades really sucks. In 5e this has actually been retconned into their ''home plane'' for some fucking reason.

Yugoloths embody the platonic idea of Evil itself. Not “evil”, mind you, but capital-e Evil. They lie, cheat, and betray for its own sake, and generally seek to cause as much suffering and hate as possible to everyone. Whereas the demons embody anarchy, and the devils embody tyranny, the yugoloth embody sociopathy. They're kind of dicks like that. They act as mercenaries (primarily in the [[Blood War]], but they'll work for anyone who can meet their price, even their polar opposites the [[guardinal|Guardinals]]), constantly switching sides between the factions involved in whatever conflict they were paid to fight in (this can happen multiple times in a single battle). In fact, there are conspiracy theories that ''they'' are the original fiends and/or that they're the ones who started the Blood War and are playing it to their own end.

The term "Yugoloth" is still being used in 5th edition, even though "[[Baatezu]]," "[[Tanar'ri]]," and other terms for evil outsiders which 2nd edition had pulled out of Lorraine's fat ass were dropped. As noted, "daemon" never was a good name for them.

==Why The Yugoloths Are [[FAIL]]==
As to why the Yugoloths own the Great Wheel's Wooden Spoon (as Victorians called it), behind Law's and Chaos': A philosophical reason might be that "pure" evil without a desire to destroy or dominate doesn't actually seem likely to do much of anything with real consequences. A narrative-based reason might be that demons and devils are more easily contrasted with each other. A more realistic reason for their low profile is that they're just really boring, having failed to tap into the predominant [[Mythology#Abrahamic_Mythology (Judaism,_Christianity,_Islam)|Abrahamic mythos]] the way that tanar'ri demons and baatezu devils did. The Archdemons are some of the [[Baphomet|biggest]], [[Orcus|baddest]], and [[Lamashtu|most horrifying]] creatures in the entire setting, while the ruler of the Nine Hells is a [[Creed|strategic mastermind]] who pretends to be The God-Fiend of the Pit, Master of Slavery and Tyranny because that is ''less'' threatening than [[Asmodeus|what he really is]]. Not to mention a wide variety of lesser demons who are iconic, terrifying, and awesome. Despite the fact that in Gygax's ''Come Endless Darkness'' novel the oinoloth Infestix and the deity [[Nerull]] are the same being, [[Lorraine_Williams|the sociopathic bitch]] had already ousted [[Gygax|D&D founder Gary Gygax]] from [[TSR]] so Nerull-as-Infestix was never included in published game materials; yugoloths have fewer interesting leaders (about which very little is known), just a city that moves around or some shit. Forget these assholes and get back to headbutting pit fiends in [[Baator]]; D&D publishers dropped the ball by not publishing a neutral evil [https://d20npcs.fandom.com/wiki/Bale_Fiend ''bale fiend''] yugoloth, which would have fit perfectly in [[Planescape]]'s notion that yugoloths were the origin of the other [[Fiend|fiends]].
[[Image:Yugoloths.png|400px|thumb|right|Planescape's cattle call]]
Yugoloths' heyday was ''Planescape'', where they met an actual niche as the [[Blood War]]'s profiteers. But here they were battling hags for market-share. And then they lost even that in 3e and beyond.

With [[Planescape]] not getting an official 3.x release, and the Blood War thusly getting a lot less shilling, the yugoloths were mostly forgotten aside from the occasional update in a [[Monster Manual]]. In [[4e]] they lost their whole reason to exist with the almost non-existent Blood War and were instead made a subtype of Demon. The jackal-like Arcanoloths were even divorced entirely from the Daemon family tree and made an entirely new species of scheming, manipulative evil immortals called [[Raavasta]].

In [[5e]], Yugoloths were created by the Baatezu in order to combat the Tanar'ri. However, the Baatezu lost control of them, and now they're a mercenary fiend race giving their help wherever the most profit is to be made.

Pathfinder avoided the Yugoloth name for copyright reasons, with their [[Daemon_(Pathfinder)|daemons]] becoming an omnicidal race lead by (a version of) the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But after the ''Legacy of Fire'' [[Adventure Path]] introduced [[Divs]]... why even bother?

Truly the yugoloth is well named, to sum up; putting a daemon in your campaign is like driving to prom in a 1982 Yugo.

==If You Gotta Use 'Em==
Whereas devils are living embodiments of oppressive tyranny and demons living embodiments of mayhem and anarchy, the Yugoloth are living embodiments of opportunistic sociopathy. Whereas the mind of a devil or demon is sufficiently diluted by law or chaos for them to care about a larger cause (multiversal conquest and destruction, respectively), a Yugoloth doesn't give a crap about anything other than its own well being and agenda. Which, if one thinks about it, should ironically make them far more amiable and cooperative than either demons or devils, since they wouldn't give two rat's asses about where their pay is coming from, so long as their price is being met (and woe betide any moron who should try to stiff them).

As for deals: Devils of course prefer rigidly formal contracts with maximized loopholes (on their side of the deal) and Fine Print (on the other side), so it would stand to reason that demons, when they bother to enter such a relationship at all instead of simply killing you, would prefer informal agreements and promises with flexible and non-binding terms. Yugoloth, then, would go with either one or something in between, whichever they'd think would benefit them most at the time. Also, you probably shouldn't pay them up front, in which case they might just take then money, kill you, and take the rest of your stuff.

In other words, they're murderhobos but smarter.

===As Player Characters (LOL)===
It should come as no surprise that the same edition of D&D that made [[neogi]], [[unbodied|flying ghost brains]], [[maug|extraplanar robots]], [[mind flayer]]s, and the [[ixitxachitl]] playable or pseudo-playable also took a shot at making Yugoloths playable. Specifically, the ''Canoloth'', of all variants, was given a level adjustment in the 2001 [[Manual of the Planes]], although between the adjustment and racial hit dice they're largely still unplayable.

==The Truest Fiends==
The Yugoloth maintain a number of strongholds on the Lower Planes. Their biggest one is the Crawling City making its way on the slopes of Gehenna. Here the General of Gehenna, the leader of the Yugoloth, holds his court and plots against the Multiverse itself. Also on Gehenna is the Tower Arcane, where the Arcanoloth record all the deals made with mortals and Outsiders alike. Hades houses Khin-Oin, a massive tower allegendly made from the spine of a deity the Yugoloth killed. Here many of the soldiers of the Yugoloth armies live and train. Finally there is the Tower of Incarnate Pain, which is still under construction in [[Carceri]]. Made from the screaming bodies of petitioners and the skin of a dead god, the Yugoloth intend to use the tower to link their two other towers and obtain considerable power that way. The native inhabitants of Carceri, the [[Demodand|Gehreleth]] do not agree with this and frequently attack the tower to tear it down. Without their attacks the Yugoloth would have been done centuries ago, but because of the actions of the Gehreleth they are far behind schedule. While the fiends are very limited in number and the Yugoloth could easily crush them with a superior force, they do not do this because it would draw too much attention to their secret project.

==The Shapes of Evil==
===Yugoloth Creations===
*'''[[Canoloth]]s''' eyeless quadrupedal guard dog yugoloth with the tongue <s>you wish your boyfriend had</s> of a chameleon. the area around them is a no-teleport-zone. Depending on the contract, being caught by a Canoloth either means death or him siting on you until the big man comes to get you.
<gallery>
Canoloth 2e.gif
Canoloth 3e.png
Canoloth 4e.jpg
Canoloth-5e.png
</gallery>
*'''[[Guardian Yugoloth]]s:''' Least, Lesser, Greater.
<gallery>
Guardian Yugoloth 1e.jpg
Guardian daemon MCV2.jpg
Guardian yugoloth MM 2e.png
</gallery>
*'''[[Battleloth]]s:''' a subset of Yugoloth that can really transform from true to a weapon form, Basically hiring a fiend to be your weapon (with added problem of having to also win a bidding war on the battlefield to prevent backstabbing). Comming in varieties of Arrow, Axe, Crossbow, Pick, Spiked Chain, and Sword. Arrows are the weakest and most cowardly like imps, Will only act as self-guiding arrows before running away. can be used as spies if you can slip them into an enemy quiver. Axes are fiends of few words and stubborn in their contract terms but you get a biting axe. Crossbows are the Most apathetic and pragmatic to combat and employers, spits bones, and is a convenient weapon.
<gallery>
Battleloth.png|Sword, Arrow, Spiked Chain, Axe, Pick, and Crossbow
</gallery>

===Lesser Yugoloths===
*'''[[Mezzoloth]]''': Mid-ranking bug monsters. Are the proper foot soldiers. Really like money and violence. Most notable for dropping massed Cloudkill spells.
<gallery>
Mezzoloth 1e.jpg
Mezzoloth 2e.gif
Mezzoloth 3e.jpg
Mezzoloth 5e.png
</gallery>
*'''[[Dergholoth]]''' (also spelled Dhergoloth): Remarkably ridiculous four-armed insectoids in D&D; their heads don't turn, but their entire torso whirls about wildly. [[Pathfinder]]'s [[Daemon_(Pathfinder)#Derghodaemon|derghodaemons]] however look like nightmares of Ginsu blades that could vivisect you before you could even scream. They love slaughter and will often fumble complicated orders (on purpose).
<gallery>
Dergholoth 1e.png
Dergholoth 2e.png
Dergholoth 3e.jpg
Dergholoth 4e.jpg
Dergholoth 5e.png
</gallery>
*'''[[Piscoloth]]''': If [[Cthulhu]] and a lobster had a lovechild, it would be a piscoloth. Tyrannical Taskmasters, Your hire a Sergeant with a greedy but tactical mind along with his underlings.
<gallery>
Piscoloth 1e.png
Piscoloth 2e.gif
Piscoloth 3e.jpg
Piscoloth 4e.jpg
</gallery>
*'''[[Hydroloth]]''': Flying frog monsters. Take dips into the Styx, which makes their minds both scrambled and unreadable. Trade in information, ironically.
<gallery>
Hydroloth 1e.jpg
Hydroloth 2e.jpg
Hydroloth 4e.jpg
Hydroloth 5e.jpg
</gallery>
*'''[[Yagnoloth]]''': Goofy-looking lopsided freaks, yagnoloths bear much of the blame for why D&D aficionados typically regard tanar'ri and baatezu as cooler than yugoloths. Is a lieutenant over other lesser yugoloths, being a mediator for contract signing when it's not worth an Arcanaloth's time. When they grease that big arm to the elbow, [[kender]] get nervous.
<gallery>
Yagnoloth 1e.png
Yagnoloth 2e.gif
Yagnoloth 4e.jpg| 4e redesign to be more Fendish with a weird human arm.
Yagnoloth 5e.png| 5e returns to [[derp]]y, now with book loincloth
</gallery>
*'''[[Marraenoloth]]''' (also spelled Merrenoloth): Boatmen of the Styx. Loyal to their boats and nothing else.
<gallery>
Merrenoloth 1e.jpg
Merrenoloth 2e.jpg
Merrenoloth 5e.jpg
</gallery>

===Greater Yugoloths===

*'''[[Nycaloth]]''' : Classically horned and draconian winged fiends. Headsmen and executioners. They're large, brutish, and carry vorpal axes. In [[3e|3rd edition D&D]] nycaloths gained the distinction of having four arms. Although Nycaloths' combat abilities are some of the most underhanded among Yugoloths, they can be one of the most loyal Yugoloths if treated well (You will have to bribe them at least quadruple their pay instead of only double to get them to switch sides).
<gallery>
Nycaloth 1e.jpg| 1e Demon guy
Nycadaemon Monster card.jpg| weird clay monster?
Nycaloth 2e.gif| 2e has him a Dogman
Nycaloth 3e.jpg| 3e is now a 4 armed gargoyle
Nycaloth 5e.png| 5e is now a fat gargoyle.
</gallery>

*'''[[Arcanaloth]]''': Probably the most famous of the yugoloth species [at least among [[furry]] fans], arcanaloths look like anthropomorphic jackals and are known for managing the mercenary contracts that are the lifeblood of the yugolothic personal involvement in the [[Blood War]]. In essence, all contracts to hire yugoloths ultimately get approved by these guys. These guys are perhaps best known because they have two representative characters living in [[Sigil]]; A'kin the Friendly Fiend, a seemingly benevolent (not that anyone buys it) merchant, and [[Shemeshka]] the Marauder, aspiring to be the biggest wheeler-dealer in the Cage, who calls herself "King of the Crosstrade" and is famous as one of the first canonical non-cisgender NPCs -- she calls herself female, but her profile in the Sigil bigwig NPC splat "Uncaged: Faces of Sigil" depicts her with a ''male'' symbol, implying she's trans. Of course, according to ''Faces of Evil'', all yugoloths are hermaphrodites (<strike>not that the hypothetical sex of a fiend even matters, since fiends of all varieties "reproduce" by uplifting Maggots, which are the forms evil mortals take upon dying and arriving at any of the lower planes</strike>. Actually, yugoloths don't reproduce from maggots/larva. They procreate as mammals do, and when one dies, another mezzoloth is spat out, ensuring their numbers never decrease). By [[4e|4th edition D&D]] the publishers finally realized that [[Furry|jackal furries]] (only some of which even have horns) are just not daemonic enough, and so [[Retcon|retconned]] them to instead be the [[raavasta]] race (with distant yugoloth ancestry). If D&D publishers had actually put effort into making arcanadaemons, well, daemonic, they all would have had larger-than-merely-token horns, mange-exposed patches of diseased skin, and one or more additional monstrous/daemonic features (such as tentacles). But they didn't, so now they're back to being Yugoloth.
<gallery>
Arcanaloth 1e.jpg
Arcanaloth 2e.png
Arcanaloth 5e.png
</gallery>

*'''[[Ultroloth]]''': Unlike the pit fiends and balors of the devils and demons, respectively, the leaders of the yugoloths are thinking, scheming mages-sneaks that disguise their strength behind melted, emaciated, and shifting forms rather than roar into battle wreathed in flame. Unfortunately, the fact that ultroloths have zero daemonic features and instead look like <s>weather balloons</s> sci-fi aliens is much of why Balor demons and pit fiend devils better fascinated [[God|dungeon masters]] and [[murderhobos|players]] alike, whose cultural mythos is primarily [[Mythology#Abrahamic Mythology (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)|Abrahamic]]. Now imagine an ultroloth but with large horns and tentacles; much more daemonic, eh?
<gallery>
Ultroloth 1e.png
Ultroloth 2e.gif
Ultroloth 3e.png
Ultroloth 4e.jpg
Ultroloth 5e.png
</gallery>

===[[Altraloth]]s===
If they are willing to serve the [[Hag#Night_Hags|Night Hags]] for a specific purpose, a yugoloth can choose to undergo a ritual to become a powerful new being: an altraloth. In a long and painful ritual any yugoloth from mezzoloth to ultraloth can be turned into a new creature of superior power, but to do this they will have to enter a contract with the Night Hags and complete its terms before being freed. Most yugoloth chafe at this because they are not able to betray their new mistresses: hurting them will result in unspeakable pain for the altraloth, and if one of them were to die for any reason the altraloth perishes as well. As such, they are invested to the wellbeing of their masters and will do anything to protect them.

===[[Baernaloths]]===
Unverified ancient texts claim that baernaloths were the first [[Fiend|fiends]], and the origin of the other fiends. It's said that every individual powerful being in the Lower planes has a baernoloth hand in their origin, including the [[Obyrith]], who are said to have been lured to this multiverse in the first place by the Baernoloth. Those versions which TSR/WotC have published so far have sucked the papery scrotum of Hades himself. Homebrew versions exist online, though, worthy of these most primordial of fiends.

Notable because as the eldest evils native to the Great Wheel (save perhaps the [[Aboleth]]), they acquire various abilities from various sources over the eons in addition to the ones they already have just from being a baernoloth, and each one has a different set. Some of the more notable ones from the list include one where whatever being that kills them is transformed body and mind over time into the baernoloth they killed, one where they can summon ''any'' other individual fiend in all the lower planes, including a Demon Prince or Archdevil, one where they can spend a week meditating to grant themselves one unique ability, quality, attack, etc. from any other breed of fiend, and the ability to Dominate all evil creatures below CR 12 within 300ft of itself.

Also notable for spending their time doing nothing but tormenting other beings, and they don't even seem to take any joy in it. Oh they don't ''regret'' their actions in the slightest, it's just that in their minds, they exist to torment, and all other beings exist to be tormented.

<gallery>
Baernaloth.png
</gallery>

===[[Oinoloths]]===
The prefix ''oino''- means "one"; the word ''oinoloth'' is a title of the yugoloth ruler of [[Hades]], not a type of yugoloth, though the process of attaining the oinoloth title could conceivably involve a transformation.

...at least originally. now the being with the best claim to being "ruler of all yugoloth" is the General of Gehenna, assumed to be an ultraloth, and now oinoloths are just another type of yugoloth that specializes in disease.
<gallery>
Oinoloth 1e.jpg
Oinoloth 5e.png
</gallery>

==Yugoloth Lords==
Most active yugoloth lords are altraloths.

*'''[[Apomps]] the Three-Sided''' - baernaloth. Possibly is the creator and lord of the [[Demodand]]s.

*'''[[Anthraxus]] the Decayed''' - altraloth (and held oinoloth title)

*'''[[Bubonix]]''' - altraloth

*'''[[Charon]] (a.k.a. Cerlic)''' - altraloth

*'''[[Cholerix]]''' - altraloth

*'''[[The General of Gehenna]]''' - ultroloth (and probably an altraloth)

*'''[[Helekanalaith]]''' - arcanaloth

*'''[[Infestix]]''' - [[Gygax]]'s ''Come Endless Darkness'' novel posits that the first oinoloth Infestix and the deity [[Nerull]] were the same being.

*'''[[Mydianchlarus]]''' - ultroloth (and held oinoloth title)

*'''[[Taba]]''' - altraloth

*'''[[Typhus]]''' - altraloth

* '''[[Xengahra]]''' - altraloth

==See Also==
*[[Daemon (Pathfinder)]]
*[[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition races]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Ultroloth Arcanaloth.webp
File:Yugoloths by the Styx.jpg
File:Canoloth Ultroloth.jpg
File:Zastava-yugo-311-1982-300300.jpg
</gallery>

{{D&D-Outsiders}}
[[Category:FAIL]]

Fighter

2021-06-25T05:48:04Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:487A:F101:E4E9:B860: /* 5th edition */

[[Image:tordek.jpg|thumb|right|[[Tordek]], The manliest of all the Fighters. He is in it for the bitches.]]
The '''Fighter''' is one of the basic classes in almost every [[RPG]] system ever made.

It's also one of the main classes of fixed wing [[Combat Aircraft]] alongside bomber, and hybrids of the two.

==Class role==
The fighter's primary role is serving as a meat shield and smashing things. Fighters can wear armor and use powerful weapons. They are also traditionally good at physical activities like jumping, riding animals, balancing, and sometimes not drowning under the weight of their own armor. Some systems also let fighter be for flexible in presence other similar classes, letting them dip into [[Skill monkey]] territory. Without fighters (or lest their magical cousins, [[paladin]]s), a party typically needs to replace them via summoning or enchantment to ensure that the GM doesn't casually pick off at least one party member on any given day.

==Dungeons and Dragons==
In D&D the Fighter class has existed since the very first incarnations (then called "fighting-man").

===Basic/Advanced D&D===
In the 1st editions, the fighter's strength was endurance. His killing power lasted far longer than that of magic-users, as he could not run out of sword (back then the only cantrip was ''Prestidigitation'', except it was just called "cantrip." So a lv 1 mage could cast ''Magic Missile'' exactly once and was then completely useless for the rest of the fight. And we liked it. Of course, any player worth their salt would take sleep instead. ). Players who rolled 18 Strength at character creation got the benefit of an "exceptional Strength score", metered strangely in the format "18/nn", (where "nn" is the roll of a [[d100]]) could add as many as 6 points of damage to every hit for those who received the blessings of the dice gods. By rule, it was possible for a fighter to obtain a level of armor fairly early on that made him [[Drizzt|unhittable]] unless the attacker rolled a [[natural_20|natural 20]]. This even worked against touch attacks, as the rules granted them no bonus to hit. Fighters could also mass many hit points. Gear loss was not a problem in 1e, as the fighter could wear any armor and use any weapon that they found.

A little later, the Unearthed Arcana book first added weapon specialization (and weapon mastery, then named [[Derp|double]]-specialization), allowing fighters to improve their damage even further and attack more than once per round, further improved by level.

However, the fighter's "saving throw" defenses against special attacks were absolutely wretched, making him a sitting duck for paralysis, petrification, breath weapons, death magic, magic wands, spells, and most horribly, [[Nurgle|poison]], which was everywhere in 1e and meant [[Rocks_fall,_everyone_dies|almost certain death]]. Many found playing a 1e fighter boring because every problem was solved in largely the same way, and found the extra dice rolling to be a chore rather than a pleasure.

===2nd edition===
Fighters in 2nd edition continued all of the trends from 1st edition. 2nd edition spellcasting was limited by onerous regulations, costly material components (which back then were consumed upon casting unless otherwise stated), and the likely permanent crippling of the caster, making fighters the kings of the 2e battlefield. They had the best "THAC0" (''T''o ''H''it ''A''rmor ''C''lass 0) chance of any class to hit enemies. In 2nd edition, fighters received bonus attacks based on their level, and these bonus attacks had no penalty to hit. With new 2e rules for bows allowing 2 shots per combat round at level 1, with the common sheaf arrow dealing an entire d10 "hit die" worth of damage, and with the advent of the "Odysseus-style" composite longbow adding Strength bonus to arrow damage, fighters were a serious threat at any range. The (optional) proficiency system meant that fighters couldn't quite achieve the "pick up anything they find and use it" levels of gear efficiency that they had in 1st edition, but since the fighter's penalty for using a weapon unskilled was only -2 to hit, and the nonweapon proficiencies were mostly worthless medieval fluff like Cobbling and Heraldry, Fighters still weren't particularly worried about Rust Monsters and Ethereal Filchers nicking all of their stuff.

Weapon specialization got added to the Player's Handbook and became a standard, further improving the fighter's combat ability. Around the end days of the edition, the notoriously unbalanced Player's Option line of books further developed this into weapon mastery, high mastery, and grandmastery, which allowed the fighter to swing his chosen weapon even faster, crit more often, and even increase the damage dice to the next highest. A grandmaster swordsman could swing his bastard sword four times in a round, dealing [[Powergaming|1d20+3 instead of 1d12 damage]] against an ogre or a dragon or something. Meanwhile, his buddy, the [[Baldur's Gate|fastest dart-thrower in the Sword Coast]], gets to throw [[Awesome|seven darts for 1d4+7 damage each and one out of four will crit, and only a natural 1 would miss]]. No high-level fighter with a DM stupid enough to allow him to use these rules was to be fucked with in 2nd edition.

===3rd edition===
In 3.x, the advent of [[Feats]] was supposed to make fighters more attractive to play. The fighter gets loads of feats, making it the only class that can take more than one full-size feat tree (Archery, Weapon Specialization, etc.). But feats brought a nerf in disguise. Fighters could no longer use the best weapons like the "spiked chain" without spending feats to do so, or taking a significant -4 penalty to hit. The only fighter feats really worth getting involved a horrible exploit in 3.0 called "the bag of rats" (the fighter dropped a bag full of rats in front of an enemy, then used Whirlwind Attack feat to attack all the rats in a single round, then used Great Cleave to get a free attack on the enemy for each rat killed. This was clobbered in 3.5). There were other nerfs as well. Bonus attacks received hit penalties that made them nigh-worthless, and actually using them meant choosing between movement or full attack, one of [[Monte Cook]]'s more subtle and fiendish nerfs in his endless quest to ensure [[CoDzilla| total spellcaster domination]]. Bow rate of fire and damage was nerfed, and crossbows, which any character could use, got a significant damage increase. The new skill system overtook things that any character could do in previous versions of the game, and with their tiny number of "skill points", fighters became helpless bumbling buffoons in just about everything... not that more skill points would have helped them. All of their class skills that benefited from their god stat (strength) suffered huge nerfs when wearing heavy armor. They had no class skills that benefited from their second most important stat (constitution) and only one (ride) that benefited from their third most important stat (dexterity), and the rest of their stats were dump stats. So, in other words, they had exactly one skill that was actually worth putting skill points into.

Meanwhile, spells became so powerful that a single [[CoDzilla|caster]] could bring down entire armies in one or two rounds. The result was that your party was better off having any character with Summon Monster I than with a fighter. Fighter became something you multi-classed your [[rogue]] or [[cleric]] into for one or two levels, in order to get their bonus feats and weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies. It was still a scrumptious dip class for those first few levels, but it was generally best left behind afterwards.

Fighter is the only class in the game to have '''two''' iconic characters that actually got used: the Tordeck Dwarf and Regdar the human. Tordeck came first, but the suits came and demanded the Fighter iconic be a Human male ''and'' this human male be prominent in art. In response, the devs made both the iconic and, as an in-joke about their disdain for the situation, illustrations featuring Regdar were primarily of the him being victim of various hazards or abilities. This ended with Regdar appearing dead in the core book for 4th edition.

====How to play one effectively====
You've got three options, depending on how optimized you want to be:

#Don't
#Add some homebrew bullsh** to make them suck less
#Play as an orc or warforged. Orcs have +4 strength and no penalties to con or dex, which is fucking amazing for a +0 LA race. Warforged, meanwhile, can take Adamantine Body at level 1 and be borderline indestructible for those first several levels until they can prestige into Juggernaut. If all you can do is hit stuff with a stick, you might as well get really really good at it. Dwarf might also be a good choice of race.

Weaponwise, you'll want to get one of the best options: spiked chain, rope dart, or dragon chain (for trip builds), kaorti resin jovar or kaorti resin elven courtblade (for crit builds), dwarven warpike (for polearm builds), gnomish quickrazor (for iaijutsu focus), and so on.

====Pathfinder====
[[Image:Valeros.jpg|thumb|right|320px|Valeros, iconic fighter from Pathfinder.]]
Fighters are generally a little beefier and a lot better in [[Pathfinder]], with more unique passive benefits other people don't have, while keeping their big pile of feats, and fewer classes that can be described as "like a Fighter but better." They don't have the raw power of the spellcasting classes, but they're now actually good at their job, namely, killing tons of dudes while shrugging off damage, while many martial and exotic weapons, particularly archery, are more attractive options. The archetype system also helps them a lot, sacrificing much of their versatility in terms of weapon use to make them even deadlier or tougher with a single combat style. (Two-handed weapon, sword-and-board, unarmed combat, etc.)

Unfortunately, with a pitiful dribble of skill points and limited skill selection anyway, they don't tend to be much use once things are actually being done out of combat, barring pure roleplaying or trait-use to gain one good skill. In-fact, Fighter is the '''only''' player class in the game to have 2+int skill points per level and no casting ability. A lot of the time, if no fighting's going on, the fighter's player may as well just go off to use the restroom or crack open a soda for all the use he'll be. One way around this is to take the Tactician archetype, which gives them a lot more skill points and class skills, offers great bonuses and buffing capacity for having high mental stats, and barely reduces their combat effectiveness in the bargain. The only real price is a little bit of [[MAD]] trouble, but if you rolled well on your scores and want to make a character who can kick ass and still be the charismatic and intelligent party leader, consider it.

There are also two particular books (''Armor Master's Handbook'' and ''Weapon Master's Handbook'') which mitigate a degree to which the fighter can actually contribute both in and out of combat. By sacrificing one level of Weapon or Armor training after the first, they can instead gain special training options. Among the notable ones are Versatile Training (BAB=skill ranks for two skills as designated by weapon group), Armored Juggernaut (Damage Resistance when wearing armor), Warrior Spirit (gain the power to add a temporary magical bonus to a weapon), and Fighter's Reflexes (Add weapon training to Reflex). Though practically all the archetypes trade these off one way or another, it's an incentive for those who don't or those who find that they need something more than +1 on a weapon.

Another avenue of approach is the combination of the Lore Warden and Martial Master archetypes. The Lore Warden trades in medium and heavy armor and armor training in favor of better ability to trip, grapple, sunder, disarm, and perform other combat maneuvers, a +2 bonus to attack and damage after making a successful knowledge check, an extra two skill points, all knowledge skills, the ability to negate critical hits, and the ability to automatically confirm a critical hit on a knowledge check. It does a good job of making the Fighter have more skills and variety in combat. However, combining it with the Martial Master allows you to flexibly pick up combat feats as you need them, like a [[Brawler]]. that means you aren't locked into a single static configuration, and can change up how you fight on an encounter-by-encounter basis. Invisible enemy? Take blind-fight! Flying enemy? Grab ranged feats! DM gives you an exotic weapon that you need to kill a boss with? EWP. It makes up for the fighter's weakness in being able to kill dudes quickly but only in one specific way.

====Pathfinder 2e====

To give Fighters something to do, they got exclusive access to Attacks of Opportunity before 6th level (and even then, only Barbarians and [[Paladin|Champions]] get it, and need to spend a class feat on it). Other than that, they remain the exact same opposite of the [[Skill monkey]] they are in any other D&D (Class feats are almost entirely combat utility, and almost no non-combat utility), although skill advancement is at the same rate as any other non-Rogue. Athletics and Intimidate remain your best skills, especially with the overhaul on how Combat Maneuvers work, while Crafting is critical for maintaining equipment regardless of focus (especially since shields can be damaged quite easily now). Dex fighters can get a lot out of Acrobatics, Stealth and Thievery. In combat, the only real weak spot they have is crossbows, as those weapons require multiple actions to reload and only the [[Ranger]] and [[Gunslinger]] can access the feats needed to facilitate on that front without dipping into an archetype.

More than any other class, the Fighter is the least bound by any class features, whereas other classes are forced to specialize in a specific part of their niche. While they have weapon mastery to grant better proficiency for one weapon group as well as access to crit effects, their impact boils down to slightly bigger numbers in combat for the most part. This makes Fighters incredibly open to archetyping since they lose so little from it. In addition, fighters have the ability to take temporary feats, as the [[Brawler]] did before. This was buffed because, instead of it being usable 3 + half Brawler level times per day for a few minutes, now Fighters can pick a Fighter class feat they don't have, picking at half their level.

What makes Fighters shine is having both the best attack bonus progression and having a bunch of combat feats that allows them to cheat the action economy, though it is not unique to them (Barbarian and Ranger both get various similiar feats). However, by having an attack bonus that is superior any other class, they are quite more likely to critically hit. Besides the usual double damage, fighters of level 5 or higher apply various penalties depending on the weapon they are using. From making them flat-footed, bleed or prone, a fighter in melee can bully a foe into submission with combat maneuvers or by simply being so good in hitting them.

===4th edition===
In 4th edition, the Fighter is listed as a "Defender". His main purpose is to serve as a meatshield and prevent the enemies from getting close to the [[wizard|squishies]] behind them. Fighters do more single-target damage than any other class in the game that isn't a "Striker" (and in some cases can out-damage strikers, especially if they get a lot of opportunity attacks). They also make the squares around them a living hell for any marked foe who tries to move through them at all. They come in five flavors: "Great Weapon" (uses two-handed weapons, considered to be a striker "by the back door"), "Guardian" (the archetypical 4th Edition fighter, uses a one-hand weapon and a shield, has primary access to most of the best Fighter powers including the truly awesome Tide of Iron at-will), "Battlerager" (a berserker fighter build, lives on yummy, yummy, temporary hit points), "Tempest" (a two-weapon fighter build for those who feel like they cannot live without a two-weapon warrior who wears heavy armor), and "Brawler" (uses a one-handed weapon, but leaves the other hand open so they can grab people to use them as human shields, break faces, or snap necks).

===5th edition===
[[Image:DragonbornFighter.jpg|thumb|left|[[The Elder Scrolls|Dragonborn Barbarians]] are pretty popular in pop culture these days.]]
In 5th edition, the Fighter is the only class who hangs onto 4e's Healing Surge (called Second Wind, and usable once per short rest, granting 1d10+Fighter level). Fighters base class don't have a lot of abilities, but what they do have is very useful - aside from aforementioned Second Wind they can do two Actions per turn once per short rest, get rerolls on failed saving throws, and are the only class that can get 3+ basic attacks per turn without feats or dual wielding - all very simple but incredibly powerful abilities. Fighters also have more levels dedicated to stat increases, and since you can use those for either 2 stat points or 1 feat, fighters are likely to have 20s in any stats they want and still have slots left over for feats.

While stereotypical warrior is a STR based frontliner tank (sword and board) or damage dealer (greatsword or polearm), DEX builds of dual wielder, duelist or archer are equally viable, giving you better range and stealth options, while losing on the AC and ability to wrestle enemies down with brute strength.

Most of the fighter flavor and cool tricks comes from the subclasses:

* '''Champion''' gives him more sustain and tankiness with more-frequent crits and better physical ability score checks (including initiative). Notable for being the only fighter subclass with no active abilities, which makes champion-fighter pretty much the gold standard of blandness in 5e;
* '''Battle Master''', whose superiority dice allow them to perform [[The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic|maneuvers]] in combat to control the battlefield, help friends and inconvenience enemies. It's generally considered the most powerful and versatile Fighter subclass, and for a good reason. So much so that these maneuvers were even made as a special fighting style in the ''Tasha's Cauldron of Everything'' splatbook;
* '''Eldritch Knight''', who casts [[Gish|spells and swings swords]], and eventually can cast and swing at the same time;
* '''Purple Dragon Knight''' (whose setting-neutral name is given as "Banneret"), whose gimmick is that he can give other party members fighter powers and so he basically serves as an option to play a [[Warlord]];
* '''Arcane Archer''' - an archery-focused archetype that allows to imbue fighter's arrows with magical properties, such as ability to go through cover or to redirect your shot at a different target in case of a miss);
* '''Cavalier''' - a mount-based archetype that specializes in protection and control of the battlefield);
* '''Samurai''' - an archetype that allows fighters to get both advantage on attacks AND temporary hitpoints as a bonus action three times per long rest and boosts their social abilities;
* '''Monster Hunter''' like the Battle Master makes use of Superiority Dice, but his are more limited in use; add one to an attack roll, add one to a damage roll, add one to an Int, Wis or Cha saving throw, or add one to Wisdom check made either to detect a hidden creature/object or to determine if someone is lying. He gains bonus proficiencies in skills useful for monster hunting, can cast Detect Magic as a ritual and Protection from Evil & Good once per long rest as a spell-like ability, and at 7th level gains the Monster Slayer trait. This A: lets him spend two superiority dice for extra damage instead of one, and B: means that when he does so against an aberration, fae, fiend or undead target, superiority dice deal their maximum bonus damage automatically;
* '''Echo Knight''' is a curious subclass built around creating 1 HP magical time-clones of yourself and teleport-swapping with them, making attacks through them, eventually making attacks alongside them and healing when they get destroyed.
* '''Brute''' is exactly what the name suggests: a simple brute force warrior that deals more damage and generally behaves like a cruder version of Champion with a bit of Barbarian charm sprinkled on it. Someone aptly described it as the go-to subclass for playing Gregor Clegane or WHFB Khornate Champion;
* '''Rune Knight''' is a battle smith carving magical runes into his equipment that give him potent passive effects and one-use active effects by invoking those runes. Surprisingly not connected to Dorfs in any way, it actually draws power from Giant heritage, and even lets you roid-rage twice per long rest, during which you grow larger and hit harder.
* '''Scout''' is for when you want to play a Ranger but you're allergic to classes that suck ass. It also uses superiority dice, but for much weaker effects than Battle Master and Monster Hunter. In return you get a ''ton'' of out of combat utility for scouting, foraging and survival in the wilderness and tools for setting up ambushes, making the most out of them and avoiding getting into one yourself.
* '''Psi Knight''' is a fantasy Jedi that comes stock with psychic shields for damage reduction, psychic strikes augmenting one of his attacks per turn, and psychic jumps (that only cost 1 foot of movement) for extra mobility, and later grows to force push/trip for control, resistance to psychic damage and poisons, force barriers for sweet sweet half cover in the open and finally full on telekinesis. It all gets powered by funky psychic dice which get weaker if you roll too good but grow back if you roll too bad, while some of the stronger abilities lower it just for using them or using them more than once, so the more you use your Jedi powers the more they fluctuate with a chance to run out of them till the long rest if you consistently roll too good or overuse powerful abilities.

Other classes might spike higher, but between the largely-short-rest-recharging powers and high natural sustain, fighters can operate at near-peak efficiency even on grueling grinder-days. And when one of the biggest problems with the 3.5 fighter was his bland lack of class features or nice skills, between the reworked skills and backgrounds system and his cannibalization of nice things from 4e, the fighter is certainly his own man this edition, able to contribute outside of combat as well as any other non-spellcaster.

What's pretty great about this set-up is that it makes sense from a fluff perspective and gives the fighter an edge it's been lacking since 2e, namely that it is the best ''in terms of martial skill''. Your extra attacks reflect your expertise, and the special abilities other classes get are meant to compensate for your superior skills; Paladins smite, Rogues sneak attack, Barbarians Rage, Monks use Ki and Rangers get killed so the player can roll up a better class.

[[Mike Mearls]] created four new archetypes that exist exclusively on his stream so far, but mechanics can be found on the 5etools website. These include the Slayer (a big monster-killer specialist), the Weapon Master (who gets its own sub-subclasses!) and 5eifications of the [[Warlord]] and the [[Psychic Warrior]].

====Class Feature Variants====
While the Fighter is a more than competent class in 5th edition, a common house-rule among players is to give any Fighter, regardless of subclass, a few maneuvers from the Battle Master subclass. The Battle Master is widely regarded to be one of the best subclasses for the Fighter, and also the most fun of the subclasses, as it allows you to do a whole lot more than swing a sword around. With the November 2019 UA, this house rule has (sort of) become canon! In addition to the slew of Fighting Style choices the UA delivered, the Fighter gets an exclusive Fighting Style that nets them a free maneuver from the Battle Master. In addition, they added a wide variety of powerful maneuvers that let the Fighter skill monkey hard, twirl blades around, and lie like a silver-tongued Rogue! Because really, everything is improved with a small dose of [[The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic|weeaboo fightan magic.]] Obvious downside, of course, is obvious: they buffed the most brokenly overpowered subclass and made it the "default" option, while offering almost nothing to anyone else.

The ''Tasha's Cauldron of Everything'' splat sees these all effectively canonized though not fully integrated in case of GM fiat forbidding this book because "reasons" (Read: Your GM is a whiny bitch who loathes the idea of Fighters being able to do things aside from swinging swords).

===Gallery===
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Barbarian

2021-06-25T04:48:47Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:487A:F101:E4E9:B860:

[[File:barbarian.jpg|thumb|right|380px|A modern day barbarian activating his Rage.]]
{{Topquote|I would like to Rage.|every barbarian player ever}}
{{Topquote|Barbaric rage and unrelenting savagery make for a powerful ally.|[[Darkest Dungeon|The Ancestor]]}}

Barbarian characters have been a staple of fantasy at least since [[Conan the Barbarian]] (ie. since the beginning) as "noble savages" (to a varying degree of "noble") who impress with their might and courage. Today, barbarians in fantasy retain this image of a savage warrior, clad in simple or primitive clothing that rely more on brute strength and chaotic violence than any precise fighting style or cunning. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a barbarian with more than 10 [[INT]] in D&D ? Derp.

The term "barbarian" comes from the ancient Greek ''βαρβαροί'' or "Barbaroi," and is used to designate an uncivilised person or a person of an inferior culture. In reality, practically all foreigners or those who did not speak Greek were deemed to be "barbaros" and sometimes the term was used even for Greeks from other states. Later on, the term was picked up by the Romans and used to designate anyone who could beat them reliably in a fight and wasn't a rival empire or another Roman army; it is particularly associated with the migrating tribes that ultimately conquered them during the dark ages and after that it referred to Goths and Vikings more specifically. In the pre-modern [[China|Chinese]] view of the world, there was the "Middle Kingdom" (China itself), the center of human civilization which was surrounded by Barbarians which got more barbaric the further away you got from China.

Barbarians are usually the subjects of the best fantasy movies. ''Conan the Barbarian'' and ''The Barbarians'', as well as ''Fire and Ice'', are excellent examples of awesome, cheesiness, and awesomeness and gayness, respectively.

==Barbarians in D&D==
===AD&D===
[[File:Barbarian UA 1e.jpg|right|200px]]
The very first Barbarian appeared in [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] 1st edition, in the [[Unearthed Arcana]] splatbook. Here, it was a variant [[Fighter]] who had a background in a primitive culture; as a result, they have certain abilities (some shared with the [[Ranger]], such as wilderness survival, others unique), but also very strict penalties against using magical items or associating with [[wizard]]s. This mark 1 barbarian has a D12 hit dice and better saves than the [[fighter]]; it can also Climb Walls as per a thief of the same level, as an increased ability to surprise foes (3 in 6, or 4 in 6 in familiar territory) or resist being surprised (90% resistance, 95% in familiar territory), has a 5% per level chance of nullifying a Backstab, has increased jumping abilities, has a 5% chance per level of Detecting Illusion (maxes at 75%), a 25% (+5% per level) chance of Detecting Magic (maxes at 90%), and access to the [[Ranger]] abilities of Survival, First Aid, Outdoor Craft, and Tracking. Plus potentially access to regional skills such as animal handling, horsemanship, running, handling small boats and imitating animal calls. Also, depending on their level, they can strike creatures normally vulnerable only to enchanted weapons of a specific potency; starting at "can hit +1" from level 4 and increasing by +1 every two levels thereafter, a level 6 barbarian for example can hurt creatures normally resistant to anything less than a +2 weapon, whilst level 12 barbarians can hurt anything that normally needs a +5 weapon.

The downside? They cannot use ANY magical items at 1st level, and in fact are actually compelled to destroy them if possible. As they reach certain levels, they gain access to magical items (starting with potions at level 2 and culminating at "most magic items available to fighters" at level 10), and no longer need to destroy those items, but, ''shockingly'', most parties didn't seem to want to keep them around in the time it took to reach those thresholds. Gee, I wonder why someone literally ''compelled'' to smash loot in an edition built around looting might be unpopular?

The next version of the Barbarian was as one of the [[kits]] seen in the [[Complete Book Series|Complete Fighter's Handbook]]. This is a kit restricted to [[fighter]]s with [[Strength]] 15+, and all it does is add a +3 bonus (or -3 penalty) to reaction rolls. It was, frankly, rather stupid and nobody ever bothered with it.

===2e===

The Unearthed Arcana barbarian would return in 2e with the [[Complete Book Series|Complete Barbarian's Handbook]], alongside the [[Shaman]], a kind of barbarian cleric. This version lost most of its 1e powers, retaining only the D12 hit dice, the enhanced leaping/climbing affinities, and the backstab resistance. It also gained the ability to dual-wield weapons, and far less stringent restrictions on magical weapon use or associating with spellcasters. It also double-downed on the idea that Barbarians hail from pre-Iron Age cultures, and included various [[kits]] based on those cultures.

Ultimately, the AD&D barbarian was not very well received, and might have passed forgotten into history...

===3E===
[[File:Barbarian PHB 3e.jpg|left|200px]]
But for the debut of [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition]]. Like the [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|Sorcerer]], the Barbarian of D&D fame is a true child of 3e. Everything that is viewed as iconic about the barbarian? Was invented by 3e, for 3e. They get d12 hit points, uncanny dodge, illiteracy, damage reduction and can fly into a rage for some stat bonuses at the expense of AC and passes out when the fight is done. Until you get Tireless Rage, dip into Horizon Walker or a billion other solutions past core. Notably, it was ''this'' incarnation of the barbarian that was back-adapted into 2e for ''[[Baldur's Gate]]''.

Barbarian was changed a bit in the transition from 3rd Edition to 3.5. There Barbarian lost all their "empty" levels by gaining Trap Sense and Damage Reduction. While trap sense is normally considered super lame and Damage Reduction advances too slow to be meaningful, this does make Barbarians have zero empty levels. Alongside [[Ranger]] (who gained abilities ''other'' than superracism), Barbarian is easily the class that benefited the most from the transition from a strict look at the class themselves, but the introduction of Natural Spell puts [[Druid]] far ahead of it.

While Rage ''does'' scale, it does so quite slowly, and while they have no dead levels, the class features they get aren't very good. This and them losing their illiteracy if they multiclass makes them quite viable as a [[Dip Class]] or entry to [[Prestige Class]]es. In core only, Horizon Walker grants immunity to fatigue with a one level dip. One prestige class designed for them was Frenzied Berserker, which unfortunately causes you to lose control of your character and potentially kill the party. Bear Warrior is a much better Barbarian focused prestige class, which lets you get so angry you turn into a bear.

Barbarian is considered a [[Tier System|tier 4]]. They are very good at smashing things in melee, and have some wilderness/physical skills that help a bit when that's not applicable, but are quite easy to shut down with some pretty basic challenges, like a monster that isn't just a grounded wall of meat (like one that can fly or turn invisible), can't do much beyond direct HP damage (or tripping if specialized in it) and their skills are only an accessory.

===Pathfinder===
[[File:Amiri.png|thumb|right|300px|Amiri, Pathfinder's iconic Barbarian]]
A lot like 3.5 barbarians, with the loss of illiteracy (unless your archetype forbids reading), the addition of more trap sense (pfffffff), a "rounds of rage per day" mechanic that went up with level and constitution modifier (good thing, unless you were dipping barbarian) and, the major new feature and draw, ''rage powers''.

That's right, every two levels your barbarian bro learns a new way that getting ''really fucking angry'' can give him superpowers. These powers range from the useful (making combat maneuvers in place of regular attacks) to the impractically awesome (beating an opponent with another opponent) to the outright supernatural (sprouting claws and horns before gaining a pounce attack) to the ''hilarious'' (gaining big bonuses on swim checks)... That last one makes sense ''mechanically'' (rage buff strength, after all, and strength is the stat used in swim tests), but the mental image is never not funny. ("''FUCK YOU WATER! WRAAAAAAAAGH!''")

It's not necessarily top-tier, though it may be the best among its fellow beatstick classes, and it's certainly fun as hell and much more customizable than before. It's still tier 4, but the skill compression and rage powers make them more versatile. Lost a lot of its draw in 2014 when the [[Bloodrager]] class was released. Why play a guy who fights by getting angry when you can play a guy who fights by getting angry, grows claws, wings, and fangs when he gets angry, and can cast spells like a weak sorcerer? Shoot, with the "this really shouldn't exist" Primalist archetype, you can even get enough rage powers to make it practically obsolete (though practically everyone knows this to be utterly fucking cheese and thus refrain from using it). The only draws left are basically the few archetypes that can do things it can't, like the Invulnerable Rager for Damage Reduction shenanigans. Also the Bloodrager's rage is classed as a supernatural(Su) ability and so is affected by anti-magic. Whether it some how stops him being angry all together or just cancels the magical effects is down the GM. The PF Barbarian is also the foundation for [[Wrassle Baba]], the D&D equivalent of Brock Lesnar.

'''Pathfinder Unchained''' offered a revision to the barbarian, introducing a rage that wasn't so dependent on stats (so now you get +2 to melee attack/melee damage/thrown damage/Will and +2 THP/HD to prevent death once rage runs out and your HP drops with your Constitution) and a few reworded rage powers. It was largely considered a sidegrade at best and a mild downgrade at worst since it lost out on all archetypes RAW. But it at least made it harder for you to instantly drop dead the second your rage ends at higher levels.

===4th Ed===
[[File:Barbarian 4e.jpg|right|200px]]
4th edition initially left the Barbarian out of the game, one of the many things that triggered a kneejerk [[Rage|fa/tg/uy Raeg]], whilst the designers tried to give it a more solid identity than just "[[Fighter]] who gets really angry".

Their decision? To tie it into the new mystical power group on the block; the [[Primal Spirits]]. Barbarians now mechanically emphasized their distinct culture background by having a certain level of affinity for primal magic, which mostly manifested through a deep, instinctive connection to totemic or guardian spirits. By allowing these spirits to partially merge with them, the Barbarian could carry out feats of superhuman prowess. But, unlike the similarly themed newcomer class, the [[Warden]], the 4e Barbarian was more of a Martial/Primal hybrid; the bulk of its powers still relied on its combination of distinctly ferocious fighting style and the ability to tap into a "primitive" wellspring of feral vitality and brutish prowess, thematically very close to [[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]] and his "savagery-bestowed" might. Only the Daily powers, the Rages, were distinctly magical in nature, as it was in this state of primordial ecstasy that a Barbarian could open itself up to let a spirit channel its magic through their veins. Or, if they didn't want to be magical at all, they had a class feature called Rage Strike, which let them burn unused Daily powers with the Rage keyword to make a perfectly mundane (just really, '''really''' hard) blow.

Thus, Barbarians made their triumphant return in the [[Player's Handbook]] 2 and were surprisingly welcomed.

Like all 4e classes, Barbarians have a precursor to 5e's subclass system. For them, it's the class feature "Feral Might", which is more or less their particular fighting style, granting them a bonus Encounter power and bonuses to certain appropriate attacks. 4 Feral Might branches were ultimately released; Rageblood Vigor & Thaneborn Triumph in the PHB2, and the Thunderborn Wrath & Whirling Slayer in Primal Power.
*'''Rageblood Vigor''' gives you "old school" barbarians; they charge into battle headlong and rely on rage to weather the counterattacks as they kill shit. Their bonus power is Swift Charge (instant charge once a bitch dies), and they gain temporary hit points whenever they drop an enemy with their attacks.
*'''Thaneborn Triumph''' allows for "chieftain"-flavored barbarians; they dabble a little in the Leader role, as they work particularly well with others and specialize in Charisma. Their bonus power is the Roar of Triumph, which lets them penalize nearby enemy defenses once per encounter after killing an enemy, and their class feature is that enemies they bloody grant an attack roll bonus to the next attack against them made by either the barbarian or one of his allies.
*'''Thunderborn Wrath''' gives the most overtly magical barbarian subclass, with fluff about how their battle cries are so awesome, spirits of thunder follow them and join in whenever the barbarian starts hollering. They do bonus thunder damage to each adjacent enemy whenever they bloody an enemy, and their War Cry is like the Thaneborn's Roar of Triumph, except that it pushes instead of dropping defenses.
*'''Whirling Slayer''' permits dual-wielder barbarians who rely on mobility more than other barbarians, lashing out in all directions and skipping away from retaliation blows, which their class feature and their Whirling Lunge power supports.

The Essentials subclass for the Barbarian, the [[Berserker]], was released in "Heroes of the [[Feywild]]". Overtly called a part-Martial Striker/Defender (in contrast to the Barbarian being pure Striker), it basically dropped the rages to focus on purely mundane attacks based on being tougher, stronger and quicker than a "civilised" man... you know, the same shit Barbarians could already do if you wanted to play them that way?

===5th Ed===
[[File:Barbarian PHB 5e.png|left|300px]]
Barbarians in 5th edition D&D are largely unchanged from 3.5 barbarians, except their rages are better. While raging they get resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, damage bonuses and advantage on strength checks, including athletics for wrestling people down. Barbarians can add their Con bonus to AC if they don't wear armor, meaning that you can now be a truly manly berserker and charge into battle without a shirt on, all the while having the AC of a knight in full-plate as enemy blades bounce off your manly abs. Their rage only applies to melee attacks now, though, so bows are less viable than previous editions. Barbarians have the easiest advantage generators in the whole game with Reckless Attack, which makes them the best class for great weapon master feat, offsetting that -5 to hit for massive massive damage. As they level up Barbarians get simple but powerful abilities, like increased movement speed, stronger criticals and ability to ''[[Nasuverse| not die when they are killed]]''. Oh, and they are also the only class that gets to go over the hardcap of 20 for Strength and Constitution, gaining '''+4''' to both at level 20.

The Class Feature Variants UA gave Barbarians two benefits: Survival Instincts gave them double proficiency in two skills out of the gate, but cost them Danger Sense, and Instinctive Pounce replaced the default speed boost with the power to immediately walk up to half their speed in response to an enemy moving closer. Come ''Tasha's Cauldron of Everything'', both of these got reworked so as to not replace actually vital features, a major plus. They now gain proficiency in an additional skill (from what they could take at creation) at levels 3 and 10, and level 7 grants them the ability to immediately move the moment they rage.

They also seem to be WotC's favorite target for weird subclass ideas called "Primal Paths":

* '''Path of the Berserker''' turns the Barbarian into a rage warrior of death. Compared to the other subclasses, it has more thematic similarities with early editions.
:* Their first subclass feature is Frenzy, which can be used when entering rage to gain a bonus attack each turn for the rest of the rage. Besides the boost in damage, it also ''doesn't need'' the Attack action to be taken (unlike other sources of bonus attacks like Two-Weapon Fighting or feats), letting you Dash, Dodge, chug potions, etc. and then attack in the same turn. Any Barbarian's rage will end early if a turn passes without attacking or taking damage, so Frenzy's bonus attack maintains rage while freeing up your main action. The other unique part of Frenzy is that instead of being limited to 1/long rest it's tied to levels of exhaustion (an obvious nod to how rage in previous editions ended with fatigue and possibly at negative HP). Exhaustion level 1 isn't a big deal for Barbarians so they'll usually Frenzy once per long rest, but if the situation gets really dire you can Frenzy multiple times and increasingly overtax yourself; just remember that you'll be feeling it for a few days.
:* They also gain immunity to charm/fright while raging (a nod to how rage in 3e gave a bonus to Will saves), Intimidating Presence (basically a single-target version of the ''fear'' spell), and Retaliation which lets them immediately strike back after being hit. Combined with Frenzy this adds up to a possible 4 attacks per round ''at level 14'', all with advantage and enhanced criticals, without taking feats. All in all, this Path is a single-minded killing machine with no regard for defense.
* '''Path of the Totem Warrior''' grants abilities based on the selected totem spirit. It also gives you ritual-only spells to communicate with animals and to summon one of the spirits for information about the area. You can pick from the different totem spirits 3 times total, and each totem gives a different benefit based on whether you selected it first, second, or last, as shown in order below:
:*''Wolf'' is the pack-hunter one, giving advantage to your friends when you are surrounding your enemy, better tracking and stealth during travels, and the ability to knock enemies prone instantly after hitting them.
:*''Bear'' is the tanky one, making you resistant to '''all''' damage (minus psychic, because [[meme|GET OUT OF MY HEAD, CHARLES]]), making you better at pushing and carrying stuff, and forcing enemies to focus fire on you while raging. Bear totem barbarian is pretty much the default barbarian tank.
:*''Eagle'' has the best utility ones, giving you a bonus-action dash and making opportunity attacks less likely to hit you, eagle vision (you can literally see something a mile away without a problem) and eventually [[Sly Marbo|'''allowing the barbarian to fly while raging...''']] but not allowing him to stay in the air after his turn. So essentially, it's just the ability to jump your speed and change direction midair whilst raging.
:*''Elk'' is a weird set of mobility powers that makes you move faster while raging, makes your group faster when traveling distances together, and lets you run people over while raging.
:*''Tiger'' lets you jump better, skillmonkey a bit and eventually pounce on a target with an additional attack. Not great on its own, but if you're mix-and-matching, some of the powers aren't bad trades. Getting a couple extra skills is never a bad investment, for instance.
*'''Path of the Battlerager''', named after a temp-HP-gaining [[Fighter]] subclass, actually borrows its lore from a special order of [[dwarf]] barbarians in the [[Drizzt]] novels, and so is a heavily armored barbarian who wears massively spiky armor and basically specializes in hurling himself blindly into the fray so he can use his armor to rip 'n' tear people whilst he rages. With an extra attack per round (admittedly an unarmed strike, but 1d4 plus modifiers is still a buncha damage when you're a barbarian) and bunches of temporary hitpoints to offset Reckless Attack whenever you use it, the main downside is that your powers only work when you're wearing a very-specific suit of very-mediocre armor.
*'''Path of the Ancestral Guardian''' is able to commune with/summon its ancestral spirits while raging (meaning that if you are a dragonborn you can [[awesome|summon the ghost of a dead dragon]]), giving it overtones of the [[Shaman]] from 4e. Don't be fooled, though; this is the tanking subclass. At 3rd level, as the Ancestral Protectors, they can distract any enemy you hit while raging, imposing disadvantage and halved damage on attacks not targeting yourself. At 6th level, upgrading to Spirit Shield, the spirits can use your reaction in response to a nearby creature taking damage and reduce the damage. At 10th level, you can Consult the Spirits once per short/long rest to cast ''augury'' or ''clairvoyance'' without spell slots or materials. Finally, at 14th level, the Vengeful Ancestors can react to someone hitting an ally by beating the shit out of them, inflicting force damage equal to the amount of damage prevented by Spirit Shield.
*'''Path of the Storm Herald''', meanwhile, has a little in common with certain Rage Powers from the 4e Barbarian, in that it's a barbarian who taps into primal magic while raging to cloak itself in a shield of elemental energy. You need to pick whether your storm comes from the Desert, Sea, or Tundra at 3rd level, which determines what sort of benefits you get whilst raging. Your aura starts off by inflicting fire damage to everyone in your aura, zapping one target with lightning, or giving temp HP to nearby allies, respectively. These effects can be reactivated as a bonus action during rage. Later your choice gives you fire resistance, lightning resistance and water breathing, or cold resistance, at all times. At 10th level your aura extends that resistance to your allies, and finally it gains more powers to use against foes, dealing fire damage, knocking down a target, or freezing it in place. Two of the auras require saves every turn for middling damage, which means that this subclass can slow down a game something fierce.
*'''Path of the Zealot''' can be summed up as "holy berserker of the gods/Khorne Berserker", but can be refluffed into more of a necromantic [[Bloodrager]] type; the crunch can be summed up as the "MAN LITERALLY TOO ANGRY TO DIE" meme made manifest. It inflicts extra necrotic or radiant damage (chosen when you gain this feature) to the first target you hit on your turn, allows you to be resurrected without burning through those expensive diamonds, can choose to re-roll a failed saving throw once per rage, can unleash an inspiring battle cry once per long rest, and can keep you fighting at 0 hit points so long as you're raging. It's recommended to yell about [[Vermintide|spending your blood willingly and your god blessing your ravaged body]] while you rage.
*'''Path of the Wild Soul''' is basically the first official 5e [[Bloodrager]]. These guys have access to a pool of wild magic when they rage, which results in them gaining overtly magical effects to their raging rather than being able to rage and cast spells. A Wild Soul Barbarian can Detect Magic Constitution modifier times per day and gains one of eight random wild magic auras when it rages, from 6th level can grant spellcasters a random spell slot or grant a small bonus to any rolls for everyone else, from 10th level can re-roll which wild magic aura they get whenever they get hurt, and from 14th level can roll their magic aura twice and pick the most favorable one.
*'''Path of the Beast''' is basically a shamanic simulation of lycanthropy - less potent but with no side effects like uncontrollable frenzy. Beast barbarians transform into half-animal monstrosities when raging, growing natural weapons, choosing each time for great flexibility:
:*Snapping jaws or giant mandibles to bite people with, which actually lets them heal a bit if they damage their target. The healing is rather small, but over the course of battle it adds up to quite a lot. Great for tanking at early levels, almost on par with Bear Totem, although later that healing drops off compared to the level of damage you take.
:*Claws on hands that grant one extra attack. Not extra attack as a bonus action, just extra attack. This is flat out better than Berserker with the only downside being rather mediocre d6 damage die of those claws. The obvious damage dealing option.
:*Long prehensile tail is a hard hitting reach weapon, pretty much a pike/lance that works at close range and don't take hands. For when you need to hit hard over hitting a lot. More importantly, if someone you can see within 10 feet of you hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to apply a d8 to your AC!
:The obvious downside is that their natural weapons don't get the same cool effects high-end magical weapons do. The less obvious downside is freaking out towns guard and attracting all the werewolf hunters around. Jaws and tail don't take hands, so the Beastbarb can wield two weapons and a shield for great versatility, have an empty hand for wrestling people down, or even wield two shields (+2 AC don't stacks, but if both shields are magical, their enchantments do stack). Later they could make their beast-weapons magical and gain beastly mobility, either swimming and breathing underwater, crawling on the walls and ceiling, or jumping insane distances. They get to infect enemies with frenzy when they attack them, forcing them to either attack their allies or suffer decent psychic damage, and finally get to give their allies extra damage during their rage while also healing for each ally they catch.

==Barbarians in Diablo==

===Hellfire===
The very first [[Diablo]] game did not include a Barbarian class. One was designed for its expansion pack, Hellfire, but internal bickering between Blizzard North, Blizzard South, Sierra, and Synergistic Software (which were all owned by the same parent company) prevented its official inclusion. The relevant data and assets were still on the CD, though, so the Barbarian (and a fuckton of other disabled features, like the Bovine Plate quest) could be easily re-enabled with a simple text file.

This version of the Barbarian was more or less a modified Warrior. It sacrificed the Warrior's already-meager ability to use magic in favor of a slightly increased strength cap (255 instead of 250) and a vastly improved health pool. The Barbarian could also wield two-handed weapons in one hand, an ability that would reappear in later versions of the class. Because the dickheads at Blizzard wouldn't let Synergistic finish the class, it uses the same artwork and sound effects as the Warrior.

===Diablo II===

Diablo II included the barbarian as one of its five core classes. This version of the barbarian had some ability to use magic, though more in a "calling upon nature spirits" kind of way than a fireball-throwing kind of way. From the Hellfire version, it copied the ability to use two-handed weapons with one hand; from the Hellfire's other hidden class, the Bard, it copied the ability to dual-wield. Its signature attack moves included the ability to spin around like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Toons, cutting down everything in its path. The expansion pack, Lord of Destruction, included an entire fifth act full of nothing but barbarian NPCs, including ones that you could hire to follow you around and kill things for you.

===Diablo III===

Diablo III dares to be different and is thus contentious between longtime fans who expected more of the same from previous entries and fans of the designs and mechanics of the class who are new to the series. Many deride the entry for deviating from their expectations, others applaud the choices. Like it or not, pick the right equipment and skills and the Barbarians can rampage through entire hordes of enemies without fear. Then again, so can most other classes, but just not always in melee.

Interestingly enough, the male Barbarian in Diablo III was actually ''the same character'' as the Diablo II barbarian. Just older and, presumably, angrier that he has to do this all ''again''.

==Barbarians in Magic: the Gathering==

Barbarians are/were a very common creature type in [[Magic the Gathering]], and have usually been red. The first were the Balduvian Barbarians and Barbarian Guides from Ice Age.

==Barbarians in other Things==

Warhammer Fantasy - [[Warriors of chaos]]

Warhammer 40K - [[World Eaters]], [[Space Wolves]], [[White Scars]]

Barbarian Prince (a solitaire board game from 1981) - [[Cal Arath]]

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
Barbarian CBH 2e.jpg|Art from the ''Complete Barbarian's Handbook''
Conan.jpg|The comics dumbed down the original Conan, who was not a stupid muscle-man but also a thief and a wise ruler. Though still he was primarily a man of action, rather than a man of thought.
ThulsaDoom.jpg|Turning people into barbarians since 1982.
</gallery>

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[[category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Classes]]

Barbarian

2021-06-25T02:55:51Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:487A:F101:E4E9:B860: /* 5th Ed */

[[File:barbarian.jpg|thumb|right|380px|A modern day barbarian activating his Rage.]]
{{Topquote|I would like to Rage.|every barbarian player ever}}
{{Topquote|Barbaric rage and unrelenting savagery make for a powerful ally.|[[Darkest Dungeon|The Ancestor]]}}
{{Topquote|He has no love for my Legion, but this has its uses. He has no attachment to his men, no compunction about battlefield losses. All he cares about is destroying the enemy.|[[Fallout|Caesar, talking about his Legates, Lanius]]}}

Barbarian characters have been a staple of fantasy at least since [[Conan the Barbarian]] (ie. since the beginning) as "noble savages" (to a varying degree of "noble") who impress with their might and courage. Today, barbarians in fantasy retain this image of a savage warrior, clad in simple or primitive clothing that rely more on brute strength and chaotic violence than any precise fighting style or cunning. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a barbarian with more than 10 [[INT]] in D&D ? Derp.

The term "barbarian" comes from the ancient Greek ''βαρβαροί'' or "Barbaroi," and is used to designate an uncivilised person or a person of an inferior culture. In reality, practically all foreigners or those who did not speak Greek were deemed to be "barbaros" and sometimes the term was used even for Greeks from other states. Later on, the term was picked up by the Romans and used to designate anyone who could beat them reliably in a fight and wasn't a rival empire or another Roman army; it is particularly associated with the migrating tribes that ultimately conquered them during the dark ages and after that it referred to Goths and Vikings more specifically. In the pre-modern [[China|Chinese]] view of the world, there was the "Middle Kingdom" (China itself), the center of human civilization which was surrounded by Barbarians which got more barbaric the further away you got from China.

Barbarians are usually the subjects of the best fantasy movies. ''Conan the Barbarian'' and ''The Barbarians'', as well as ''Fire and Ice'', are excellent examples of awesome, cheesiness, and awesomeness and gayness, respectively.

==Barbarians in D&D==
===AD&D===
[[File:Barbarian UA 1e.jpg|right|200px]]
The very first Barbarian appeared in [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] 1st edition, in the [[Unearthed Arcana]] splatbook. Here, it was a variant [[Fighter]] who had a background in a primitive culture; as a result, they have certain abilities (some shared with the [[Ranger]], such as wilderness survival, others unique), but also very strict penalties against using magical items or associating with [[wizard]]s. This mark 1 barbarian has a D12 hit dice and better saves than the [[fighter]]; it can also Climb Walls as per a thief of the same level, as an increased ability to surprise foes (3 in 6, or 4 in 6 in familiar territory) or resist being surprised (90% resistance, 95% in familiar territory), has a 5% per level chance of nullifying a Backstab, has increased jumping abilities, has a 5% chance per level of Detecting Illusion (maxes at 75%), a 25% (+5% per level) chance of Detecting Magic (maxes at 90%), and access to the [[Ranger]] abilities of Survival, First Aid, Outdoor Craft, and Tracking. Plus potentially access to regional skills such as animal handling, horsemanship, running, handling small boats and imitating animal calls. Also, depending on their level, they can strike creatures normally vulnerable only to enchanted weapons of a specific potency; starting at "can hit +1" from level 4 and increasing by +1 every two levels thereafter, a level 6 barbarian for example can hurt creatures normally resistant to anything less than a +2 weapon, whilst level 12 barbarians can hurt anything that normally needs a +5 weapon.

The downside? They cannot use ANY magical items at 1st level, and in fact are actually compelled to destroy them if possible. As they reach certain levels, they gain access to magical items (starting with potions at level 2 and culminating at "most magic items available to fighters" at level 10), and no longer need to destroy those items, but, ''shockingly'', most parties didn't seem to want to keep them around in the time it took to reach those thresholds. Gee, I wonder why someone literally ''compelled'' to smash loot in an edition built around looting might be unpopular?

The next version of the Barbarian was as one of the [[kits]] seen in the [[Complete Book Series|Complete Fighter's Handbook]]. This is a kit restricted to [[fighter]]s with [[Strength]] 15+, and all it does is add a +3 bonus (or -3 penalty) to reaction rolls. It was, frankly, rather stupid and nobody ever bothered with it.

===2e===

The Unearthed Arcana barbarian would return in 2e with the [[Complete Book Series|Complete Barbarian's Handbook]], alongside the [[Shaman]], a kind of barbarian cleric. This version lost most of its 1e powers, retaining only the D12 hit dice, the enhanced leaping/climbing affinities, and the backstab resistance. It also gained the ability to dual-wield weapons, and far less stringent restrictions on magical weapon use or associating with spellcasters. It also double-downed on the idea that Barbarians hail from pre-Iron Age cultures, and included various [[kits]] based on those cultures.

Ultimately, the AD&D barbarian was not very well received, and might have passed forgotten into history...

===3E===
[[File:Barbarian PHB 3e.jpg|left|200px]]
But for the debut of [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition]]. Like the [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|Sorcerer]], the Barbarian of D&D fame is a true child of 3e. Everything that is viewed as iconic about the barbarian? Was invented by 3e, for 3e. They get d12 hit points, uncanny dodge, illiteracy, damage reduction and can fly into a rage for some stat bonuses at the expense of AC and passes out when the fight is done. Until you get Tireless Rage, dip into Horizon Walker or a billion other solutions past core. Notably, it was ''this'' incarnation of the barbarian that was back-adapted into 2e for ''[[Baldur's Gate]]''.

Barbarian was changed a bit in the transition from 3rd Edition to 3.5. There Barbarian lost all their "empty" levels by gaining Trap Sense and Damage Reduction. While trap sense is normally considered super lame and Damage Reduction advances too slow to be meaningful, this does make Barbarians have zero empty levels. Alongside [[Ranger]] (who gained abilities ''other'' than superracism), Barbarian is easily the class that benefited the most from the transition from a strict look at the class themselves, but the introduction of Natural Spell puts [[Druid]] far ahead of it.

While Rage ''does'' scale, it does so quite slowly, and while they have no dead levels, the class features they get aren't very good. This and them losing their illiteracy if they multiclass makes them quite viable as a [[Dip Class]] or entry to [[Prestige Class]]es. In core only, Horizon Walker grants immunity to fatigue with a one level dip. One prestige class designed for them was Frenzied Berserker, which unfortunately causes you to lose control of your character and potentially kill the party. Bear Warrior is a much better Barbarian focused prestige class, which lets you get so angry you turn into a bear.

Barbarian is considered a [[Tier System|tier 4]]. They are very good at smashing things in melee, and have some wilderness/physical skills that help a bit when that's not applicable, but are quite easy to shut down with some pretty basic challenges, like a monster that isn't just a grounded wall of meat (like one that can fly or turn invisible), can't do much beyond direct HP damage (or tripping if specialized in it) and their skills are only an accessory.

===Pathfinder===
[[File:Amiri.png|thumb|right|300px|Amiri, Pathfinder's iconic Barbarian]]
A lot like 3.5 barbarians, with the loss of illiteracy (unless your archetype forbids reading), the addition of more trap sense (pfffffff), a "rounds of rage per day" mechanic that went up with level and constitution modifier (good thing, unless you were dipping barbarian) and, the major new feature and draw, ''rage powers''.

That's right, every two levels your barbarian bro learns a new way that getting ''really fucking angry'' can give him superpowers. These powers range from the useful (making combat maneuvers in place of regular attacks) to the impractically awesome (beating an opponent with another opponent) to the outright supernatural (sprouting claws and horns before gaining a pounce attack) to the ''hilarious'' (gaining big bonuses on swim checks)... That last one makes sense ''mechanically'' (rage buff strength, after all, and strength is the stat used in swim tests), but the mental image is never not funny. ("''FUCK YOU WATER! WRAAAAAAAAGH!''")

It's not necessarily top-tier, though it may be the best among its fellow beatstick classes, and it's certainly fun as hell and much more customizable than before. It's still tier 4, but the skill compression and rage powers make them more versatile. Lost a lot of its draw in 2014 when the [[Bloodrager]] class was released. Why play a guy who fights by getting angry when you can play a guy who fights by getting angry, grows claws, wings, and fangs when he gets angry, and can cast spells like a weak sorcerer? Shoot, with the "this really shouldn't exist" Primalist archetype, you can even get enough rage powers to make it practically obsolete (though practically everyone knows this to be utterly fucking cheese and thus refrain from using it). The only draws left are basically the few archetypes that can do things it can't, like the Invulnerable Rager for Damage Reduction shenanigans. Also the Bloodrager's rage is classed as a supernatural(Su) ability and so is affected by anti-magic. Whether it some how stops him being angry all together or just cancels the magical effects is down the GM. The PF Barbarian is also the foundation for [[Wrassle Baba]], the D&D equivalent of Brock Lesnar.

'''Pathfinder Unchained''' offered a revision to the barbarian, introducing a rage that wasn't so dependent on stats (so now you get +2 to melee attack/melee damage/thrown damage/Will and +2 THP/HD to prevent death once rage runs out and your HP drops with your Constitution) and a few reworded rage powers. It was largely considered a sidegrade at best and a mild downgrade at worst since it lost out on all archetypes RAW. But it at least made it harder for you to instantly drop dead the second your rage ends at higher levels.

===4th Ed===
[[File:Barbarian 4e.jpg|right|200px]]
4th edition initially left the Barbarian out of the game, one of the many things that triggered a kneejerk [[Rage|fa/tg/uy Raeg]], whilst the designers tried to give it a more solid identity than just "[[Fighter]] who gets really angry".

Their decision? To tie it into the new mystical power group on the block; the [[Primal Spirits]]. Barbarians now mechanically emphasized their distinct culture background by having a certain level of affinity for primal magic, which mostly manifested through a deep, instinctive connection to totemic or guardian spirits. By allowing these spirits to partially merge with them, the Barbarian could carry out feats of superhuman prowess. But, unlike the similarly themed newcomer class, the [[Warden]], the 4e Barbarian was more of a Martial/Primal hybrid; the bulk of its powers still relied on its combination of distinctly ferocious fighting style and the ability to tap into a "primitive" wellspring of feral vitality and brutish prowess, thematically very close to [[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]] and his "savagery-bestowed" might. Only the Daily powers, the Rages, were distinctly magical in nature, as it was in this state of primordial ecstasy that a Barbarian could open itself up to let a spirit channel its magic through their veins. Or, if they didn't want to be magical at all, they had a class feature called Rage Strike, which let them burn unused Daily powers with the Rage keyword to make a perfectly mundane (just really, '''really''' hard) blow.

Thus, Barbarians made their triumphant return in the [[Player's Handbook]] 2 and were surprisingly welcomed.

Like all 4e classes, Barbarians have a precursor to 5e's subclass system. For them, it's the class feature "Feral Might", which is more or less their particular fighting style, granting them a bonus Encounter power and bonuses to certain appropriate attacks. 4 Feral Might branches were ultimately released; Rageblood Vigor & Thaneborn Triumph in the PHB2, and the Thunderborn Wrath & Whirling Slayer in Primal Power.
*'''Rageblood Vigor''' gives you "old school" barbarians; they charge into battle headlong and rely on rage to weather the counterattacks as they kill shit. Their bonus power is Swift Charge (instant charge once a bitch dies), and they gain temporary hit points whenever they drop an enemy with their attacks.
*'''Thaneborn Triumph''' allows for "chieftain"-flavored barbarians; they dabble a little in the Leader role, as they work particularly well with others and specialize in Charisma. Their bonus power is the Roar of Triumph, which lets them penalize nearby enemy defenses once per encounter after killing an enemy, and their class feature is that enemies they bloody grant an attack roll bonus to the next attack against them made by either the barbarian or one of his allies.
*'''Thunderborn Wrath''' gives the most overtly magical barbarian subclass, with fluff about how their battle cries are so awesome, spirits of thunder follow them and join in whenever the barbarian starts hollering. They do bonus thunder damage to each adjacent enemy whenever they bloody an enemy, and their War Cry is like the Thaneborn's Roar of Triumph, except that it pushes instead of dropping defenses.
*'''Whirling Slayer''' permits dual-wielder barbarians who rely on mobility more than other barbarians, lashing out in all directions and skipping away from retaliation blows, which their class feature and their Whirling Lunge power supports.

The Essentials subclass for the Barbarian, the [[Berserker]], was released in "Heroes of the [[Feywild]]". Overtly called a part-Martial Striker/Defender (in contrast to the Barbarian being pure Striker), it basically dropped the rages to focus on purely mundane attacks based on being tougher, stronger and quicker than a "civilised" man... you know, the same shit Barbarians could already do if you wanted to play them that way?

===5th Ed===
[[File:Barbarian PHB 5e.png|left|300px]]
Barbarians in 5th edition D&D are largely unchanged from 3.5 barbarians, except their rages are better. While raging they get resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, damage bonuses and advantage on strength checks, including athletics for wrestling people down. Barbarians can add their Con bonus to AC if they don't wear armor, meaning that you can now be a truly manly berserker and charge into battle without a shirt on, all the while having the AC of a knight in full-plate as enemy blades bounce off your manly abs. Their rage only applies to melee attacks now, though, so bows are less viable than previous editions. Barbarians have the easiest advantage generators in the whole game with Reckless Attack, which makes them the best class for great weapon master feat, offsetting that -5 to hit for massive massive damage. As they level up Barbarians get simple but powerful abilities, like increased movement speed, stronger criticals and ability to ''[[Nasuverse| not die when they are killed]]''. Oh, and they are also the only class that gets to go over the hardcap of 20 for Strength and Constitution, gaining '''+4''' to both at level 20.

The Class Feature Variants UA gave Barbarians two benefits: Survival Instincts gave them double proficiency in two skills out of the gate, but cost them Danger Sense, and Instinctive Pounce replaced the default speed boost with the power to immediately walk up to half their speed in response to an enemy moving closer. Come ''Tasha's Cauldron of Everything'', both of these got reworked so as to not replace actually vital features, a major plus. They now gain proficiency in an additional skill (from what they could take at creation) at levels 3 and 10, and level 7 grants them the ability to immediately move the moment they rage.

They also seem to be WotC's favorite target for weird subclass ideas called "Primal Paths":

* '''Path of the Berserker''' turns the Barbarian into a rage warrior of death. Compared to the other subclasses, it has more thematic similarities with early editions.
:* Their first subclass feature is Frenzy, which can be used when entering rage to gain a bonus attack each turn for the rest of the rage. Besides the boost in damage, it also ''doesn't need'' the Attack action to be taken (unlike other sources of bonus attacks like Two-Weapon Fighting or feats), letting you Dash, Dodge, chug potions, etc. and then attack in the same turn. Any Barbarian's rage will end early if a turn passes without attacking or taking damage, so Frenzy's bonus attack maintains rage while freeing up your main action. The other unique part of Frenzy is that instead of being limited to 1/long rest it's tied to levels of exhaustion (an obvious nod to how rage in previous editions ended with fatigue and possibly at negative HP). Exhaustion level 1 isn't a big deal for Barbarians so they'll usually Frenzy once per long rest, but if the situation gets really dire you can Frenzy multiple times and increasingly overtax yourself; just remember that you'll be feeling it for a few days.
:* They also gain immunity to charm/fright while raging (a nod to how rage in 3e gave a bonus to Will saves), Intimidating Presence (basically a single-target version of the ''fear'' spell), and Retaliation which lets them immediately strike back after being hit. Combined with Frenzy this adds up to a possible 4 attacks per round ''at level 14'', all with advantage and enhanced criticals, without taking feats. All in all, this Path is a single-minded killing machine with no regard for defense.
* '''Path of the Totem Warrior''' grants abilities based on the selected totem spirit. It also gives you ritual-only spells to communicate with animals and to summon one of the spirits for information about the area. You can pick from the different totem spirits 3 times total, and each totem gives a different benefit based on whether you selected it first, second, or last, as shown in order below:
:*''Wolf'' is the pack-hunter one, giving advantage to your friends when you are surrounding your enemy, better tracking and stealth during travels, and the ability to knock enemies prone instantly after hitting them.
:*''Bear'' is the tanky one, making you resistant to '''all''' damage (minus psychic, because [[meme|GET OUT OF MY HEAD, CHARLES]]), making you better at pushing and carrying stuff, and forcing enemies to focus fire on you while raging. Bear totem barbarian is pretty much the default barbarian tank.
:*''Eagle'' has the best utility ones, giving you a bonus-action dash and making opportunity attacks less likely to hit you, eagle vision (you can literally see something a mile away without a problem) and eventually [[Sly Marbo|'''allowing the barbarian to fly while raging...''']] but not allowing him to stay in the air after his turn. So essentially, it's just the ability to jump your speed and change direction midair whilst raging.
:*''Elk'' is a weird set of mobility powers that makes you move faster while raging, makes your group faster when traveling distances together, and lets you run people over while raging.
:*''Tiger'' lets you jump better, skillmonkey a bit and eventually pounce on a target with an additional attack. Not great on its own, but if you're mix-and-matching, some of the powers aren't bad trades. Getting a couple extra skills is never a bad investment, for instance.
*'''Path of the Battlerager''', named after a temp-HP-gaining [[Fighter]] subclass, actually borrows its lore from a special order of [[dwarf]] barbarians in the [[Drizzt]] novels, and so is a heavily armored barbarian who wears massively spiky armor and basically specializes in hurling himself blindly into the fray so he can use his armor to rip 'n' tear people whilst he rages. With an extra attack per round (admittedly an unarmed strike, but 1d4 plus modifiers is still a buncha damage when you're a barbarian) and bunches of temporary hitpoints to offset Reckless Attack whenever you use it, the main downside is that your powers only work when you're wearing a very-specific suit of very-mediocre armor.
*'''Path of the Ancestral Guardian''' is able to commune with/summon its ancestral spirits while raging (meaning that if you are a dragonborn you can [[awesome|summon the ghost of a dead dragon]]), giving it overtones of the [[Shaman]] from 4e. Don't be fooled, though; this is the tanking subclass. At 3rd level, as the Ancestral Protectors, they can distract any enemy you hit while raging, imposing disadvantage and halved damage on attacks not targeting yourself. At 6th level, upgrading to Spirit Shield, the spirits can use your reaction in response to a nearby creature taking damage and reduce the damage. At 10th level, you can Consult the Spirits once per short/long rest to cast ''augury'' or ''clairvoyance'' without spell slots or materials. Finally, at 14th level, the Vengeful Ancestors can react to someone hitting an ally by beating the shit out of them, inflicting force damage equal to the amount of damage prevented by Spirit Shield.
*'''Path of the Storm Herald''', meanwhile, has a little in common with certain Rage Powers from the 4e Barbarian, in that it's a barbarian who taps into primal magic while raging to cloak itself in a shield of elemental energy. You need to pick whether your storm comes from the Desert, Sea, or Tundra at 3rd level, which determines what sort of benefits you get whilst raging. Your aura starts off by inflicting fire damage to everyone in your aura, zapping one target with lightning, or giving temp HP to nearby allies, respectively. These effects can be reactivated as a bonus action during rage. Later your choice gives you fire resistance, lightning resistance and water breathing, or cold resistance, at all times. At 10th level your aura extends that resistance to your allies, and finally it gains more powers to use against foes, dealing fire damage, knocking down a target, or freezing it in place. Two of the auras require saves every turn for middling damage, which means that this subclass can slow down a game something fierce.
*'''Path of the Zealot''' can be summed up as "holy berserker of the gods/Khorne Berserker", but can be refluffed into more of a necromantic [[Bloodrager]] type; the crunch can be summed up as the "MAN LITERALLY TOO ANGRY TO DIE" meme made manifest. It inflicts extra necrotic or radiant damage (chosen when you gain this feature) to the first target you hit on your turn, allows you to be resurrected without burning through those expensive diamonds, can choose to re-roll a failed saving throw once per rage, can unleash an inspiring battle cry once per long rest, and can keep you fighting at 0 hit points so long as you're raging. It's recommended to yell about [[Vermintide|spending your blood willingly and your god blessing your ravaged body]] while you rage.
*'''Path of the Wild Soul''' is basically the first official 5e [[Bloodrager]]. These guys have access to a pool of wild magic when they rage, which results in them gaining overtly magical effects to their raging rather than being able to rage and cast spells. A Wild Soul Barbarian can Detect Magic Constitution modifier times per day and gains one of eight random wild magic auras when it rages, from 6th level can grant spellcasters a random spell slot or grant a small bonus to any rolls for everyone else, from 10th level can re-roll which wild magic aura they get whenever they get hurt, and from 14th level can roll their magic aura twice and pick the most favorable one.
*'''Path of the Beast''' is basically a shamanic simulation of lycanthropy - less potent but with no side effects like uncontrollable frenzy. Beast barbarians transform into half-animal monstrosities when raging, growing natural weapons, choosing each time for great flexibility:
:*Snapping jaws or giant mandibles to bite people with, which actually lets them heal a bit if they damage their target. The healing is rather small, but over the course of battle it adds up to quite a lot. Great for tanking at early levels, almost on par with Bear Totem, although later that healing drops off compared to the level of damage you take.
:*Claws on hands that grant one extra attack. Not extra attack as a bonus action, just extra attack. This is flat out better than Berserker with the only downside being rather mediocre d6 damage die of those claws. The obvious damage dealing option.
:*Long prehensile tail is a hard hitting reach weapon, pretty much a pike/lance that works at close range and don't take hands. For when you need to hit hard over hitting a lot. More importantly, if someone you can see within 10 feet of you hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to apply a d8 to your AC!
:The obvious downside is that their natural weapons don't get the same cool effects high-end magical weapons do. The less obvious downside is freaking out towns guard and attracting all the werewolf hunters around. Jaws and tail don't take hands, so the Beastbarb can wield two weapons and a shield for great versatility, have an empty hand for wrestling people down, or even wield two shields (+2 AC don't stacks, but if both shields are magical, their enchantments do stack). Later they could make their beast-weapons magical and gain beastly mobility, either swimming and breathing underwater, crawling on the walls and ceiling, or jumping insane distances. They get to infect enemies with frenzy when they attack them, forcing them to either attack their allies or suffer decent psychic damage, and finally get to give their allies extra damage during their rage while also healing for each ally they catch.

==Barbarians in Diablo==

===Hellfire===
The very first [[Diablo]] game did not include a Barbarian class. One was designed for its expansion pack, Hellfire, but internal bickering between Blizzard North, Blizzard South, Sierra, and Synergistic Software (which were all owned by the same parent company) prevented its official inclusion. The relevant data and assets were still on the CD, though, so the Barbarian (and a fuckton of other disabled features, like the Bovine Plate quest) could be easily re-enabled with a simple text file.

This version of the Barbarian was more or less a modified Warrior. It sacrificed the Warrior's already-meager ability to use magic in favor of a slightly increased strength cap (255 instead of 250) and a vastly improved health pool. The Barbarian could also wield two-handed weapons in one hand, an ability that would reappear in later versions of the class. Because the dickheads at Blizzard wouldn't let Synergistic finish the class, it uses the same artwork and sound effects as the Warrior.

===Diablo II===

Diablo II included the barbarian as one of its five core classes. This version of the barbarian had some ability to use magic, though more in a "calling upon nature spirits" kind of way than a fireball-throwing kind of way. From the Hellfire version, it copied the ability to use two-handed weapons with one hand; from the Hellfire's other hidden class, the Bard, it copied the ability to dual-wield. Its signature attack moves included the ability to spin around like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Toons, cutting down everything in its path. The expansion pack, Lord of Destruction, included an entire fifth act full of nothing but barbarian NPCs, including ones that you could hire to follow you around and kill things for you.

===Diablo III===

Diablo III dares to be different and is thus contentious between longtime fans who expected more of the same from previous entries and fans of the designs and mechanics of the class who are new to the series. Many deride the entry for deviating from their expectations, others applaud the choices. Like it or not, pick the right equipment and skills and the Barbarians can rampage through entire hordes of enemies without fear. Then again, so can most other classes, but just not always in melee.

Interestingly enough, the male Barbarian in Diablo III was actually ''the same character'' as the Diablo II barbarian. Just older and, presumably, angrier that he has to do this all ''again''.

==Barbarians in Magic: the Gathering==

Barbarians are/were a very common creature type in [[Magic the Gathering]], and have usually been red. The first were the Balduvian Barbarians and Barbarian Guides from Ice Age.

==Barbarians in other Things==

Warhammer Fantasy - [[Warriors of chaos]]

Warhammer 40K - [[World Eaters]], [[Space Wolves]], [[White Scars]]

Barbarian Prince (a solitaire board game from 1981) - [[Cal Arath]]

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
Barbarian CBH 2e.jpg|Art from the ''Complete Barbarian's Handbook''
Conan.jpg|The comics dumbed down the original Conan, who was not a stupid muscle-man but also a thief and a wise ruler. Though still he was primarily a man of action, rather than a man of thought.
ThulsaDoom.jpg|Turning people into barbarians since 1982.
</gallery>

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{{D&D5-Classes}}
{{Pathfinder-1st-Edition-Classes}}
{{Pathfinder-2nd-Edition-Classes}}
{{Pathfinder-2nd-Edition-Archetypes}}

[[category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Classes]]

Resident Evil

2021-06-25T01:43:45Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:487A:F101:E4E9:B860: /* Man-Made Pestilence */

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[[File:Resident-evil-social-media-logo-tease.jpg|800px|center|thumb|Enter the world of Survival Horror...]]
'''Resident Evil''', known as '''Biohazard''' in Japan, is a series of zombie-focused Survival Horror games (the first big-name franchise of that type, and the first to make the genre at all "mainstream") produced by Capcom from the mid-1990s on. Its longtime rival is [[Silent Hill]] and it spawned a short-lived (three games) rival/spin-off, [[Dino Crisis]], which was basically "Resident Evil on an island with timetraveling dinosaurs instead of bio-engineered zombies!"

As might be guessed, the basic plotline of Resident Evil is simple: the pharmaceutical megacorporation Umbrella has its fingers in some very sticky pies, namely secret divisions working on genetically tailoring viruses and mutant monsters to make illicit millions in the bio-weaponry underground. Naturally, these things keep getting out of their control, and a bunch of innocent schmucks need to try and survive in the resultant monster-filled hellholes. Add in lots of creepy background lore, apocalyptic logs, bizarre traps and puzzles, and enjoy yourself some fun.

Though a video game series, Resident Evil is a perfect source of inspiration and ideas for a DM of [[D20 Modern]], especially if the game being run is at all focused on horror or intrigue. Indeed, Resident Evil 1 has been likened to a horror-themed dungeon crawl in a modern environment. Naturally, the game series would mesh perfectly with [[All Flesh Must Be Eaten]], but since there's no official writeups, that requires a lot of ZM setup.

==Survival Horror vs. Action Horror==
Whilst it actually named the genre of "Survival Horror", Resident Evil has always had a somewhat... complicated relationship with it, though of course don't expect [[/v/]] to acknowledge that. In contrast to the "dread-fueled walking simulators" of the more iconic Survival Horror games like [[Amnesia: The Dark Descent]], Resident Evil has always been almost as much about being an action game as much as a horror game. Lest we forget; even in the very first game, whilst you're stalking warily through the halls of a monster-infested mansion, you're also doing so with a shotgun and grenade launcher at your hip, and your boss fights center around your ability to blow them into bloody chunks of goo.

Things only got more actiony as the series progressed. As early as the original RE2, once you got past the chokepoint of the zombie-infested streets, ammunition became so plentiful (especially if you learned where the hidden ammo stashes were) that you could kill ''every single thing that moves'' and still have ammo to burn by the end of the game. This wasn't helped by the fact that later games continued to bring back the same characters, who by the laws of decent storytelling became increasingly jaded to the whole "virus spill and evil corporation producing monster super-soldiers" shit since, y'know, they'd seen it all before.

The split between Survival and Action Horror is the biggest [[skub]] element of RE, so if you're going to play a tabletop game set in the universe, it's probably best to get a Session 0 done so you can get everybody on the same page as to what kind of RE game you'll be playiong.

==Camp==
From the get-go, Resident Evil has had its roots in 80s b-movies, and that applies to both its horror and its action elements. It may make you laugh, it may make you groan, but a certain bit of silliness has always been an inherent part of the series, in contrast to the po-faced psychological horror of [[Silent Hill]]. As with the Survival Horror to Action Horror ratio, when gaming Resident Evil with your players, try and get everybody on the same table as to how campy you want the campaign to be.

==Resident Evil 1==
This is where it all begins. An elite force of police officers, known as the Special Tactics And Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S for short - see! Clever!) are sent into the Arklay Mountains in response to gruesomely violent attacks on hikers and campers in the area. Bravo Team goes first, then vanishes. Several hours later, Alpha Team goes to investigate and find their missing comrades. They are attacked by a pack of diseased, decaying, bloodthirsty dobermans, and their chickenshit pilot promptly flies off in terror. The survivors flee for a mysterious mansion, only to find it crawling with zombies and other engineered freaks. As either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, you need to explore the mansion and find a way to safely escape. In your efforts, you discover that the mansion had been a secret research facility for the pharmaceutical megacorp "Umbrella", where illegal experiments into engineering viral weapons and super-soldiers had gone horribly wrong. At the game's climax, you must defeat Umbrella's ultimate Bio-Organic Weapon, the Tyrant, and escape the mansion's self-destruct system.

Gamers had never seen anything like it before. Resident Evil 1 was a ''smash'' hit. And thus a series was born...

The original version of this game is also famous for its hilariously bad voice acting, with narmy dialogue and actors who clearly don't know how to properly emote, to the point where some people were disappointed with it getting fixed in the remake. In fact, amazingly, the game was actually created IN English by Capcom, and then dubbed in Japanese for their local market!

The original Resident Evil is already an experiment in telling variable stories; whilst the plot remains identical in the broad terms, as do the puzzles and areas, your different characters have different strengths and weaknesses, and they interact with different side characters. Jill is faster, has a bigger inventory space, gets access to the shotgun quicker, can pick locks (thus freeing up ''more'' inventory space over the long run) and gets exclusive access to the grenade launcher, the best "common" weapon in the game - in fact, she's ''literally'' designated as the Easy Mode character in the Japanese version. Her side character is Barry Burton, hilarious fountain of [[meme]]s and a skilled asskicker in his own right. In contrast, Chris gets... more health. And that's it. His side character is Rebecca Chambers, Capcom's attempt at a moe waifubait nurse. Sadly, it also introduced the series' first ever plothole: canonically, all four characters are supposed to have survived the Mansion Incident... but, in-game, you'll ever encounter the secondary ''protagonist'' character locked up in a cell in the final lab, with their supporting character never to be seen, making it impossible for all four to have survived in any actual playthrough.

This game got ported and remade a ''lot'', but the most noteworthy version is the Director's Cut, which restores things cut from the American release, uncensors the game, and adds a few new gimmicky modes. This would later give rise to the infamous ''Dual Shock Version'', a variant of the Director's Cut which replaces the soundtrack with a completely new score best described as "choir of farting trumpets".

===Resident Evil REMake===
In the early 2000s, Capcom signed a deal with Nintendo, and brought Resident Evil to the Nintendo Gamecube. One of their first efforts was this game, a remade version of the original game with many new changes; tweaked puzzles, expanded environments, better dialogue, smoother graphics and a reworked story. Unlike earlier platform ports and reshuffles, this game was a total retcon, and is the "official" prelude to the game series. Initially released for the Nintendo Gamecube, it was subsequently ported to PC and PS4.

The biggest change to the story was the introduction of the Lisa Trevor subplot. This was the daughter of George Trevor, the architect who designed the mansion, whose whole family was kidnapped by Umbrella and used as test subjects for early strains of the Progenitor and/or T-Virus. His wife and one of his daughters died, but little Lisa survived, transforming into an insane, brutally strong mutant with an absurd healing factor - she survived everything that the researchers threw at her, even Ebola. In fact, they ultimately tried out the Nemesis-Alpha parasite on her, and she ''ate it''; the foundation for the G-Virus was cultivated from her cells when they were testing her to see what had happened. Ultimately, they tried to kill her... but they couldn't. They even shot her with an ''anti-tank rocket'', and she just got back up. So, when Chris and Jill arrive, they end up having to evade her in the wilderness surrounding the mansion and the tunnels beneath, until they finally get rid of her by letting her recover the skull of her long-dead mother.

Ironically, despite having a golden opportunity to do so, Capcom failed to retcon the infamous "where was (Barry/Rebecca)?" issue from the original game with this remake.

===Resident Evil 0===
Whilst Resident Evil 1 told a compelling story, it raised many questions. How was the T-Virus leaked? Where did it come from? What happened to the doomed Bravo Team? And what was the story of Rebecca, Bravo Team's last survivor, prior to her rescue by Chris in the mansion?

This game answers those questions. Shortly after their flight into the Arklay Forest, Bravo Team discovered an overturned military prison transport truck, which had been carrying an ex-marine convicted of mass murder and sentenced to death, and separate to look for him. Rebecca found her way aboard a mysterious train and was separated from her unit. There, she was forced to team up with the ex-marine, Billy Cohen, in order to survive zombified passengers, mutant animals, and killer leeches. Ultimately, they learned that they had become swept up in the machinations of Dr. James Marcus - the mad scientist who was one of Umbrella's founders, who had created the T-Virus by splicing the mutagenic "Progenitor Virus" with leech DNA, and whose sadism and psychosis had grown to the extent that Umbrella had ordered him assassinated. But one of Marcus' leeches had absorbed his body, growing over the years into a giant monster with Marcus' memories, the ability to assume his form, and a burning desire for revenge - his attack on Umbrella's Arklay facilities had released the T-Virus and caused the disaster into which the S.T.A.R.S had been drawn. Slaying the Leech Marcus, Billy and Rebecca go their separate ways; Billy strikes off towards a nearby road in hopes of hitchhiking away to safety, whilst Rebecca, promising him that she will claim he was killed in the Arklay Forest, heads to the Arklay Mansion to wait for the rest of her team to join her.

This game came out shortly after the Resident Evil 1 Remake, and was likewise a Nintendo Gamecube debut. It introduced two revolutionary new ideas; the ability to play as two characters simultaneously, and the removal of the Item Boxes mechanic, allowing players to drop items wherever they pleased and then come back to grab them. Unfortunately, the latter idea just led to players having to backtrack all the time and proved annoying, but at least Capcom tried to do something new! Reception to this game was... mixed, with many disliking its status as an official prologue to RE1, but lore from it is canon to all later games.

One irony is that it actually doesn't give as much of a history lesson into Umbrella as it promised; the ultimate origins of the T-Virus and Umbrella's obsession with it wouldn't be revealed until much later, in Resident Evil 5 specifically.

==Resident Evil 2==
After the disaster of RE1, Umbrella fucked things over for Raccoon City even further when they inadvertently caused the biggest biohazard disaster in history: in one of their secret labs under the city, a top researcher named William Birkin was working on a prototype super-virus that would put the T-Virus to shame. However, he was being too slow to deliver on this "G-Virus", and Umbrella grew suspicious that he was planning to betray them by selling it to a rival company. So, they sent in a commando team from their private paramilitary forces to take the G-Virus from William, by force if need be. Shot in the struggle, William injected himself with a G-Virus sample and transformed into a hideous mutant, which slaughtered all but one of the commandos - but caused a T-Virus leak that leads to a wide-scale infection, devastating the city.

Into the chaos comes Claire Redfield, younger sister of Chris Redfield above. Sherry Birkin, the daughter of William Birkin. Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie cop on his first day in the force. Lastly Ada Wong, a mysterious woman working as a spy for a rival organization.

These four must now forge alliances and find a way to get out of the city. Opposing them are the various legions of undead and mutated creatures, most of whom evolve to be deadlier as time passes. William Birkin, who is now too far gone and has devolved into a strong but cunning Bio-organic weapon. And Mr. X, a humanoid bio-weapon called a T-103, an upgraded version of the "Tyrant" faced by Chris and Jill, deployed by Umbrella to tie up loose ends in the RPD. The Tyrant is particularly unique in that he doesn't look like an abomination against nature. Instead he's a tall, trenchcoat-clad giant of a man that silently lumbers towards you, akin to something like Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers, only with more violent punching. He's also a total trooper as after getting downed; he'll dust himself off and continue his chase towards you at a later time, also imitating the two horror stated icons previously. That is until you dunk him into a smelting pot, where he stops being cool as a cucumber and simply decides to [[Rip and Tear|tear you apart with extreme prejudice]].

The last of the lesser-known but important survivors is one of the Umbrella Security Service Commandos, codenamed "HUNK" and popularly known as "Mr. Death", due to his track record of undertaking Umbrella's most dangerous missions, with him typically being the only one to survive upon completion. Despite being injured by Birkin, alone, and surrounded by a town's worth of bloodthirsty monsters: HUNK managed to survive and outwit his adversaries and call in an extraction to evacuate a G-Virus sample for Umbrella. This would be his last canonical appearance as HUNK proceeds to drop out of the story entirely, being only briefly mentioned in files in later games. Still, due to his generally cool attitude and SAS-style appearance, he becomes a staple in several minigames featured in later Resident Evil titles.

Storywise, RE2 was a major ambitious leap from its predecessor, as it attempted to tell not one, but ''two'' interwoven stories by means of its double-disk system. Rather than simply having a Leon campaign and a Claire campaign, it has two of each, and the overall story told depends on the order you play in. Some story elements are common between the "A" and "B" scenarios - Mr. X only shows up to bother the B scenario character, and which bosses you fight depends on whether you're playing the A or B scenario. Other elements are more character specific: in the Claire A/Leon B story, Sherry Birkin becomes infected with the G-Virus and Leon has to try and cure her with the DEVIL Vaccine, whilst in the Leon A/Claire B story, this never happens, for example.

===2019 RE2Make===
After the 2002 release of the REmake to a thunderously positive reception, fans immediately began clamoring for Capcom to give a similar treatment to Resident Evil 2 (and, to a lesser extent, Resident Evil 3). Capcom... ignored them. Until 2015, when they finally declared they were going to make a RE2Make. And four years later, in 2019, the RE2make was launched and became a smash hit. Professional critics heaped praise on it for its incredible new graphical engine and the way it managed to walk the tightrope between being a true Survival Horror game and being accessible to the casual audience. Long-running fans lavished it with adoration for continuing to uphold the promise of RE7 that Resident Evil would return to its Survival Horror roots.

Storywise, the RE2make is essentially a blend of both the Claire A and Leon A scenarios from the original RE2, focusing on each character's attempts to escape from the zombie infested city they unwittingly drove into alongside a secondary character; Sherry Birkin for Claire and Ada Wong for Leon. It preserves the broad strokes of the original story, but is more or less its own entity.

Shifting from its predecessor's fixed camera angles and tank controls to the over-the-shoulder style popularized by RE4-6 and Revelations 1-2, RE2make sports an almost completely redesigned map to account for this. The combat system attempted to step up from RE7 but without going full RE6; whilst RE6's quickshots, voluntary melee system and omnidirectional dodging mechanics were dropped (as was the context sensitive melee of 4, 5, and the Revelations duology), the game brought back the self-defense items system from the 2002 REMake, and it was the first OTS game in the series to allow players to move and aim at the same time, which was considered revolutionary. Zombies and lickers were showered with praise for their graphical and mechanical redesign, whilst Mr. X is now a mutual threat for both protagonists and actively stalks them through the RPD, constantly patrolling until they give their position away with gunfire, fulfilling in acuity what Nemesis had convincingly faked in the original RE3. He's widely considered the highlight of the early game, and earned the game comparison's to Alien: Isolation, another well-received Survival Horror title from the late 2010s. However it has been rightfully received by fans and critics as a masterful return to horror, and unlike it's First Person cousin, the third person camera is featured.

It has divisive elements, however, just like all games. Enemy variety catches a bit of flak; apart from zombies, zombie dogs, lickers and bosses, the only other enemies in the game are the Ivy Zombie (itself kind of controversial, because it replaced the original mutant plant monster with a plant-infested zombie) and a mook version of the G-Spawn boss - in defense of this change, the crows, spiders, enhanced lickers and giant moth boss didn't appear that frequently. The decision to go with a massive retool into an Over-The-Shoulder game instead of the more REmake-esque "graphical update" approach many fans expected is probably the biggest controversy. The story changes, most prominently the neutered "Second Run" scenario vs. the original A/B scenarios, also have been called lazy, since it results in issues if you try to put Main Game/2nd Run stories into a single narrative. Finally, there's the lack of music: whilst the game has a solid OST, it barely plays save for certain moments, largely restricted to cutscenes, and this bugs people because Resident Evil has a history of really solid atmospheric music. There are arguments in favor of the enforced silence, largely that it makes the game more realistic and that it builds up the feeling of dread, but as always, taste is subjective.

==Resident Evil 3: Nemesis==
Set a few days before the events RE2, this story charts Jill Valentine's attempts to survive and escape the zombie-infested hellhole of infected Raccoon City. Umbrella realizes that this entire incident basically proves the S.T.A.R.S team's claims against them after they escaped the mansion incident, and so sends in one of their newest bio-engineered weapons against the team's survivors: The Nemesis T-Type, an even angrier and scarier T-103 Tyrant whose ability to tank any firepower reminds many of the [[Plague Marines]]. Additionally unlike the T-103, he isn't a silent giant, [[Berzerker|he'll roar his arrival and relentlessly chase you down to beat you into a bloody pulp]] like a punchy, muscular, and more relentless version of Leatherface, minus the chainsaw as he's also equipped with a rocket launcher.

Aiding her in this ordeal is Carlos Olivera, one of the many Umbrella mercenaries contracted to assist evacuation of the city, but he and his unit were overwhelmed and largely decimated. Now, the two of them search for a way out of the city before it's too late, while also evading the Nemesis' tireless pursuit with either [[Gork|brutal cunning]] or [[Mork|cunning brutality]].

Overall, it ends with the US government unable to retain control of the city, so drastic measures had to be considered. Fearing the virus getting out (and also the US Government's involvement with BOWs), they wiped out Raccoon city with a barrage of thermobaric bombs, completely obliterating it off the map. Umbrella would later be embroiled in a series of criminal lawsuits that ultimately destroyed the company as a whole, largely thanks to the survivors who provided evidence and their testimonies linking Umbrella and the outbreak.

Quite ironically, due to Umbrella shutting down, their research and experiments are now at the hands numerous other unsavory characters, all of whom are advancing their research in their own ends, which would fuel later sequels.

As a side note, despite what a ''lot'' of people will tell you, Nemesis actually doesn't "actively" stalk Jill throughout the entirety of RE3. Let's be honest: this was a PlayStation 1 game; they couldn't pull off something like that! Instead, there are a grand total of 13 scripted encounters with Nemesis placed over the course of the game (two of which have variants depending on which path of an A/B route you took), and of which only 3 late-game encounters are mandatory "fight to the 'death' style" boss fights. Thus the illusion of a constant pursuit is provided, even if you can actually chart out ahead of time where Nemesis will appear and plan accordingly.

RE3 is generally regarded as the first Action Horror game in the RE series, unless you count RE2 and how much it spoiled you for ammo (once you hit the RPD area) compared to RE1, for a single major reason: this was the first game where you could ''dodge'' enemy attacks... admittedly with very clunky and prone to misfire controls, but, hey, a dodge was a dodge. Also, it was the first game where your character would ''automatically'' walk up or down stairs, rather than needing to use the Action button to move down them.

Whilst the first single-character game of the series, it did try to include some of the at-that-point iconic story flexibility by including branching scenarios; different areas could be visited in different orders between playthroughs, which would trigger unique cutscenes and encounters as a result.

===2020 RE3make===
With the massive wave of positive reception to the 2019 RE2make, Capcom realized they'd found a new wave to ride; a similarly styled remake for RE3 debuted in April 2020, to everybody's shock (which is sarcastic).

Remake 3 is a...pretty divisive title, it got pretty decent reviews, and ''Capcom'' is pleased with it's sales, but it's quite clear the game wasn't made with nearly as much polish as it's immediate Remake brother, ''2'', or even care. To the game's credit, it does several very fun things. It polishes the dodge mechanic from the original 3 to the point it's actually now a safe action to do (and rewards players with the chance to inflict massive damage). The first half features very fun Pursuer mechanics in the form of a greatly enhanced Nemesis; who can create Zombie parasites, wield a fucking ''flamethrower'' (alongside his original rocket launcher), and is a good deal smarter and more scary in his pursuit of Jill. It also features some nifty new monsters and it's story elements have also been considered a step up, in contrast to Remake 2's divisive changes; Carlos in particular is ten times more likable.

On the other hand; it really dropped the ball in terms of removing content from the original game, far more then Remake ''2''. It flat out ''deletes'' an ''entire'' area (the flavorful and iconic clocktower) and replaced it with mediocre sewer sections, redesigns an area so heavily it's a new portion (one that's a huge downgrade, the Dead Factory; a horrifyingly damp and disgusting area that was a disposal area for Umbrella's dirty secrets (read: corpses and failed bio-weapons) has been turned into, quite literally into a reskin of NEST from Remake 2), and takes out game's only non-Nemesis boss, the Gravedigger. It's also far shorter then Remake 2 (though this can be attributed to the OG's game length) and has become rather infamous for it's lack of content. Especially since it didn't ship with the highly popular "The Mercenaries" mini-game, something the original had to help with it's lower player-time then previous Resi games, but instead shipped with a new 4 vs. 1 asymmetric multiplayer RE game that nobody really cares about. Add this to the fact the second portion of the game becomes more or less a linear shooter with horror elements, and a ''complete'' lack of the dynamic stalking the early-game had with Nemesis (whose now reduced to two okay set-piece boss battles) you can really see why so many people thought it was a downgrade. View it as a comprehensive expansion for ''2'', and you'll have a good time.

==Resident Evil: Code Veronica==
CV occurs right after RE2 and has Claire Redfield continuing to look for her older brother Chris, but was caught by Umbrella and ends up on Rockfort island, a private prison island run by the incredibly psychotic Alfred Ashford. Things however, once again go not as planned as a bio-terror attack on the island by a mysterious organization left the island in total, flesh-consuming chaos. She later meets an inmate named Steve Burnside and the two of them think up of a plan to escape the island.

Its later revealed that Alfred has been planning the return of his sister: Alexia Ashford, who has been in hibernation for the past 15 years in the middle of an abandoned Umbrella lab in the Antarctic. She's the creator of a new strain of mutagenic virus that Rockfort was attacked for; the T-Veronica virus, created by splicing the T-virus with a primordial virus found [[What|inside an amber-preserved fossilized ant]]. This new strain allows the host to retain their sanity, even after being mutated by the virus, and anyone infected second-hand will be under the control of the virus' original carrier (which would be Alexia), also there's this random bit about their blood being flammable. Although the downside is that it has a long incubation time, that if improperly handled, will cause the host to degrade into regular T-virus mutants, hence the 15-year power nap.

Learning of this, Claire, Steve, and later Chris himself after Leon got Claire's distress call, set out to ensure that Alexia does not escape and start a new wave of bio-terrorism. They eventually prevailed, in what is probably one of the most frustrating boss fights in RE history.

Oh and Albert Wesker, the bad guy the team in the original who seemed unimportant in the long term, comes back and gave himself superpowers. Its also revealed his organization was the one responsible for unleashing the bio-terror outbreak on Rockfort island. He also tried to take down Alexia after she woke up, but ended up being outclassed, even with his superhuman bullshit (also he had no guns, so that's probably another thing). He does a 180 and has Chris battle the newly-awakened Alexia instead, which he succeeds in putting down, unsurprisingly with guns (which kinda makes Wesker's superpowers underwhelming in the larger scope).

RE:CV is also notable for being the first Resident Evil game to use fully 3D environments, rather than the static, pre-rendered ones in the PS1 era.

==Resident Evil 4==
This game tells Leon's fate after Raccoon city incident. The US government eventually picks him and Sherry up and he's been roped into becoming a governmental secret agent, partially out of duty, but also to protect Sherry. His first mission is being sent into not-Spain to rescue the US president's daughter named Ashley Graham, who was kidnapped.

Its later revealed that she was kidnapped by the "Los Illuminados", a psychotic cult that worships ancient parasites called the "Las Plagas" that induce mutations and mind control, both of which Leon and Ashley were infected with. The cult's plan is to infect Ashley with a plaga, send her back to the US, then have her do the cult's bidding once the plaga inside her fully matures. Of course this does beggar the following questions:

# Why are the cultists hellbent on killing both Leon AND Ashley, if the latter is so instrumental to their plans?
# Why did they need Ashley to be kidnapped and sent to not-Spain in the first place? Its been shown in-game that plaga infection is relatively simple (be injected with one by a syringe). There was never a need to kidnap Ashley, infect her, then draw attention to it. Especially since the Las Plagas were largely unknown by the outside world until Saddler drew attention to it by involving the US into a rescue mission, so he would have had the total element of surprise once he used his trump card.

Glaring plotholes aside, these cultists are led by three people: Bitores Mendez, a not-Tyrant. Ramon Salazar, a kinda-Spanish aristocrat with a Napoleon complex and two not-Xenomorph bodyguards. Last is the cult's supreme head-honcho Osmund Saddler, a charismatic man who may or may not have [[/d/|a long, bladed tentacle as a dick that he uses to impale people with]] (it doesn't help it comes from under his robes and between his legs). He also faces off against Jack Krauser, [[derp|whom is described as one of Leon's closest old agency friends, but his character and history wouldn't be explored until a few years later in a separate game]], so everyone at the time was just confused when Leon acts like he's a big deal and we should be feeling some remorse for.

Predictably, this isn't taken seriously in the slightest. Hell even Saddler sort-of breaks the fourth wall and mentions how cliche this entire thing is. The B-movie atmosphere and campy writing blend together to make for an entry that was one of the more memorable, if not the most, and actively played into it in a way that gave it an edge over the next couple of entries.

Now, Leon and Ashley must find a way out of not-Spain, fight through the Los Illuminados cult and their many experimental creatures, and get rid of the plagas infesting them. Like in the previous game, Leon is still being aided by his not-love interest: Ada Wong, who is impractically dressed for a spy mission. The post-Gamecube/Wii versions of the game even added a short secondary campaign that you play as Ada during her adventures in the region too.

If RE3 is arguably the first Action Horror game in the franchise, then RE4 is the first ''unchallenged'' Action Horror title. Aside from the new over-the-shoulder camera angle allowing Leon to precisely target foes and the loss of the restrictive tank controls, Leon no longer needed to sacrifice a precious inventory slot to carry a knife or deliberately equip it. Furthermore, this was the game that added "context sensitive melee"; stunning an enemy by shooting them in the right spot (usually the head or the leg/knee) would temporarily daze them, and the player could then deliver a melee attack by getting in close and pressing the Action button. This mechanic would be ported into the Revelations games and the subsequent RE5 and RE6.

==Resident Evil: Revelations==
Chris and Jill end up stranded on ships that have been overrun by a new breed of zombies, and a terrorist cell named Veltro is threatening to infect the entire oceans with their new virus called the T-Abyss virus. Except that the terrorist treat isn't real and it ends up with more plot twists that kind of make sense, and are also kind of dumb.

The most remarkable thing about this game is a spelling error on the box for the Nintendo 3DS version of the game. Otherwise it literally has no bearing on the plot of later games. We're not kidding, nobody exclusive to the cast of this game were ever mentioned in later games, nor did the plot of this game affected the entire status quo at all.

Still, it did introduce a fun mini-game that added a lot of replayability to it called Raid Mode, which is the only thing that did carry over to future installments, so it wasn't all bad.

==Resident Evil: Revelations 2==
Unlike previous games, this plays in two scenarios: one for Claire and one for Barry Burton, a former STARS member.

Claire Redfield and Moira Burton, Barry's daughter, are kidnapped by a mysterious figure called "The Overseer", thrown into not-Russia, and infected with the T-Phobos virus, a virus that only triggers with a certain level of fear. The virus itself mutates its host in.....unspecific ways, the only constant is that hosts have an increased level of aggression and their bodies are horribly mutated and seem to grant them some form of immortality as hosts can survive for months without food and severe necrosis. They may or may not retain some form of higher thought. Overall Capcom can't seem to decide on what they want their virus to be and just does whatever's convenient for the plot.

The mysterious figure is later revealed to be Alex Wesker, a survivor of the Wesker children. Claire and Moira must now venture through not-Russia to find a way out. Claire later manages to escape, but Moira is left behind. Whether she survives or not is dependent on the player's single asinine, poorly-explained choice (spoiler: have Moira shoot the Ouroboros-infected boss to get the good ending where Moira lives).

Barry comes in a few months later after learning about the situation from Claire after being rescued and was told his daughter is dead. Unwilling to accept it without confirming it himself, Barry travels to not-Russia to investigate and personally confirm his daughter's fate, all the while surviving the new breed of horrors the T-Phobos virus cooked up over the months. He's aided by Natalia, a young girl who has somehow survived the craziness of the island and sense monsters around her. He eventually finds out about Alex Wesker, and also makes it a priority to ensure the remaining vestige of his old enemy is eliminated once and for all.

Anyways, it's eventually revealed that Wesker was using the T-Phobos virus to achieve immortality, using Natalia as a catalyst. But predictably, something went not-as-planned and she's stuck being a mutated, multi-limbed hag and Barry comes it to settle the score, once and for all.

This game is notable for going back to the genre's survival-horror roots and foreboding dark atmosphere, with some stealth sections thrown in to make the game easier but isn't 100% necessary to do (that said, it does save you a lot of ammo and time, so its recommended). Also comes in with several plot-holes, like how Claire or Moira are dealing with the fact that they might have been rescued, but still suffering from T-Phobos infection, or how Moira has been able stave-off mutation by the T-Phobos virus by being able to stay as calm and collected as Claire, despite having no military background nor experience with a biohazard outbreak (which Claire has survived thrice at this point, games and CGI movie included).

But that isn't an issue since Revelations games do not make any impact to the overall plot of the series.

==Resident Evil 5==
RE5 is... The odd point of the series. This is where Capcom were getting on the "Call of Duty" bandwagon that was growing in the west by making their games more action-oriented, instead of survival horror. A lot of fans were [[skub|divided on this game's new direction]].

For the story, this stars Chris Redfield, whom you would have never recognized due to Capcom designing him as a roid-raging body builder, and Sheva Alomar, which is there as the token black character (we're not kidding, this is the primary reason she's even there). Both of them are members of the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance), an international paramilitary group dedicated to fighting the new wave of bio-terrorism spurred on by the collapse of Umbrella. They're currently in Africa to investigate a potentially large bio-weapons exchange.

This once again features the Las Plagas from the previous game, except it's been refined by a mysterious organization to be more potent. Another is the "Uroboros virus", a new pathogen developed by Wesker himself and covertly funded by another company known as Tricell, led by Excella Gionne, an absurdly seductive Italian woman and not much else. The virus itself is....odd. It turns people into a creature comprised of multiple worm-like organisms that only live to consume more and more biomass to grow, unless they were genetically compatible with the virus, which just grants them superhuman powers.

Wesker plans to spread the Uroboros virus into the stratosphere to infect the entire world, where only a chosen few would rise and those who would be consumed by the virus were deemed unfit to live. This plot is so unbelievably stupid for a [[Tzeentch|cunning sociopath manipulating everyone from the sides for his ambitions]] that even Chris calls him out on it.

Anyway, silliness aside, Chris and Sheva embark on a mission to stop Wesker's plot. Standing between them is the infected population of Africa that have turned into raving lunatics and the new horrors unleashed by the Uroboros virus. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xuXkVzBdJQ Also a giant boulder, which Chris punches into submission], which many fans interpret as either the highest or lowest point of the series that no other event can hope surpass in either spectrum.

==Resident Evil 6==
Resident Evil 6 is an oddball. It's reviled by a big portion of the community, but has a small, dedicated group of fans. It's usually regarded as a stepping stone for the action community and the horror portion of the fanbase to agree to hate; as when compared to the meticulous designed ''4'', and ''5'' campy, but still horror themed romp through Africa, it's considered a big downgrade. However it's wise to acknowledge the game's merits.

If you like character-based action game's, it's not so different in regards to that (hilarious when you consider the fact ''Devil May Cry'', another famous Capcom property started as a ''Resident Evil game'') Resident Evil 6 features a pretty in-depth and polished version of ''4'' gameplay style; a third person perspective with the usual shooting elements, but with the addition of dodges, voluntary (non-knife attack) melee, and enhanced mobility. It can be pretty fun to to mow down zombies, do a dodge roll to avoid attacks, and repeat the process with a few heavy hitting melee strikes. It has a wealth and variety of bonus content too, alongside three main campaigns (with an unlockable fourth) and is considered by many to the most content-rich in the series (though more on that later), with all the various characters controlling and playing differently in a lot of subtle ways. (Like a ''DMC'' game).

However, the fact that it has such a polished combat loop has been ''criticized'' for empowering the player to an absolutely ridiculous degree, and that argument has many merits; enemies can be dispatched with trivial ease, even on higher difficulties, there's no end to ammo drops, and bosses are laughably easy to defeat. Major sins for a Survival Horror franchise. The length of the game has also been eviscerated; it's very, very bloated with the four meaty campaigns to playthrough, many of which are filled to the brim with filler that seems to only exist to artificially pad the game's length. The biggest complaint, however, is in regards to the complete neutering of puzzles, the looping, almost-Metroidvania level design of past game's, and the downplaying of the very ''Survival Horror'' tenets that made the franchise so successful. It really does dampen and even downgrade many of the series aspect besides the combat.

In terms of story; it's pretty fucking out there, turning ''Resident Evil'' into a Japanese Zombie soap opera (though game's like ''0'' and ''5'' already had that element, it's just on display to a huge degree). This shit gets complicated, because it's made up of several threads that intertwine, and you're actually getting only bits and pieces of it as you play the four interlocked campaigns. The basic idea is that there's this big [[Illumina]]ti-esque conspiracy group, referred to as "The Family", who have been pulling the strings behind shit for centuries. With Umbrella gone, they've created a new bio-warfare R&D company, imaginatively called "Neo-Umbrella", to carry on their legacy and be used as a weapon to continue manipulating the world to their advantage.

RE6 revolves around one dickhead member of the Family; the current National Security Advisor of the United States, Derek Simmons. When he gets wind that the current president of the United States wants to come clean about how the US government was in bed with Umbrella and caused the Racoon City incident, he decides that he has to stop this to "preserve stability in the world". The best way to do that? Engineer a zombie apocalypse in the city of Tall Oaks, where the president was going to give a lecture, and hope that the president gets killed in the chaos. That's your A plot.

The B plot revolves around Carla Radames, a former Neo-Umbrella researcher who has been driven mad because Derek Simmons has a sick obsession with Ada Wong, to the point he used Neo-Umbrella's new mutagenic virus, the C-Virus, to mutate Carla into an exact physical replica of Ada so that he could then brainwash her into becoming his lovesick sex slave. For obvious reasons, she snapped, and decided to seek vengeance on Simmons by using Neo-Umbrella to launch a widescale bio-terror assault on the world, with the hopes of basically annihilating humanity so that the Family's legacy will all be for nothing.

Enter our heroes, who are all tugging at various strings in this narrative:
* Leon's campaign involves slogging his way through not one, but two cities in the middle of a massive zombie outbreak. First, he has to escape from Tall Oaks, after having shot the president when he became a zombie after the city was flooded with the C-Virus. The second is a plunge into an infected Chinese city to confront Derek Simmons, whose role in causing the Tall Oaks outbreak he has revealed. He is assisted in this goal by Helena Harper, a member of the secret service blackmailed by Simmons into making the Tall Oaks outbreak happen.
* Chris' campaign chronologically starts the earliest when, as a leading operative in the BSAA, Chris is sent to intervene in a European civil war that is the first unveiling of the new J'avo B.O.Ws, a result of injecting the C-Virus directly into humans. He loses almost his entire squad to the virus. Embittered by the experience, he quits, but is brought back for another J'avo-related terorist incident in China, which ultimately results in him seeking out the Neo-Umbrella lab for revenge, where he stops Carla's ultimate bio-weapon, the terraforming HAOS. His assistant throughout the campaign is his second-in-command Piers Nivans, who gets a surprisingly awesome role in the final battle by replacing his torn-off right arm with a C-virus produced mutant appendage that shoots lightning.
* Sherry's campaign has her all grown up and now a government agent, seeking out the mercenary Jake Mueller, illegitimate son of Albert Wesker, whose unique genetic code may hold the keys to a C-virus antidote, during the events of the same European civil war as Chris. Instead, they get captured by Neo-Umbrella, who seek to use Jake's blood to create a stronger strain of the virus. Fighting out of Neo-Umbrella's prison, they assist both Chris and Jake at different points, and ultimately succeed in Sherry's mission. Throughout, they need to escape from Ustanak, which is basically Nemesis with a cybernetic arm.
* Ada's campaign revolves around her working in the background of everybody else's case, going after Carla Radames and taking her down before assisting Leon with defeating Derek Simmons.

In terms of sales versus reception, it's a double-edged sword. The game sold very well, it was on top of Capcom's best sellers until recently being downgraded by ''Remake 2'', ''7'', and the gargantuan sales monster that is ''Monster Hunter World''. And as mentioned before, ''6'' does have a dedicated following of people who genuinely like it despite it's flaws. However, it was savaged from a critical perspective, and has attracted a large hatedom. If you want a zombie-themed Character-based shooter, with fun coop you can't go wrong. Regardless of what you may think of it, Capcom has admitted they leaned too much on the action-side of things, and a planned sequel in it's likeness was scrapped and cancelled in order to facilitate a return to the old style of ''Resident Evil'', which players would get as a first-person Horror Shooter, ''Resident Evil 7''.

==Resident Evil 7==
Currently the last of the games in chronological order, RE7, subtitled "Biohazard", or Biohazard 7, subtitled "Resident Evil" if you're Japanese, was released in January of 2017. Breaking from the traditions of previous games, it features a complete newcomer to the series: Ethan Winters, a man whose wife Mia was presumably lost at sea on a boating trip 3 years ago. When he receives an email claiming to be from her and telling him to come and get her off of some farm belonging to a family called the Bakers in the backwoods of Louisiana, he immediately rushes off to her rescue. And that's when things go wrong... see, the Bakers, they're like Mia's family. And they're just ''dying'' to welcome somebody new to the clan...

Fighting to survive the psychotic, seemingly immortal hillbillies, Ethan slowly uncovers the truth: it turns out his wife Mia actually worked at one of those evil bio-weapon engineering companies, and when she vanished, she was on an assignment to act as a caretaker to their latest product: a human-based B.O.W with a symbiotic fungal infection, able to both spawn fungus mooks called "Molded" (imaginative, they weren't) and to take over peoples' minds with her spores. Unfortunately, this bio-weapon, who had the personality of a psychotic bitch of a spoiled little girl, broke loose and sunk the ship in a tantrum; when she and Mia washed ashore, they were taken in by the Bakers, and the B.O.W took control of them as her new "family". Eventually, Ethan kills this B.O.W (named "Evelyn) and is rescued by anti-bio-terror operatives led by Chris Redfield.

DLC was subsequently released, with the most important being ''Daughters'' (showing Zoe Baker's attempt to escape Evelyn when she first takes over the Baker estate and its occupants), ''Not A Hero'' (Chris' attempts to hunt down psychopath Lucas Baker directly after Ethan kills Evelyn), and ''End of Zoe'' (showing Zoe's rescue post-RE7 by her uncle Joe Baker, who had been living off in a hut in the swamps and so avoided being infected).

RE7 was, initially, very [[skub]]by, as whilst it promised a hard return to the survival horror in contrast to the more action-horror b-movie feel of the previous numbered games, it did so whilst stating the game would be in a first-person perspective. This idea ''had'' been used before (in fact, it was originally considered for the first Resident Evil, but the Playstation's graphics just couldn't hack it), but only on the Gun Survivor spin-offs, and the Wii-exclusive rail shooters - it was totally new to a main canon game, and many fans were naysaying it as just more of the same mistakes, if in a new direction.

However, when it came out, it swiftly won fans over with a genuinely dank, creepy mansion to explore, and horrific new foes to fight. The only real complaints was that its blend of combat and stealth made it feel a little like Alien: Isolation, and the lack of variety in enemies to fight. Most people don't care, considering it a throwback to all that was good about the 1st game, helped by an awesomely catchy theme song and incredibly quotable enemies who manage to hit that right niche between hilariously narmy and downright fucking spooky, just like the classic Resident Evil.

Seriously, one of your boss-fights involves grabbing a chainsaw and duking it out with a laughing, mutated psycho cannibal hillbilly wielding ''chainsaw-shears''. Who earlier may have hacked off your leg with a common garden shovel for giggles. Batshit insane does ''not'' do this game justice.

Following in the footsteps of [[Silent Hill]], RE7 made use of a playable teaser called the Beginning Hour. Unlike Silent Hills, RE7 actually came to fruition, because Capcom isn't ''quite'' as fucked up as Konami.

Is currently the highest selling game in the franchise and Capcom's second best seller.

Alongside the FPS perspective, RE7 introduced two new mechanics to the series. The first was blocking, allowing Ethan to try and mitigate the damage he'd take from an attack, though one could argue it evolved from RE6's underwhelming "perform a QTE to reduce damage" system. The second and more endearing was ''crafting'', allowing Ethan to create useful things like ammo or medicine by combining various component items scattered throughout the game. Crafting was so well-received that Capcom subsequently ported it into the 2make and 3make.

==Resident Evil 8: Village==
Formally titled ''Resident Evil: Village'', this game released in May 2021, and is already the source of much hype, anticipation and [[skub]].

The game sees the return of Ethan Winters, protagonist of RE7, now having to make his way through a creepy remote village in what is all but stated to be Transylvania in order to rescue his daughter, Rose, who was kidnapped after his wife Mia was assassinated, both seemingly by Chris Redfield. Enemies seen have a [[Gothic Horror]] touch.

The region where Ethan goes is divided between four noble families; ''House Dimitrescue'' (not![[vampire]]s), ''House Beneviento'' (led by Donna, a woman in thick mourning veil and her creepy-ass wedding dress-clad puppet made from human bones, Angie), ''House Moreau'' (led by Salvatore, who is basically a fucking [[Deep One]]) and ''House Heisenburg'' (led by Karl, who looks like a [[Witch Hunter]] carrying a greathammer and is building an army of [[servitor|cyborg-zombies]]). All of whom will have to be defeated.

Lady Alcina Dimitrescu, the evil matriarch of the not!vampires, became an instant [[meme]] because she's basically a 9-and-a-half-foot-tall big titty [[musclegirl]] [[vampire]] milf. No, we're ''not'' making this shit up.

In terms of unique mechanics, RE8 combines RE7's crafting and blocking mechanics with RE4's merchant system, but throws in a few new tweaks as well. When Ethan blocks, he can also counterattack with a melee strike to shove the enemy back. As well as selling you weapons, ammo (the first to do so!) and upgrades, the Duke will also cook Ethan recipes if Ethan brings him the requisite ingredients, which usually entails hunting down the uninfected animals scattered around the map. Each recipe consumed gives Ethan a permanent boost of some kind, like upping how much damage is removed with a block. Even crafting has undergone a tweak; rather than needing to manually select components to build stuff, selecting a single component presents the player with a list of all available crafting recipes based on what components are in the player's inventory, making it a lot quicker to make stuff on the fly.

As for the story... well, '''spoilers'''!

3 years since RE7, Ethan and Mia are trying to move on from their lives and raising a 3 year old daughter, Rosemary Winters. Suddenly, Chris Redfield and a team of agents bursts into the Winters home, where they kill Mia and take Ethan and his daughter captive. Ethan comes to and finds himself stranded in a remote village somewhere in Romania, and sets out to find his daughter. The village is under attack by strange, lupine-looking humans that the surviving locals call "lycans"... well, before they all get wiped out. Escaping from the village, Ethan finds himself captured by the four aristocratic families of the region, who obey and worship somebody called "Mother Miranda" and are all freaks with a connection to the lycans, having been infected with the same mutagenic parasite, which they call "Cadou". They are going to execute Ethan, but he escapes and instead resumes his mission.

He first goes to Castle Dimitrescu, where he must evade both Lady Alcina Dimitrescu and her three "daughters"; [[Worm That Walks|sapient swarms of botflies able to assume human form]]. Although he has to partake in a lethal game of hide and seek for much of his explorations, he discovers that the daughters are vulnerable to the cold and manages to kill them. He then discovers his daughter's head in a jar before he has to throw down with Lady Dimitrescu, who transforms into a [[dragon]]-thing to try and kill him. During the fight, she reveals the other families have the other portions of Rose's body, and implies she can be made to live again if all of them are assembled.

So Ethan goes hunting. In Donna Beneviento's place, the gameplay switches to an [[Amnesia]] clone as he has to maneuver her creepy ass home in what may partially be an extended hallucination before he finally gets his gear back and kills her. Then it's off to Salvatore Moreau's reservoir, where he drains the lake and kills the giant mutant fish-frog-thing. Finally, he goes after Karl Heisenburg, who is building an army of [[cyborg]]-[[zombie]]s and uses his telekinetic powers to turn into what is basically a ''giant robot'' to kill Ethan, with Ethan defeating him by commandeering a ''tank''.

Ethan also learns the dark truth as to what the fuck all of this is about: turns out he actually ''died'' when he first ran into Jack back into Dulvey, and has in fact been basically a Molded in human form without realizing it these past three years. This means his daughter Rosemary is also infested with mutamycete, symbiotically merged with it in a way that basically makes her Eveline 2.0. Mother Miranda is a centuries old psycho who discovered some kind of parasitic fungus, the Cadou, or "megamycete", deep below the earth in this part of the world, and used it to become immortal. Desperate to somehow utilize it to revive her dead daughter, Mother Miranda founded the local cult and began experimenting with the Cadou. She wants Rosemary because Rosemary's unique qualities mean she may be the perfect avatar with which to revive her own daughter's consciousness. Oh, and also Mother Miranda is basically the one truly responsible for founding Umbrella, as she met Oswell Spencer before his trip to Africa and he learned that mutagenic agents that can give people immortality and superpowers were a thing because of that encounter, which is what compelled him to go to Africa and seek out the Progenitor Virus, ultimately giving rise to Umbrella and everything that went horribly wrong from that point.

By this point, Ethan's body is basically falling apart; he's pushed the regenerative properties of his own mutamycete infection beyond its limits and is going to decay. So if he decides that if he's going to go out, he's going to go out like a badass; he goes in to Mother Miranda's lair, kills her, and sets off a nuclear explosive to wipe out the Cadou once and for all. Oh, and Mia's not dead, turns out that Mother Miranda basically kidnapped her and took her place before the start of the game, which is why Chris attacked Ethan's household, and Rosemary gets brought back to life and grows up to be a fungus-powered superhuman anti-bioterror agent.

==Resident Evil: Outbreak 1 and File#2 ==
Two short-lived co-op games for the PS2 about groups of civilians who banded together in the midst of the T-virus outbreak in Raccoon city and figure out a way to escape. It plays much like the old games, but with a deeper emphasis on survival horror due to the lower amount of resources available in each game, and the ability to be actually infected by the T-virus and zombify after sustaining damage.

The series never really took off significantly, so Capcom abandoned the 4 player co-op concept, and the Outbreak series altogether.

==Resident Evil Survivor==
The last RE game of the PS1 era and largely remembered as one of the worst of the franchise (being recently overtaken by Capcom's attempt at a godawful RE multiplayer game).

Unlike other games, Survivor is played in a first-person view, but still uses the tank controls of previous RE games. It was meant to be played with a light gun, but due to the US' political climate at the time(this was right after the Columbine shootings), the light gun feature was removed and you now aim a nondescript crosshair with your controller. Additionally, the survival horror tension of the previous game is largely removed due to having unlimited ammo for your handgun, ensuring you can just blast away to your heart's content.

For the game's story, you're transported into not-Europe on an island named "Sheena Island", which houses a secret Umbrella lab and unnamed city. The protag is Ark Thompson, an investigator hired by Leon Kennedy, but gets amnesia and think he's Vincent Goldman, the big-bad of the island. Vincent is the reason for the T-virus outbreak on the island, largely because he's a maniacal dick (we're not kidding, he did it to spite the people he thinks are trying to oust him). Now, Ark wanders around with a gun in hand, thinking he's Vincent, and attempt to uncover the truth about him and the island's outbreak.

Needless to say, the combination of bad game mechanics and story-telling unanimously roped it into being considered as the first black mark of the Resident Evil series. Its so bad that nobody in-universe even acknowledges Survivor happened, no references of it in files or conversations. Hell, even Leon doesn't talk about it. The only thing that keeps it from being officially non-canon is that "Sheena Island" is mentioned in the list of T-Virus outbreaks during the prologue cinematic for RE0.

==Resident Evil Survivor 2: Code Veronica==
A "sequel" to the Survivor series that uses Code Veronica as a setting. This is basically a quicker re-telling of the story, but in first-person and there's a model for the gun and characters now, so it plays like a traditional-ish FPS. There's still nothing really "survivor-ish" about it as it largely plays out like an arcade game, complete with infinite ammo for your handgun.

Also the entire game was a dream by Claire, so this is even more pointless than the prequel. It only escapes the negative attention due to how obscure it is.

==Resident Evil Dead Aim==
Officially part of and the last of the Survivor series. Dead Aim tried to mix things up by combining third and first-person playstyles. While walking around, you're in an over-the-shoulder view, but you'll change into first person when you're aiming your weapon, and can also be used with a light gun. The concept was novel, but it overall didn't really do anything revolutionary, so RE:DA ended up as one successful but forgettable game in Capcom's repertoire.

For the story, it has protagonist Bruce McGivern, a gung-ho US secret agent being sent in to investigate the Umbrella-owned ship: Spencer Rain. The ship was infected with the T-virus by a rogue Umbrella scientist named Morpheus Duvall, a [[Slaanesh|beauty-obsessed perfectionist]], who wanted to bomb the world with the T-virus to re-create it in his own image, unless he was paid 5 billion US Dollars (which he just did for shits and giggles as he was going to go through it anyway). At the same time, a by-the-book Chinese secret service agent named Fong Ling also infiltrates the ship with the same mission. With their goals aligning and stuck on a murderboat filled with undead, flesh-eating mutants, Bruce and Ling form a tenuous alliance to brave the horrors of the Spencer Rain and bring down Dr. Duvall to save the world from his harebrained scheme.

Predictably, an operation involving two secret agents from two opposing nations, working together despite having two completely polarizing personalities to bring down a hedonistic prettyboy attempting to usher in the apocalypse, does not go as planned.

==Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles==
RE:UC is a different take on the series. It was originally exclusive for the Nintendo Wii, later being ported onto the PS3, and its an on-rails arcade shooter of varying quality.

While gameplay is limited (and the gunplay is kinda finicky at best), its more of a platform for Capcom to expand further into the story, without actually investing on too many resources to do so (huehue). Along with some pre-existing storylines, namely RE3 and RE1 (that were condensed and ranges from kinda-canon to "how the fuck did you cram 3 hours of gameplay into a 20-minute hallway and expect it to be good"), it also explores the stories of some of the side characters, such as:

* What Wesker did during his time in the Arklay mansion and how he escaped
* Ada's escape from Raccoon City and how she extracted the G-virus
* How Wesker rose to power during Umbrella's twilight days

It does have a unique plot, however, and tells the story of Jill and Chris' operation in Russia to permanently shut down the last of Umbrella's labs. Other than that, there's not really much to talk about. It's pretty forgettable in the long run.

==Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles==
RE:DC is a sequel to Umbrella Chronicles, and its still an on-rails arcade shooter.

Gameplay remains the same, albeit with some graphical enhancements, but decides to focus more on story quality, than quantity. It only features two previous stories now: RE2 and RE:CV, all of which are still condensed, but follow the major events more closely so that it genuinely feels like a decent re-telling of the previous games.

It does however, feature one unique story: Operation Javier, an top-secret US military op involving Leon Kennedy and Jack Krauser. It has them going deep into not-Latin America to stop a drug cartel called the "Sacred Snakes", which is led by Javier Hidalgo. The Snakes attracted the world's attention after Javier began employing BOWs to bolster his forces, and led to a localized T-virus outbreak that forced the US' hand to send in a covert team to stop Javier before he unleashes another Raccoon city incident. On the way, they meet a mysterious girl named Manuela, who escaped from Javier's compound. Now, the three of them venture through the infested jungle to put an end to Javier's schemes for the sake of the world.

While it wasn't explored when he was first introduced, Krauser was shown to be a bro-tier tactical muscle head who supported Leon every step of the way throughout the operation. He was only embittered after suffering a crippling injury during the operation that forced him out of the military. [[Avitus|Living only for constant conflict, Krauser sought a way for him to get back into the action, which led to him being employed by Saddler during the events of RE4 and turned into a traitor and monster]], and the rest is history.

==Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City==

Another ''very'' strange spin-off, Capcom had the wonderful idea of trying to make a SOCOM (Special Forces themed, "tactical" shooters that went the way of the Dinosaur) themed ''Resident Evil'' game and even employed the series creators into doing so. Even compared to the divisive games in the series, not many people like Operation Raccoon City, which goes to show how boringly average it is, there's not much [[Skub]] to it, it's just considered a very, very mediocre shooter with a Resident Evil skin. It's a non-canon "What If?" game; depicting the events of fall of Raccoon City from the perspective of the bad guys, the USS (and there's another campaign in which you play as United State Special Forces). It can be considered a loose adaption of ''Resident Evil 2'' and ''Resident Evil 3'', as it features many of the same events and characters. Not else much to say, but the Wolf-Pack, the game's villain protagonists, are more well-liked then the actual game itself.

If you want a straight up "Zombie" shooter, even moreso then ''5'' and ''6'', or your a fan of SOCOM, it may be worth a look, but go in the pretty low expectations and try to play it with your friends in CO-OP (as every game is better with friends...).

==Resident Evil: Umbrella Corps==
Capcom's attempt at a competitive multiplayer game and what can be described as the poster child of them milking the franchise dry, until it's reboot with RE7. Its widely considered by the fanbase to be the current worst of the series, stealing the trophy from Survivor who held the title for 16 years. How bad is it you may ask? It died on release day, it didn't even have a chance to crash and burn: it just burned out of the gate.

There's no story for the single-player campaign (that was basically a pointless collectathon), AI is worse than that of ORC, gunfighting feels awkward, you can't even play the central multiplayer function since nobody bothered to play it online (''even during release day''), and is overall just a bad game in all regards. About the only good things you can say about it is that it visually looks alright (and even that's debatable thanks to the wonky character animations) and the customization options for guns and characters are okay.

==Movies==
Yeah, there are movies.

The first was a set of live-action films, but like pretty much all attempts at a live-action adaptation of a videogame, they fucking sucked like all shit. These are the atrocities that unleashed [[Alice]] upon the world, specifically so that director Paul W.S. Anderson could show off how awesome his wife Milla Jovovich is. [[wat|No, really]]. And despite the shit quality, the series remains one of the top-grossing film series of all time based on a video game. For these crimes (detailed on her page linked above), they shall never be forgiven.

Mercifully, Capcom got off their asses and have given us some '''real''' Resident Evil movies; three so far, they are all fully animated CGI affairs that are actually set in the actual universe of Resident Evil and use regular characters.

''Degeneration'', the first film, brings back fan-favorite characters Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy. Set between ''Code Veronica'' and ''4'', it involves their efforts to stop an attempt by a madman to unleash the deadly G-virus and T-virus upon America.

''Damnation'' is a post-''4'' Leon fest involving Leon fighting ganados and lickers in some made-up Eastern European country.

''Vendetta'' is a London has fallen ripoff about Chris and Leon fighting a weapons dealer who got his hands on some Umbrella leftovers. Notable for some impressive John Wick-style gun battles and for finally bringing back Rebecca Chambers. Also notable for breaking the RE canon on par with the movies, the only saving grace for it is the non-stop, dickflick-tier action and them properly using the game's cast.

''4D-Executer'' is the very early CGI movie in the Resident Evil franchise and most disturbing one to boot. The plot of this 19 minute-long movie is centered around a group of mercenaries coming to Raccoon City, before being wiped out, in order to find a scientist and her data on a new viral form. Everything goes south when they are attacked by a unknown B.O.W., defeat it, only to realize that the darn monstrosity has a truly scary ability...not to mention the plot twist will horrify you.

==Man-Made Pestilence==
The basic core of the RE universe is the idea of infectious agents - traditionally viruses, but the series has experimented (no pun intended) with other vectors - that can twist living creatures into unnatural monsters. So let's try and break down the major mutagens of the series, shall we?

'''Progenitor Virus:''' The original, in more ways than one. This mutagenic virus was native only to a small cave system in West Africa, and was literally the birth of the Umbrella corporation. Compatible hosts typically become stronger, tougher, and, in animals at least, much larger. Incompatible hosts end up dead. Largely considered to be rather weak as a B.O.W producing agent; supplanted by its successor, the T-Virus.
* '''T-Virus:''' The result of combining Progenitor Virus and Leech DNA, this was the creation of Dr. James Marcus. Much more virulent and with more powerful mutagenic properties than its predecessor; it even allows for the successful fusion of genes across species, allowing for the creation of the Hunter line and the experimental Chimera B.O.W. One disadvantage is that it introduces uncontrollable necrosis (rotting flesh). Humans exposed to the T-Virus become the iconic zombies. This was the mainstay of Umbrella's research going forward.
* '''T-Veronica Virus:''' A fusion between the T-Virus and an ancient virus that Alexia Ashford discovered inside of a fossilized queen ant. Much more potent than the regular T-Virus. Infectees often display arthropod or even plant-like traits. Prolonged exposure to the virus without being overcome by it - say, through cryogenic suspension or a prolonged regime of organ transplants - causes it to become symbiotic with the host, granting them superhuman abilities.
* '''T+G Virus:''' An experiment in fusing the T-virus and G-virus that didn't exactly work out. Most notorious for turning a male victim into a female(?) Tyrant-like creature. One that could shoot lightning, no less.
* '''T-Abyss Virus:''' A fusion between the T-Virus and an unnamed virus discovered in a deep sea fish. Highly mutagenic; bestows increased aquatic affinity in infectees. Seems to be especially compatible with sea life.
* '''T-Phobos Virus:''' Experiments with the T-Virus had suggested that there was a psychoreactive component to the virus - that is, the mutations were literally shaped by the subconscious mind of the host. T-Phobos is the product of experimentation and research into that aspect, creating a mutagenic virus that will affect you if you become too scared.

'''NE-Alpha Parasite:''' An unknown macro-parasite engineered by the French branch of Umbrella, intended to grant greater control over (and durability to) B.O.W hosts by serving as a surrogate brain. Nobody knows ''how'' they cooked this up, but a popular theory is that it's an artificial recreation of Las Plagas.

'''G-Virus:''' A bizarre virus refined from an unnamed strain discovered in the body of Lisa Trevor after an attempt to infect her with the NE-Alpha Parasite failed. Incredibly mutagenic, granting the host constant bodily evolution and high regenerative abilities, but not terribly virulent. In fact, it's ''too'' mutagenic, [[Chaos Spawn|devolving the hosts into squamous masses of malformed meat]] once they experience enough trauma.

'''Uroboros Virus:''' Wesker's ultimate genocidal virus. If, on the literally millions to one chance you're compatible with it, you'll gain superpowers. Otherwise, you just end up as a mass of slimy black flesh-eating worms.

'''C-Virus:''' A super-virus cooked up by Neo-Umbrella, intended to be superior to the T-Virus and G-Virus. Direct injection turns victims into J'avo; aerial infection turns them into C-Viral Zombies.

'''Las Plagas:''' A macroparasite discovered somewhere in remote Spain. Although buried for centuries, it was dug up by a cult that worshipped it; "Los Illuminados". Whilst it has some mutagenic properties, mostly it acts to turn hosts into pack-hunting neo-zombies. This makes the hosts unusually tanky compared to "standard" zombies, as when the host is injured, the plaga may burst out of them to continue fighting - luckily, they can't stand UV light, so a simple flash grenade will kill them. Infection is also notably slow compared to Umbrella's viruses, requiring the injection of plaga eggs and taking about a day or so for the plaga to hatch, mature, and seize control. RE5 introduced the genetically engineered Type-2 Plaga, which reproduces more quickly and can directly infect hosts by having an infectee spit up a larval plaga and shove it in a victim's mouth. It also introduced the Type-3 Plaga, an attempt to create an even more virulent strain that turned out to make its hosts even crazier than regular plagas, and was also [[Female Space Marines|lethally genetically incompatible with female hosts]].

'''Mutamycete:''' Aka "The Mold". Symbiotic fungus bio-weapon linked with the B.O.W E-001, aka "Eveline", who can generate humanoid servitors out of fungal strands and control the minds of anyone infected with the fungus. RE8 reveals it's actually a derivative of a naturally occurring parasitic mold with [[psionics|mind-absorbing capabilities]] referred to as the '''Megamycete'''.

'''Cadou:''' A macroparasite derived from infecting a parasitic nematode with Megamycete, created by Mother Miranda as part of her efforts to revive her daughter. Responsible for the Lycans, the four houses, and the other monstrosities faced during the events of Resident Evil 8. Exactly whether the victim becomes a neo-[[Vampire]] in the style of Lady 'Step on me Harder' Dimitrescu or devolves into a not-[[Werewolf]] appears to be down to genetic factors.

==Bio-Organic Weapons & Irregular Mutations==
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And what's the point of a Resident Evil page that doesn't give you at least a basic rundown of the extensive series bestiary? In-universe, the terms "Bio-Organic Weapon" (B.O.W) refers to any creature that was specifically created as at least an experiment in engineering a living weapon/super soldier, whilst "Irregular Mutation" refers to critters that just popped up on their own when the latest virus was spilled. The distinctions are kind of interchangeable as a result; infected animals, for example, can be considered both B.O.W (when created deliberately) and mutation (when produced by accident), despite being identical in all other details.

'''Zombies:''' These are the most basic enemy in the game, and actually straddle the line between B.O.W and irregular mutation; the zombifying element of the T-Virus ''was'' an intended by-product, but usually when you encounter zombies, they're the result of an accident leak rather than a deliberate B.O.W strike. Zombies are only produced by the T-Virus, although some T-derivatives have equivalent creatures. They're your fairly basic shamblers; they're slow, mindless, rotbags. Shoot them enough, and they'll go down. They can be killed with enough trauma in general, but headshots put them down much more efficiently.
* ''Crimson Head:'' Only seen in the 2002 REmake of RE1, Crimson Heads are zombies that have been subjected to massive trauma, but which had their bodies left relatively intact (ie: you didn't kneecap them, blow their heads off, or burn them). As a result, the T-Virus kicks in and mutates them into a faster-moving, more aggressive form distinguished by its blood-infused crimson skin and its elongated claws.
* ''Green Zombie:'' Introduced in Outbreak: File 2, Green Zombies have been infested by a parasitic T-virus-infected plant. This causes flowers to grow from their heads which spew toxic pollen at potential prey.
* ''C Zombie:'' Zombie created from exposure to the C-Virus. Slightly smarter (enough to swing objects as clubs) and faster, but also more fragile than their T-Virus counterparts.
* ''Ivy Zombie:'' Only appears in the RE2make. Corpse infested by parasitic seedlings of mutant Plant 43. Can be stunned temporarily by destroying large yellow growths on body, but can only be killed by burning them.
* ''Ooze:'' The zombies created by exposure to T-Abyss; these horrors are drastically more mutated than standard zombies, and have the ability to squeeze through surprisingly narrow spaces. Rather than flesh-eaters, they're blood-drinkers, seeking to suck victims dry of bodily fluids via hideous leech-like tongues.
* ''Afflicted:'' The result of experiments with the T-Phobos virus, the Afflicted are less "zombies" and more "hideously mutilated homicidally insane lunatics driven crazy with pain and fear". Thus, they act a lot like Ganados or Majini. If they die, they can come back as more standard zombie-like creatures referred to as ''The Rotten''.

'''Tyrants:''' The ultimate super-soldier product ''intended'' to be created with the T-Virus, but very few people are sufficiently genetically compatible. Generally resemble tall, hulking humanoids with impossibly solid musculature and oversized claws, although it depends a ''lot'' on the specific model.
* ''T-001:'' The Prototype Tyrant, the very first ever produced and thus the most visibly flawed. One hand has partially begun transforming into the trademark claw. Spinal cord has been exposed by necrosis, resulting in considerably higher vulnerability compared to later Tyrants - this is the only Tyrant to have ever been taken down completely with small arms fire.
* ''T-002:'' The Test-Type Tyrant, more successful than its T-001 predecessor, though still horribly mutilated. This was the Tyrant seen in Resident Evil 1, so it's arguably the most iconic Tyrant of them all, at least for the older fans. It's tough enough that it requires anti-tank ordinance to destroy.
* ''T-103:'' The Production Model Tyrant, aka "Mr. X". This is the one introduced in RE2 and which was the base model for all of the other official Tyrants seen in subsequent games, so to slightly younger fans, ''this'' is probably the most iconic Tyrant.
* ''Nemesis:'' A T-103 infected with the NE-Alpha Parasite for use as a super-powered assassin. Even smarter and more dangerous than the vanilla T-103.
* ''Ivan:'' A more advanced T-103 sub-model specifically engineered to pass as human, created for use as bodyguards.
* ''Tyrant-Armored Lethal Organic System:'' One of the recurring problems with the Tyrant model was that they were pretty rubbish against enemy vehicles, especially aircraft. So, they decided the only sane and rational thing to do was take a Tyrant, hook it up to a mind-controlling super-computer, stuff it into a suit of [[Powered Armor]], and give it a rapid-fire multiple rocket launcher outfitted with heat-seeking missiles. Absolutely none of this is made up. The T-A.L.O.S only appears in the rail shooter "The Umbrella Chronicles".
* ''Bandersnatch:'' A failed attempt to create a cheaper alternative to the Tyrant, characterized by its only possessing a single arm, which is basically a giant claw on a tentacle, so they can reach out and kill you from a gunshot length away. Except that Bandersnatches, unlike Tyrants, often hunt in pairs or trios...

'''Hunters:''' Human/reptile genetic fusions made possible through the T-Virus, created as living weapons. Incredibly intelligent, almost human-like, these predators possess thick armor-like scaly hides, razor-sharp claws, and powerful muscles.
* ''Alpha:'' The original Hunter model, and the most famous, debuting in the original Resident Evil 1. They're generally considered, in-universe and out, to be Umbrella's most successful B.O.W line.
* ''Beta:'' Appearing in RE3, Betas were a failed attempt to improve on the Alpha, resulting in a stronger and tougher, but slower, almost blind creature covered in hideous tumors. Whilst non-Gamma Hunters do appear in the RE3make, fans are split on if they're supposed to be Alphas or redesigned Betas.
* ''Gamma:'' An attempt to fuse human genes into a frog, as opposed to adding lizard DNA to a human embryo. Gammas were regarded as a failure because they remained moisture dependent; like their froggy cousins, they die if they get too dry. They debuted in the original RE3, and were given an incredibly effective redesign in the RE3make that clearly builds on what came before.
* ''Sweeper:'' A Hunter with venomous claw attacks.
* ''Farfarello:'' A Hunter infected with T-Abyss, which makes it amphibious(?) and somehow able to turn invisible for short periods of time.

'''Zombie Animals:''' Any animal infected with the T-Virus becomes an insanely aggressive carnivore, typically sporting necrosis in a similar manner to a zombie. A significant minority of infected animals also grow to unnatural sizes, a lingering remnant of the Progenitor virus. Some of the more iconic critters that have shown up in the series are zombie dogs, zombie crows, and giant zombie spiders, which can range from "the size of a really big dog" (common enemies) to "bigger than a car" (bosses). The list of one-off giant bosses is incredibly long and takes up a major part of the series' bestiary, including but not limited to: giant zombie snakes, giant zombie sharks, giant zombie scorpions, giant zombie centipedes, and a zombie elephant.

'''Mutant Leeches:''' It's telling the kind of games that the RE series are that ''three'' different forms of mutant leeches have shown up over the series.
* ''Marcus Leeches:'' The original mutant leeches, these are leeches infected with Progenitor Virus who subsequently incubated inside the decaying corpse of their creator. They are hive-minded predators, more than capable of killing enemies in a swarm of horrific sluggy bodies with giant toothy mouths in their underbellies, but their preferred tactic is to twist themselves into a repulsive mockery of a humanoid form that eats bullets and can beat a man to death with a few blows of their elongated whip-like arms. Oh, and if critically injured, they ''explode'' like acid-stuffed grenades. Kill it with fire.
* ''Leech Man:'' Another swarm-hunting strain of infected leeches, this one appeared in Resident Evil: Outbreak. What distinguishes them from Marcus Leeches is that they can parasitize the corpses of those they kill and use them as ridiculously tanky [[zombie]]s to take on prey. Once again, kill it with fire.
* ''Giant Leeches:'' These are just leeches grown to the size of a good-sized car. Resident Evil: Outbreak features them in the sewers.

'''Licker:''' One of the most iconic monsters to appear in Resident Evil 2, lickers resemble flayed humans twisted into quadrupedal predators, with removed skullcaps exposing their brains, giant claws for hands and feet, mouths full of oversized fangs, and their iconic elongated tongues, which can cut and stab like whip-swords. For the longest time, nobody was sure if they were some kind of mutant abomination, or if they were a B.O.W experiment; Capcom finally declared that zombies which are particularly compatible with the T-Virus will ultimately evolve into lickers. One of the things the RE2make has justifiably earned praise for is its efforts to capture the intimidating nature of lickers on next-gen graphical hardware; they are ''creepy'' sons of bitches.

'''Ivy:''' During the original Mansion Incident, the S.T.A.R.S survivors fought "Plant 42", a common houseplant in the bunkhouse that had mutated into a giant man-eater after its roots were exposed to T-Virus-laced water. Apparently, news on this got back to Umbrella, so they tried to weaponize it; officially called "Plant 43s", Ivys are carnivorous plants injected with a cocktail of the T-Virus and human DNA, resulting in humanoid killer plants that can actively hunt you down. They're slow, but they are ''tough''.

'''Ganados & Majini:''' The Zombie equivalents for Resident Evils 4 and 5 respectively, the result of infecting humans with Las Plagas. They have a zombie-like durability and fearlessness, but still retain enough human intelligence to use at least simple weapons and basic tactics, making fighting them much more unpredictable. Both varieties will use different weapons depending on the area where you encounter them, and can spawn secondary Plaga-based enemies to fight which, again, largely depends on the area where you encounter them.

'''Regeneradors:''' An experiment in creating the Las Plagas equivalent of a Tyrant. As their name implies (it's Spanish for "Regenerator"), Regeneradors constantly regrow severed limbs and heal gaping wounds in rapid time. The only way to easily kill them is to use a sniper rifle outfitted with a thermal scope to deliver accurate shots to the multiple engineered Plagas infesting their bodies which give them this ability. A variant called the ''Iron Maiden'' bristles with spikes that it extends from its body, preferring to impale its victims on these spikes as opposed to simply ripping them apart with its gaping maw filled with jagged fangs like the standard Regenerador. Considered by many to be the only true contender against the Licker for position of "most creepy enemy in Resident Evil".

'''J'Avo:''' Infected by injection with the C-Virus, J'avo are the Ganado/Majini replacement for RE6. Aside from being smarter than Ganados, at least to the point they can all wield guns, the main trick up a J'avo's sleeve is that it can mutate in response to injury. Most commonly, this results in the bodypart you've been shooting morphing into a random form - a torso may develop armor plating or swell up into a living bomb, an arm may be become a shield, a grappling tentacle or a giant sickle claw, stuff like that. Sometimes, though, the J'avo will undergo a "Complete Mutation" and transform into an entirely inhuman monster.

'''Lycans:''' The new default enemy for RE8, the Lycans are bestial, hair-covered humanoids with vaguely wolflike features (more Universal Films' Wolfman than the classic pseudo-[[furry]] [[werewolf]]). They function most similarly to Ganados or Majini, being surprisingly fast and agile as well as using basic tactics to coordinate against Ethan. Though they happily wield weapons, they're equally happy to just attack with their fangs and claws. Infected with a parasite called "Cadou", they can spread it through wounds, and the fact Ethan never gets infected actually turns into a plot point. There's some variant lycans, including lycans in crude armor that needs to be blown apart to make them vulnerable, and two Lycan mini-bosses; the brothers Uriaș and his big brother Uriaș Străjer.

'''Moroaicǎ:''' Shambling [[zombie]]-like creatures found in Castle Dimitrescu, the Cadou-reanimated victims of Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters. Similar to the C-Zombies, they clumsily wield melee weapons, but also try to grab Ethan and rip his throat out with their teeth. They have a winged variant called the Samcă.

'''Soldat:''' Special creations of Karl Heisenburg, the Soldat are Cadou zombies augmented with cybernetic implants, and come in varying degrees of [[cyborg]], to the point that the most powerful, the ''Panzer'', basically just looks like a killer robot.

One peculiar thing about Resident Evil's menagerie of horrors is that you rarely see female enemies. Female bosses, sure, but female mooks? Only RE2, RE3 and RE6 have female zombies. In RE4 and RE5, only the initial "Village" section of the game features female plaga hosts. In Revelations, female victims of T-Abyss become "sea creepers", which are only seen in the flooded areas and far outnumbered by the standard "ooze" enemies... although, in fairness, oozes are so mutated it's anybody's guess what they were beforehand, although you still fight a recognizably female ooze as a boss. RE8 also gives us what is implied to be an entirely female "mook" creature in the Moroaicǎ, although they don't really look like women any more.

==/tg/ Stuff==
You can find material for running RE games under [[All Flesh Must Be Eaten]] here: http://thegraveyard.xtreemhost.com/resievilselect.html?ckattempt=1

[[User:QuietBrowser|This loser here]] has a half-completed attempt at creating a splatbook for running RE games under the 2nd edition New [[World of Darkness]] rules, in the form of [[Resident Evil: Chronicles of Darkness]].

[[Category: Video Games]]

Resident Evil

2021-06-25T01:29:28Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:487A:F101:E4E9:B860: /* Movies */

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[[File:Resident-evil-social-media-logo-tease.jpg|800px|center|thumb|Enter the world of Survival Horror...]]
'''Resident Evil''', known as '''Biohazard''' in Japan, is a series of zombie-focused Survival Horror games (the first big-name franchise of that type, and the first to make the genre at all "mainstream") produced by Capcom from the mid-1990s on. Its longtime rival is [[Silent Hill]] and it spawned a short-lived (three games) rival/spin-off, [[Dino Crisis]], which was basically "Resident Evil on an island with timetraveling dinosaurs instead of bio-engineered zombies!"

As might be guessed, the basic plotline of Resident Evil is simple: the pharmaceutical megacorporation Umbrella has its fingers in some very sticky pies, namely secret divisions working on genetically tailoring viruses and mutant monsters to make illicit millions in the bio-weaponry underground. Naturally, these things keep getting out of their control, and a bunch of innocent schmucks need to try and survive in the resultant monster-filled hellholes. Add in lots of creepy background lore, apocalyptic logs, bizarre traps and puzzles, and enjoy yourself some fun.

Though a video game series, Resident Evil is a perfect source of inspiration and ideas for a DM of [[D20 Modern]], especially if the game being run is at all focused on horror or intrigue. Indeed, Resident Evil 1 has been likened to a horror-themed dungeon crawl in a modern environment. Naturally, the game series would mesh perfectly with [[All Flesh Must Be Eaten]], but since there's no official writeups, that requires a lot of ZM setup.

==Survival Horror vs. Action Horror==
Whilst it actually named the genre of "Survival Horror", Resident Evil has always had a somewhat... complicated relationship with it, though of course don't expect [[/v/]] to acknowledge that. In contrast to the "dread-fueled walking simulators" of the more iconic Survival Horror games like [[Amnesia: The Dark Descent]], Resident Evil has always been almost as much about being an action game as much as a horror game. Lest we forget; even in the very first game, whilst you're stalking warily through the halls of a monster-infested mansion, you're also doing so with a shotgun and grenade launcher at your hip, and your boss fights center around your ability to blow them into bloody chunks of goo.

Things only got more actiony as the series progressed. As early as the original RE2, once you got past the chokepoint of the zombie-infested streets, ammunition became so plentiful (especially if you learned where the hidden ammo stashes were) that you could kill ''every single thing that moves'' and still have ammo to burn by the end of the game. This wasn't helped by the fact that later games continued to bring back the same characters, who by the laws of decent storytelling became increasingly jaded to the whole "virus spill and evil corporation producing monster super-soldiers" shit since, y'know, they'd seen it all before.

The split between Survival and Action Horror is the biggest [[skub]] element of RE, so if you're going to play a tabletop game set in the universe, it's probably best to get a Session 0 done so you can get everybody on the same page as to what kind of RE game you'll be playiong.

==Camp==
From the get-go, Resident Evil has had its roots in 80s b-movies, and that applies to both its horror and its action elements. It may make you laugh, it may make you groan, but a certain bit of silliness has always been an inherent part of the series, in contrast to the po-faced psychological horror of [[Silent Hill]]. As with the Survival Horror to Action Horror ratio, when gaming Resident Evil with your players, try and get everybody on the same table as to how campy you want the campaign to be.

==Resident Evil 1==
This is where it all begins. An elite force of police officers, known as the Special Tactics And Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S for short - see! Clever!) are sent into the Arklay Mountains in response to gruesomely violent attacks on hikers and campers in the area. Bravo Team goes first, then vanishes. Several hours later, Alpha Team goes to investigate and find their missing comrades. They are attacked by a pack of diseased, decaying, bloodthirsty dobermans, and their chickenshit pilot promptly flies off in terror. The survivors flee for a mysterious mansion, only to find it crawling with zombies and other engineered freaks. As either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, you need to explore the mansion and find a way to safely escape. In your efforts, you discover that the mansion had been a secret research facility for the pharmaceutical megacorp "Umbrella", where illegal experiments into engineering viral weapons and super-soldiers had gone horribly wrong. At the game's climax, you must defeat Umbrella's ultimate Bio-Organic Weapon, the Tyrant, and escape the mansion's self-destruct system.

Gamers had never seen anything like it before. Resident Evil 1 was a ''smash'' hit. And thus a series was born...

The original version of this game is also famous for its hilariously bad voice acting, with narmy dialogue and actors who clearly don't know how to properly emote, to the point where some people were disappointed with it getting fixed in the remake. In fact, amazingly, the game was actually created IN English by Capcom, and then dubbed in Japanese for their local market!

The original Resident Evil is already an experiment in telling variable stories; whilst the plot remains identical in the broad terms, as do the puzzles and areas, your different characters have different strengths and weaknesses, and they interact with different side characters. Jill is faster, has a bigger inventory space, gets access to the shotgun quicker, can pick locks (thus freeing up ''more'' inventory space over the long run) and gets exclusive access to the grenade launcher, the best "common" weapon in the game - in fact, she's ''literally'' designated as the Easy Mode character in the Japanese version. Her side character is Barry Burton, hilarious fountain of [[meme]]s and a skilled asskicker in his own right. In contrast, Chris gets... more health. And that's it. His side character is Rebecca Chambers, Capcom's attempt at a moe waifubait nurse. Sadly, it also introduced the series' first ever plothole: canonically, all four characters are supposed to have survived the Mansion Incident... but, in-game, you'll ever encounter the secondary ''protagonist'' character locked up in a cell in the final lab, with their supporting character never to be seen, making it impossible for all four to have survived in any actual playthrough.

This game got ported and remade a ''lot'', but the most noteworthy version is the Director's Cut, which restores things cut from the American release, uncensors the game, and adds a few new gimmicky modes. This would later give rise to the infamous ''Dual Shock Version'', a variant of the Director's Cut which replaces the soundtrack with a completely new score best described as "choir of farting trumpets".

===Resident Evil REMake===
In the early 2000s, Capcom signed a deal with Nintendo, and brought Resident Evil to the Nintendo Gamecube. One of their first efforts was this game, a remade version of the original game with many new changes; tweaked puzzles, expanded environments, better dialogue, smoother graphics and a reworked story. Unlike earlier platform ports and reshuffles, this game was a total retcon, and is the "official" prelude to the game series. Initially released for the Nintendo Gamecube, it was subsequently ported to PC and PS4.

The biggest change to the story was the introduction of the Lisa Trevor subplot. This was the daughter of George Trevor, the architect who designed the mansion, whose whole family was kidnapped by Umbrella and used as test subjects for early strains of the Progenitor and/or T-Virus. His wife and one of his daughters died, but little Lisa survived, transforming into an insane, brutally strong mutant with an absurd healing factor - she survived everything that the researchers threw at her, even Ebola. In fact, they ultimately tried out the Nemesis-Alpha parasite on her, and she ''ate it''; the foundation for the G-Virus was cultivated from her cells when they were testing her to see what had happened. Ultimately, they tried to kill her... but they couldn't. They even shot her with an ''anti-tank rocket'', and she just got back up. So, when Chris and Jill arrive, they end up having to evade her in the wilderness surrounding the mansion and the tunnels beneath, until they finally get rid of her by letting her recover the skull of her long-dead mother.

Ironically, despite having a golden opportunity to do so, Capcom failed to retcon the infamous "where was (Barry/Rebecca)?" issue from the original game with this remake.

===Resident Evil 0===
Whilst Resident Evil 1 told a compelling story, it raised many questions. How was the T-Virus leaked? Where did it come from? What happened to the doomed Bravo Team? And what was the story of Rebecca, Bravo Team's last survivor, prior to her rescue by Chris in the mansion?

This game answers those questions. Shortly after their flight into the Arklay Forest, Bravo Team discovered an overturned military prison transport truck, which had been carrying an ex-marine convicted of mass murder and sentenced to death, and separate to look for him. Rebecca found her way aboard a mysterious train and was separated from her unit. There, she was forced to team up with the ex-marine, Billy Cohen, in order to survive zombified passengers, mutant animals, and killer leeches. Ultimately, they learned that they had become swept up in the machinations of Dr. James Marcus - the mad scientist who was one of Umbrella's founders, who had created the T-Virus by splicing the mutagenic "Progenitor Virus" with leech DNA, and whose sadism and psychosis had grown to the extent that Umbrella had ordered him assassinated. But one of Marcus' leeches had absorbed his body, growing over the years into a giant monster with Marcus' memories, the ability to assume his form, and a burning desire for revenge - his attack on Umbrella's Arklay facilities had released the T-Virus and caused the disaster into which the S.T.A.R.S had been drawn. Slaying the Leech Marcus, Billy and Rebecca go their separate ways; Billy strikes off towards a nearby road in hopes of hitchhiking away to safety, whilst Rebecca, promising him that she will claim he was killed in the Arklay Forest, heads to the Arklay Mansion to wait for the rest of her team to join her.

This game came out shortly after the Resident Evil 1 Remake, and was likewise a Nintendo Gamecube debut. It introduced two revolutionary new ideas; the ability to play as two characters simultaneously, and the removal of the Item Boxes mechanic, allowing players to drop items wherever they pleased and then come back to grab them. Unfortunately, the latter idea just led to players having to backtrack all the time and proved annoying, but at least Capcom tried to do something new! Reception to this game was... mixed, with many disliking its status as an official prologue to RE1, but lore from it is canon to all later games.

One irony is that it actually doesn't give as much of a history lesson into Umbrella as it promised; the ultimate origins of the T-Virus and Umbrella's obsession with it wouldn't be revealed until much later, in Resident Evil 5 specifically.

==Resident Evil 2==
After the disaster of RE1, Umbrella fucked things over for Raccoon City even further when they inadvertently caused the biggest biohazard disaster in history: in one of their secret labs under the city, a top researcher named William Birkin was working on a prototype super-virus that would put the T-Virus to shame. However, he was being too slow to deliver on this "G-Virus", and Umbrella grew suspicious that he was planning to betray them by selling it to a rival company. So, they sent in a commando team from their private paramilitary forces to take the G-Virus from William, by force if need be. Shot in the struggle, William injected himself with a G-Virus sample and transformed into a hideous mutant, which slaughtered all but one of the commandos - but caused a T-Virus leak that leads to a wide-scale infection, devastating the city.

Into the chaos comes Claire Redfield, younger sister of Chris Redfield above. Sherry Birkin, the daughter of William Birkin. Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie cop on his first day in the force. Lastly Ada Wong, a mysterious woman working as a spy for a rival organization.

These four must now forge alliances and find a way to get out of the city. Opposing them are the various legions of undead and mutated creatures, most of whom evolve to be deadlier as time passes. William Birkin, who is now too far gone and has devolved into a strong but cunning Bio-organic weapon. And Mr. X, a humanoid bio-weapon called a T-103, an upgraded version of the "Tyrant" faced by Chris and Jill, deployed by Umbrella to tie up loose ends in the RPD. The Tyrant is particularly unique in that he doesn't look like an abomination against nature. Instead he's a tall, trenchcoat-clad giant of a man that silently lumbers towards you, akin to something like Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers, only with more violent punching. He's also a total trooper as after getting downed; he'll dust himself off and continue his chase towards you at a later time, also imitating the two horror stated icons previously. That is until you dunk him into a smelting pot, where he stops being cool as a cucumber and simply decides to [[Rip and Tear|tear you apart with extreme prejudice]].

The last of the lesser-known but important survivors is one of the Umbrella Security Service Commandos, codenamed "HUNK" and popularly known as "Mr. Death", due to his track record of undertaking Umbrella's most dangerous missions, with him typically being the only one to survive upon completion. Despite being injured by Birkin, alone, and surrounded by a town's worth of bloodthirsty monsters: HUNK managed to survive and outwit his adversaries and call in an extraction to evacuate a G-Virus sample for Umbrella. This would be his last canonical appearance as HUNK proceeds to drop out of the story entirely, being only briefly mentioned in files in later games. Still, due to his generally cool attitude and SAS-style appearance, he becomes a staple in several minigames featured in later Resident Evil titles.

Storywise, RE2 was a major ambitious leap from its predecessor, as it attempted to tell not one, but ''two'' interwoven stories by means of its double-disk system. Rather than simply having a Leon campaign and a Claire campaign, it has two of each, and the overall story told depends on the order you play in. Some story elements are common between the "A" and "B" scenarios - Mr. X only shows up to bother the B scenario character, and which bosses you fight depends on whether you're playing the A or B scenario. Other elements are more character specific: in the Claire A/Leon B story, Sherry Birkin becomes infected with the G-Virus and Leon has to try and cure her with the DEVIL Vaccine, whilst in the Leon A/Claire B story, this never happens, for example.

===2019 RE2Make===
After the 2002 release of the REmake to a thunderously positive reception, fans immediately began clamoring for Capcom to give a similar treatment to Resident Evil 2 (and, to a lesser extent, Resident Evil 3). Capcom... ignored them. Until 2015, when they finally declared they were going to make a RE2Make. And four years later, in 2019, the RE2make was launched and became a smash hit. Professional critics heaped praise on it for its incredible new graphical engine and the way it managed to walk the tightrope between being a true Survival Horror game and being accessible to the casual audience. Long-running fans lavished it with adoration for continuing to uphold the promise of RE7 that Resident Evil would return to its Survival Horror roots.

Storywise, the RE2make is essentially a blend of both the Claire A and Leon A scenarios from the original RE2, focusing on each character's attempts to escape from the zombie infested city they unwittingly drove into alongside a secondary character; Sherry Birkin for Claire and Ada Wong for Leon. It preserves the broad strokes of the original story, but is more or less its own entity.

Shifting from its predecessor's fixed camera angles and tank controls to the over-the-shoulder style popularized by RE4-6 and Revelations 1-2, RE2make sports an almost completely redesigned map to account for this. The combat system attempted to step up from RE7 but without going full RE6; whilst RE6's quickshots, voluntary melee system and omnidirectional dodging mechanics were dropped (as was the context sensitive melee of 4, 5, and the Revelations duology), the game brought back the self-defense items system from the 2002 REMake, and it was the first OTS game in the series to allow players to move and aim at the same time, which was considered revolutionary. Zombies and lickers were showered with praise for their graphical and mechanical redesign, whilst Mr. X is now a mutual threat for both protagonists and actively stalks them through the RPD, constantly patrolling until they give their position away with gunfire, fulfilling in acuity what Nemesis had convincingly faked in the original RE3. He's widely considered the highlight of the early game, and earned the game comparison's to Alien: Isolation, another well-received Survival Horror title from the late 2010s. However it has been rightfully received by fans and critics as a masterful return to horror, and unlike it's First Person cousin, the third person camera is featured.

It has divisive elements, however, just like all games. Enemy variety catches a bit of flak; apart from zombies, zombie dogs, lickers and bosses, the only other enemies in the game are the Ivy Zombie (itself kind of controversial, because it replaced the original mutant plant monster with a plant-infested zombie) and a mook version of the G-Spawn boss - in defense of this change, the crows, spiders, enhanced lickers and giant moth boss didn't appear that frequently. The decision to go with a massive retool into an Over-The-Shoulder game instead of the more REmake-esque "graphical update" approach many fans expected is probably the biggest controversy. The story changes, most prominently the neutered "Second Run" scenario vs. the original A/B scenarios, also have been called lazy, since it results in issues if you try to put Main Game/2nd Run stories into a single narrative. Finally, there's the lack of music: whilst the game has a solid OST, it barely plays save for certain moments, largely restricted to cutscenes, and this bugs people because Resident Evil has a history of really solid atmospheric music. There are arguments in favor of the enforced silence, largely that it makes the game more realistic and that it builds up the feeling of dread, but as always, taste is subjective.

==Resident Evil 3: Nemesis==
Set a few days before the events RE2, this story charts Jill Valentine's attempts to survive and escape the zombie-infested hellhole of infected Raccoon City. Umbrella realizes that this entire incident basically proves the S.T.A.R.S team's claims against them after they escaped the mansion incident, and so sends in one of their newest bio-engineered weapons against the team's survivors: The Nemesis T-Type, an even angrier and scarier T-103 Tyrant whose ability to tank any firepower reminds many of the [[Plague Marines]]. Additionally unlike the T-103, he isn't a silent giant, [[Berzerker|he'll roar his arrival and relentlessly chase you down to beat you into a bloody pulp]] like a punchy, muscular, and more relentless version of Leatherface, minus the chainsaw as he's also equipped with a rocket launcher.

Aiding her in this ordeal is Carlos Olivera, one of the many Umbrella mercenaries contracted to assist evacuation of the city, but he and his unit were overwhelmed and largely decimated. Now, the two of them search for a way out of the city before it's too late, while also evading the Nemesis' tireless pursuit with either [[Gork|brutal cunning]] or [[Mork|cunning brutality]].

Overall, it ends with the US government unable to retain control of the city, so drastic measures had to be considered. Fearing the virus getting out (and also the US Government's involvement with BOWs), they wiped out Raccoon city with a barrage of thermobaric bombs, completely obliterating it off the map. Umbrella would later be embroiled in a series of criminal lawsuits that ultimately destroyed the company as a whole, largely thanks to the survivors who provided evidence and their testimonies linking Umbrella and the outbreak.

Quite ironically, due to Umbrella shutting down, their research and experiments are now at the hands numerous other unsavory characters, all of whom are advancing their research in their own ends, which would fuel later sequels.

As a side note, despite what a ''lot'' of people will tell you, Nemesis actually doesn't "actively" stalk Jill throughout the entirety of RE3. Let's be honest: this was a PlayStation 1 game; they couldn't pull off something like that! Instead, there are a grand total of 13 scripted encounters with Nemesis placed over the course of the game (two of which have variants depending on which path of an A/B route you took), and of which only 3 late-game encounters are mandatory "fight to the 'death' style" boss fights. Thus the illusion of a constant pursuit is provided, even if you can actually chart out ahead of time where Nemesis will appear and plan accordingly.

RE3 is generally regarded as the first Action Horror game in the RE series, unless you count RE2 and how much it spoiled you for ammo (once you hit the RPD area) compared to RE1, for a single major reason: this was the first game where you could ''dodge'' enemy attacks... admittedly with very clunky and prone to misfire controls, but, hey, a dodge was a dodge. Also, it was the first game where your character would ''automatically'' walk up or down stairs, rather than needing to use the Action button to move down them.

Whilst the first single-character game of the series, it did try to include some of the at-that-point iconic story flexibility by including branching scenarios; different areas could be visited in different orders between playthroughs, which would trigger unique cutscenes and encounters as a result.

===2020 RE3make===
With the massive wave of positive reception to the 2019 RE2make, Capcom realized they'd found a new wave to ride; a similarly styled remake for RE3 debuted in April 2020, to everybody's shock (which is sarcastic).

Remake 3 is a...pretty divisive title, it got pretty decent reviews, and ''Capcom'' is pleased with it's sales, but it's quite clear the game wasn't made with nearly as much polish as it's immediate Remake brother, ''2'', or even care. To the game's credit, it does several very fun things. It polishes the dodge mechanic from the original 3 to the point it's actually now a safe action to do (and rewards players with the chance to inflict massive damage). The first half features very fun Pursuer mechanics in the form of a greatly enhanced Nemesis; who can create Zombie parasites, wield a fucking ''flamethrower'' (alongside his original rocket launcher), and is a good deal smarter and more scary in his pursuit of Jill. It also features some nifty new monsters and it's story elements have also been considered a step up, in contrast to Remake 2's divisive changes; Carlos in particular is ten times more likable.

On the other hand; it really dropped the ball in terms of removing content from the original game, far more then Remake ''2''. It flat out ''deletes'' an ''entire'' area (the flavorful and iconic clocktower) and replaced it with mediocre sewer sections, redesigns an area so heavily it's a new portion (one that's a huge downgrade, the Dead Factory; a horrifyingly damp and disgusting area that was a disposal area for Umbrella's dirty secrets (read: corpses and failed bio-weapons) has been turned into, quite literally into a reskin of NEST from Remake 2), and takes out game's only non-Nemesis boss, the Gravedigger. It's also far shorter then Remake 2 (though this can be attributed to the OG's game length) and has become rather infamous for it's lack of content. Especially since it didn't ship with the highly popular "The Mercenaries" mini-game, something the original had to help with it's lower player-time then previous Resi games, but instead shipped with a new 4 vs. 1 asymmetric multiplayer RE game that nobody really cares about. Add this to the fact the second portion of the game becomes more or less a linear shooter with horror elements, and a ''complete'' lack of the dynamic stalking the early-game had with Nemesis (whose now reduced to two okay set-piece boss battles) you can really see why so many people thought it was a downgrade. View it as a comprehensive expansion for ''2'', and you'll have a good time.

==Resident Evil: Code Veronica==
CV occurs right after RE2 and has Claire Redfield continuing to look for her older brother Chris, but was caught by Umbrella and ends up on Rockfort island, a private prison island run by the incredibly psychotic Alfred Ashford. Things however, once again go not as planned as a bio-terror attack on the island by a mysterious organization left the island in total, flesh-consuming chaos. She later meets an inmate named Steve Burnside and the two of them think up of a plan to escape the island.

Its later revealed that Alfred has been planning the return of his sister: Alexia Ashford, who has been in hibernation for the past 15 years in the middle of an abandoned Umbrella lab in the Antarctic. She's the creator of a new strain of mutagenic virus that Rockfort was attacked for; the T-Veronica virus, created by splicing the T-virus with a primordial virus found [[What|inside an amber-preserved fossilized ant]]. This new strain allows the host to retain their sanity, even after being mutated by the virus, and anyone infected second-hand will be under the control of the virus' original carrier (which would be Alexia), also there's this random bit about their blood being flammable. Although the downside is that it has a long incubation time, that if improperly handled, will cause the host to degrade into regular T-virus mutants, hence the 15-year power nap.

Learning of this, Claire, Steve, and later Chris himself after Leon got Claire's distress call, set out to ensure that Alexia does not escape and start a new wave of bio-terrorism. They eventually prevailed, in what is probably one of the most frustrating boss fights in RE history.

Oh and Albert Wesker, the bad guy the team in the original who seemed unimportant in the long term, comes back and gave himself superpowers. Its also revealed his organization was the one responsible for unleashing the bio-terror outbreak on Rockfort island. He also tried to take down Alexia after she woke up, but ended up being outclassed, even with his superhuman bullshit (also he had no guns, so that's probably another thing). He does a 180 and has Chris battle the newly-awakened Alexia instead, which he succeeds in putting down, unsurprisingly with guns (which kinda makes Wesker's superpowers underwhelming in the larger scope).

RE:CV is also notable for being the first Resident Evil game to use fully 3D environments, rather than the static, pre-rendered ones in the PS1 era.

==Resident Evil 4==
This game tells Leon's fate after Raccoon city incident. The US government eventually picks him and Sherry up and he's been roped into becoming a governmental secret agent, partially out of duty, but also to protect Sherry. His first mission is being sent into not-Spain to rescue the US president's daughter named Ashley Graham, who was kidnapped.

Its later revealed that she was kidnapped by the "Los Illuminados", a psychotic cult that worships ancient parasites called the "Las Plagas" that induce mutations and mind control, both of which Leon and Ashley were infected with. The cult's plan is to infect Ashley with a plaga, send her back to the US, then have her do the cult's bidding once the plaga inside her fully matures. Of course this does beggar the following questions:

# Why are the cultists hellbent on killing both Leon AND Ashley, if the latter is so instrumental to their plans?
# Why did they need Ashley to be kidnapped and sent to not-Spain in the first place? Its been shown in-game that plaga infection is relatively simple (be injected with one by a syringe). There was never a need to kidnap Ashley, infect her, then draw attention to it. Especially since the Las Plagas were largely unknown by the outside world until Saddler drew attention to it by involving the US into a rescue mission, so he would have had the total element of surprise once he used his trump card.

Glaring plotholes aside, these cultists are led by three people: Bitores Mendez, a not-Tyrant. Ramon Salazar, a kinda-Spanish aristocrat with a Napoleon complex and two not-Xenomorph bodyguards. Last is the cult's supreme head-honcho Osmund Saddler, a charismatic man who may or may not have [[/d/|a long, bladed tentacle as a dick that he uses to impale people with]] (it doesn't help it comes from under his robes and between his legs). He also faces off against Jack Krauser, [[derp|whom is described as one of Leon's closest old agency friends, but his character and history wouldn't be explored until a few years later in a separate game]], so everyone at the time was just confused when Leon acts like he's a big deal and we should be feeling some remorse for.

Predictably, this isn't taken seriously in the slightest. Hell even Saddler sort-of breaks the fourth wall and mentions how cliche this entire thing is. The B-movie atmosphere and campy writing blend together to make for an entry that was one of the more memorable, if not the most, and actively played into it in a way that gave it an edge over the next couple of entries.

Now, Leon and Ashley must find a way out of not-Spain, fight through the Los Illuminados cult and their many experimental creatures, and get rid of the plagas infesting them. Like in the previous game, Leon is still being aided by his not-love interest: Ada Wong, who is impractically dressed for a spy mission. The post-Gamecube/Wii versions of the game even added a short secondary campaign that you play as Ada during her adventures in the region too.

If RE3 is arguably the first Action Horror game in the franchise, then RE4 is the first ''unchallenged'' Action Horror title. Aside from the new over-the-shoulder camera angle allowing Leon to precisely target foes and the loss of the restrictive tank controls, Leon no longer needed to sacrifice a precious inventory slot to carry a knife or deliberately equip it. Furthermore, this was the game that added "context sensitive melee"; stunning an enemy by shooting them in the right spot (usually the head or the leg/knee) would temporarily daze them, and the player could then deliver a melee attack by getting in close and pressing the Action button. This mechanic would be ported into the Revelations games and the subsequent RE5 and RE6.

==Resident Evil: Revelations==
Chris and Jill end up stranded on ships that have been overrun by a new breed of zombies, and a terrorist cell named Veltro is threatening to infect the entire oceans with their new virus called the T-Abyss virus. Except that the terrorist treat isn't real and it ends up with more plot twists that kind of make sense, and are also kind of dumb.

The most remarkable thing about this game is a spelling error on the box for the Nintendo 3DS version of the game. Otherwise it literally has no bearing on the plot of later games. We're not kidding, nobody exclusive to the cast of this game were ever mentioned in later games, nor did the plot of this game affected the entire status quo at all.

Still, it did introduce a fun mini-game that added a lot of replayability to it called Raid Mode, which is the only thing that did carry over to future installments, so it wasn't all bad.

==Resident Evil: Revelations 2==
Unlike previous games, this plays in two scenarios: one for Claire and one for Barry Burton, a former STARS member.

Claire Redfield and Moira Burton, Barry's daughter, are kidnapped by a mysterious figure called "The Overseer", thrown into not-Russia, and infected with the T-Phobos virus, a virus that only triggers with a certain level of fear. The virus itself mutates its host in.....unspecific ways, the only constant is that hosts have an increased level of aggression and their bodies are horribly mutated and seem to grant them some form of immortality as hosts can survive for months without food and severe necrosis. They may or may not retain some form of higher thought. Overall Capcom can't seem to decide on what they want their virus to be and just does whatever's convenient for the plot.

The mysterious figure is later revealed to be Alex Wesker, a survivor of the Wesker children. Claire and Moira must now venture through not-Russia to find a way out. Claire later manages to escape, but Moira is left behind. Whether she survives or not is dependent on the player's single asinine, poorly-explained choice (spoiler: have Moira shoot the Ouroboros-infected boss to get the good ending where Moira lives).

Barry comes in a few months later after learning about the situation from Claire after being rescued and was told his daughter is dead. Unwilling to accept it without confirming it himself, Barry travels to not-Russia to investigate and personally confirm his daughter's fate, all the while surviving the new breed of horrors the T-Phobos virus cooked up over the months. He's aided by Natalia, a young girl who has somehow survived the craziness of the island and sense monsters around her. He eventually finds out about Alex Wesker, and also makes it a priority to ensure the remaining vestige of his old enemy is eliminated once and for all.

Anyways, it's eventually revealed that Wesker was using the T-Phobos virus to achieve immortality, using Natalia as a catalyst. But predictably, something went not-as-planned and she's stuck being a mutated, multi-limbed hag and Barry comes it to settle the score, once and for all.

This game is notable for going back to the genre's survival-horror roots and foreboding dark atmosphere, with some stealth sections thrown in to make the game easier but isn't 100% necessary to do (that said, it does save you a lot of ammo and time, so its recommended). Also comes in with several plot-holes, like how Claire or Moira are dealing with the fact that they might have been rescued, but still suffering from T-Phobos infection, or how Moira has been able stave-off mutation by the T-Phobos virus by being able to stay as calm and collected as Claire, despite having no military background nor experience with a biohazard outbreak (which Claire has survived thrice at this point, games and CGI movie included).

But that isn't an issue since Revelations games do not make any impact to the overall plot of the series.

==Resident Evil 5==
RE5 is... The odd point of the series. This is where Capcom were getting on the "Call of Duty" bandwagon that was growing in the west by making their games more action-oriented, instead of survival horror. A lot of fans were [[skub|divided on this game's new direction]].

For the story, this stars Chris Redfield, whom you would have never recognized due to Capcom designing him as a roid-raging body builder, and Sheva Alomar, which is there as the token black character (we're not kidding, this is the primary reason she's even there). Both of them are members of the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance), an international paramilitary group dedicated to fighting the new wave of bio-terrorism spurred on by the collapse of Umbrella. They're currently in Africa to investigate a potentially large bio-weapons exchange.

This once again features the Las Plagas from the previous game, except it's been refined by a mysterious organization to be more potent. Another is the "Uroboros virus", a new pathogen developed by Wesker himself and covertly funded by another company known as Tricell, led by Excella Gionne, an absurdly seductive Italian woman and not much else. The virus itself is....odd. It turns people into a creature comprised of multiple worm-like organisms that only live to consume more and more biomass to grow, unless they were genetically compatible with the virus, which just grants them superhuman powers.

Wesker plans to spread the Uroboros virus into the stratosphere to infect the entire world, where only a chosen few would rise and those who would be consumed by the virus were deemed unfit to live. This plot is so unbelievably stupid for a [[Tzeentch|cunning sociopath manipulating everyone from the sides for his ambitions]] that even Chris calls him out on it.

Anyway, silliness aside, Chris and Sheva embark on a mission to stop Wesker's plot. Standing between them is the infected population of Africa that have turned into raving lunatics and the new horrors unleashed by the Uroboros virus. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xuXkVzBdJQ Also a giant boulder, which Chris punches into submission], which many fans interpret as either the highest or lowest point of the series that no other event can hope surpass in either spectrum.

==Resident Evil 6==
Resident Evil 6 is an oddball. It's reviled by a big portion of the community, but has a small, dedicated group of fans. It's usually regarded as a stepping stone for the action community and the horror portion of the fanbase to agree to hate; as when compared to the meticulous designed ''4'', and ''5'' campy, but still horror themed romp through Africa, it's considered a big downgrade. However it's wise to acknowledge the game's merits.

If you like character-based action game's, it's not so different in regards to that (hilarious when you consider the fact ''Devil May Cry'', another famous Capcom property started as a ''Resident Evil game'') Resident Evil 6 features a pretty in-depth and polished version of ''4'' gameplay style; a third person perspective with the usual shooting elements, but with the addition of dodges, voluntary (non-knife attack) melee, and enhanced mobility. It can be pretty fun to to mow down zombies, do a dodge roll to avoid attacks, and repeat the process with a few heavy hitting melee strikes. It has a wealth and variety of bonus content too, alongside three main campaigns (with an unlockable fourth) and is considered by many to the most content-rich in the series (though more on that later), with all the various characters controlling and playing differently in a lot of subtle ways. (Like a ''DMC'' game).

However, the fact that it has such a polished combat loop has been ''criticized'' for empowering the player to an absolutely ridiculous degree, and that argument has many merits; enemies can be dispatched with trivial ease, even on higher difficulties, there's no end to ammo drops, and bosses are laughably easy to defeat. Major sins for a Survival Horror franchise. The length of the game has also been eviscerated; it's very, very bloated with the four meaty campaigns to playthrough, many of which are filled to the brim with filler that seems to only exist to artificially pad the game's length. The biggest complaint, however, is in regards to the complete neutering of puzzles, the looping, almost-Metroidvania level design of past game's, and the downplaying of the very ''Survival Horror'' tenets that made the franchise so successful. It really does dampen and even downgrade many of the series aspect besides the combat.

In terms of story; it's pretty fucking out there, turning ''Resident Evil'' into a Japanese Zombie soap opera (though game's like ''0'' and ''5'' already had that element, it's just on display to a huge degree). This shit gets complicated, because it's made up of several threads that intertwine, and you're actually getting only bits and pieces of it as you play the four interlocked campaigns. The basic idea is that there's this big [[Illumina]]ti-esque conspiracy group, referred to as "The Family", who have been pulling the strings behind shit for centuries. With Umbrella gone, they've created a new bio-warfare R&D company, imaginatively called "Neo-Umbrella", to carry on their legacy and be used as a weapon to continue manipulating the world to their advantage.

RE6 revolves around one dickhead member of the Family; the current National Security Advisor of the United States, Derek Simmons. When he gets wind that the current president of the United States wants to come clean about how the US government was in bed with Umbrella and caused the Racoon City incident, he decides that he has to stop this to "preserve stability in the world". The best way to do that? Engineer a zombie apocalypse in the city of Tall Oaks, where the president was going to give a lecture, and hope that the president gets killed in the chaos. That's your A plot.

The B plot revolves around Carla Radames, a former Neo-Umbrella researcher who has been driven mad because Derek Simmons has a sick obsession with Ada Wong, to the point he used Neo-Umbrella's new mutagenic virus, the C-Virus, to mutate Carla into an exact physical replica of Ada so that he could then brainwash her into becoming his lovesick sex slave. For obvious reasons, she snapped, and decided to seek vengeance on Simmons by using Neo-Umbrella to launch a widescale bio-terror assault on the world, with the hopes of basically annihilating humanity so that the Family's legacy will all be for nothing.

Enter our heroes, who are all tugging at various strings in this narrative:
* Leon's campaign involves slogging his way through not one, but two cities in the middle of a massive zombie outbreak. First, he has to escape from Tall Oaks, after having shot the president when he became a zombie after the city was flooded with the C-Virus. The second is a plunge into an infected Chinese city to confront Derek Simmons, whose role in causing the Tall Oaks outbreak he has revealed. He is assisted in this goal by Helena Harper, a member of the secret service blackmailed by Simmons into making the Tall Oaks outbreak happen.
* Chris' campaign chronologically starts the earliest when, as a leading operative in the BSAA, Chris is sent to intervene in a European civil war that is the first unveiling of the new J'avo B.O.Ws, a result of injecting the C-Virus directly into humans. He loses almost his entire squad to the virus. Embittered by the experience, he quits, but is brought back for another J'avo-related terorist incident in China, which ultimately results in him seeking out the Neo-Umbrella lab for revenge, where he stops Carla's ultimate bio-weapon, the terraforming HAOS. His assistant throughout the campaign is his second-in-command Piers Nivans, who gets a surprisingly awesome role in the final battle by replacing his torn-off right arm with a C-virus produced mutant appendage that shoots lightning.
* Sherry's campaign has her all grown up and now a government agent, seeking out the mercenary Jake Mueller, illegitimate son of Albert Wesker, whose unique genetic code may hold the keys to a C-virus antidote, during the events of the same European civil war as Chris. Instead, they get captured by Neo-Umbrella, who seek to use Jake's blood to create a stronger strain of the virus. Fighting out of Neo-Umbrella's prison, they assist both Chris and Jake at different points, and ultimately succeed in Sherry's mission. Throughout, they need to escape from Ustanak, which is basically Nemesis with a cybernetic arm.
* Ada's campaign revolves around her working in the background of everybody else's case, going after Carla Radames and taking her down before assisting Leon with defeating Derek Simmons.

In terms of sales versus reception, it's a double-edged sword. The game sold very well, it was on top of Capcom's best sellers until recently being downgraded by ''Remake 2'', ''7'', and the gargantuan sales monster that is ''Monster Hunter World''. And as mentioned before, ''6'' does have a dedicated following of people who genuinely like it despite it's flaws. However, it was savaged from a critical perspective, and has attracted a large hatedom. If you want a zombie-themed Character-based shooter, with fun coop you can't go wrong. Regardless of what you may think of it, Capcom has admitted they leaned too much on the action-side of things, and a planned sequel in it's likeness was scrapped and cancelled in order to facilitate a return to the old style of ''Resident Evil'', which players would get as a first-person Horror Shooter, ''Resident Evil 7''.

==Resident Evil 7==
Currently the last of the games in chronological order, RE7, subtitled "Biohazard", or Biohazard 7, subtitled "Resident Evil" if you're Japanese, was released in January of 2017. Breaking from the traditions of previous games, it features a complete newcomer to the series: Ethan Winters, a man whose wife Mia was presumably lost at sea on a boating trip 3 years ago. When he receives an email claiming to be from her and telling him to come and get her off of some farm belonging to a family called the Bakers in the backwoods of Louisiana, he immediately rushes off to her rescue. And that's when things go wrong... see, the Bakers, they're like Mia's family. And they're just ''dying'' to welcome somebody new to the clan...

Fighting to survive the psychotic, seemingly immortal hillbillies, Ethan slowly uncovers the truth: it turns out his wife Mia actually worked at one of those evil bio-weapon engineering companies, and when she vanished, she was on an assignment to act as a caretaker to their latest product: a human-based B.O.W with a symbiotic fungal infection, able to both spawn fungus mooks called "Molded" (imaginative, they weren't) and to take over peoples' minds with her spores. Unfortunately, this bio-weapon, who had the personality of a psychotic bitch of a spoiled little girl, broke loose and sunk the ship in a tantrum; when she and Mia washed ashore, they were taken in by the Bakers, and the B.O.W took control of them as her new "family". Eventually, Ethan kills this B.O.W (named "Evelyn) and is rescued by anti-bio-terror operatives led by Chris Redfield.

DLC was subsequently released, with the most important being ''Daughters'' (showing Zoe Baker's attempt to escape Evelyn when she first takes over the Baker estate and its occupants), ''Not A Hero'' (Chris' attempts to hunt down psychopath Lucas Baker directly after Ethan kills Evelyn), and ''End of Zoe'' (showing Zoe's rescue post-RE7 by her uncle Joe Baker, who had been living off in a hut in the swamps and so avoided being infected).

RE7 was, initially, very [[skub]]by, as whilst it promised a hard return to the survival horror in contrast to the more action-horror b-movie feel of the previous numbered games, it did so whilst stating the game would be in a first-person perspective. This idea ''had'' been used before (in fact, it was originally considered for the first Resident Evil, but the Playstation's graphics just couldn't hack it), but only on the Gun Survivor spin-offs, and the Wii-exclusive rail shooters - it was totally new to a main canon game, and many fans were naysaying it as just more of the same mistakes, if in a new direction.

However, when it came out, it swiftly won fans over with a genuinely dank, creepy mansion to explore, and horrific new foes to fight. The only real complaints was that its blend of combat and stealth made it feel a little like Alien: Isolation, and the lack of variety in enemies to fight. Most people don't care, considering it a throwback to all that was good about the 1st game, helped by an awesomely catchy theme song and incredibly quotable enemies who manage to hit that right niche between hilariously narmy and downright fucking spooky, just like the classic Resident Evil.

Seriously, one of your boss-fights involves grabbing a chainsaw and duking it out with a laughing, mutated psycho cannibal hillbilly wielding ''chainsaw-shears''. Who earlier may have hacked off your leg with a common garden shovel for giggles. Batshit insane does ''not'' do this game justice.

Following in the footsteps of [[Silent Hill]], RE7 made use of a playable teaser called the Beginning Hour. Unlike Silent Hills, RE7 actually came to fruition, because Capcom isn't ''quite'' as fucked up as Konami.

Is currently the highest selling game in the franchise and Capcom's second best seller.

Alongside the FPS perspective, RE7 introduced two new mechanics to the series. The first was blocking, allowing Ethan to try and mitigate the damage he'd take from an attack, though one could argue it evolved from RE6's underwhelming "perform a QTE to reduce damage" system. The second and more endearing was ''crafting'', allowing Ethan to create useful things like ammo or medicine by combining various component items scattered throughout the game. Crafting was so well-received that Capcom subsequently ported it into the 2make and 3make.

==Resident Evil 8: Village==
Formally titled ''Resident Evil: Village'', this game released in May 2021, and is already the source of much hype, anticipation and [[skub]].

The game sees the return of Ethan Winters, protagonist of RE7, now having to make his way through a creepy remote village in what is all but stated to be Transylvania in order to rescue his daughter, Rose, who was kidnapped after his wife Mia was assassinated, both seemingly by Chris Redfield. Enemies seen have a [[Gothic Horror]] touch.

The region where Ethan goes is divided between four noble families; ''House Dimitrescue'' (not![[vampire]]s), ''House Beneviento'' (led by Donna, a woman in thick mourning veil and her creepy-ass wedding dress-clad puppet made from human bones, Angie), ''House Moreau'' (led by Salvatore, who is basically a fucking [[Deep One]]) and ''House Heisenburg'' (led by Karl, who looks like a [[Witch Hunter]] carrying a greathammer and is building an army of [[servitor|cyborg-zombies]]). All of whom will have to be defeated.

Lady Alcina Dimitrescu, the evil matriarch of the not!vampires, became an instant [[meme]] because she's basically a 9-and-a-half-foot-tall big titty [[musclegirl]] [[vampire]] milf. No, we're ''not'' making this shit up.

In terms of unique mechanics, RE8 combines RE7's crafting and blocking mechanics with RE4's merchant system, but throws in a few new tweaks as well. When Ethan blocks, he can also counterattack with a melee strike to shove the enemy back. As well as selling you weapons, ammo (the first to do so!) and upgrades, the Duke will also cook Ethan recipes if Ethan brings him the requisite ingredients, which usually entails hunting down the uninfected animals scattered around the map. Each recipe consumed gives Ethan a permanent boost of some kind, like upping how much damage is removed with a block. Even crafting has undergone a tweak; rather than needing to manually select components to build stuff, selecting a single component presents the player with a list of all available crafting recipes based on what components are in the player's inventory, making it a lot quicker to make stuff on the fly.

As for the story... well, '''spoilers'''!

3 years since RE7, Ethan and Mia are trying to move on from their lives and raising a 3 year old daughter, Rosemary Winters. Suddenly, Chris Redfield and a team of agents bursts into the Winters home, where they kill Mia and take Ethan and his daughter captive. Ethan comes to and finds himself stranded in a remote village somewhere in Romania, and sets out to find his daughter. The village is under attack by strange, lupine-looking humans that the surviving locals call "lycans"... well, before they all get wiped out. Escaping from the village, Ethan finds himself captured by the four aristocratic families of the region, who obey and worship somebody called "Mother Miranda" and are all freaks with a connection to the lycans, having been infected with the same mutagenic parasite, which they call "Cadou". They are going to execute Ethan, but he escapes and instead resumes his mission.

He first goes to Castle Dimitrescu, where he must evade both Lady Alcina Dimitrescu and her three "daughters"; [[Worm That Walks|sapient swarms of botflies able to assume human form]]. Although he has to partake in a lethal game of hide and seek for much of his explorations, he discovers that the daughters are vulnerable to the cold and manages to kill them. He then discovers his daughter's head in a jar before he has to throw down with Lady Dimitrescu, who transforms into a [[dragon]]-thing to try and kill him. During the fight, she reveals the other families have the other portions of Rose's body, and implies she can be made to live again if all of them are assembled.

So Ethan goes hunting. In Donna Beneviento's place, the gameplay switches to an [[Amnesia]] clone as he has to maneuver her creepy ass home in what may partially be an extended hallucination before he finally gets his gear back and kills her. Then it's off to Salvatore Moreau's reservoir, where he drains the lake and kills the giant mutant fish-frog-thing. Finally, he goes after Karl Heisenburg, who is building an army of [[cyborg]]-[[zombie]]s and uses his telekinetic powers to turn into what is basically a ''giant robot'' to kill Ethan, with Ethan defeating him by commandeering a ''tank''.

Ethan also learns the dark truth as to what the fuck all of this is about: turns out he actually ''died'' when he first ran into Jack back into Dulvey, and has in fact been basically a Molded in human form without realizing it these past three years. This means his daughter Rosemary is also infested with mutamycete, symbiotically merged with it in a way that basically makes her Eveline 2.0. Mother Miranda is a centuries old psycho who discovered some kind of parasitic fungus, the Cadou, or "megamycete", deep below the earth in this part of the world, and used it to become immortal. Desperate to somehow utilize it to revive her dead daughter, Mother Miranda founded the local cult and began experimenting with the Cadou. She wants Rosemary because Rosemary's unique qualities mean she may be the perfect avatar with which to revive her own daughter's consciousness. Oh, and also Mother Miranda is basically the one truly responsible for founding Umbrella, as she met Oswell Spencer before his trip to Africa and he learned that mutagenic agents that can give people immortality and superpowers were a thing because of that encounter, which is what compelled him to go to Africa and seek out the Progenitor Virus, ultimately giving rise to Umbrella and everything that went horribly wrong from that point.

By this point, Ethan's body is basically falling apart; he's pushed the regenerative properties of his own mutamycete infection beyond its limits and is going to decay. So if he decides that if he's going to go out, he's going to go out like a badass; he goes in to Mother Miranda's lair, kills her, and sets off a nuclear explosive to wipe out the Cadou once and for all. Oh, and Mia's not dead, turns out that Mother Miranda basically kidnapped her and took her place before the start of the game, which is why Chris attacked Ethan's household, and Rosemary gets brought back to life and grows up to be a fungus-powered superhuman anti-bioterror agent.

==Resident Evil: Outbreak 1 and File#2 ==
Two short-lived co-op games for the PS2 about groups of civilians who banded together in the midst of the T-virus outbreak in Raccoon city and figure out a way to escape. It plays much like the old games, but with a deeper emphasis on survival horror due to the lower amount of resources available in each game, and the ability to be actually infected by the T-virus and zombify after sustaining damage.

The series never really took off significantly, so Capcom abandoned the 4 player co-op concept, and the Outbreak series altogether.

==Resident Evil Survivor==
The last RE game of the PS1 era and largely remembered as one of the worst of the franchise (being recently overtaken by Capcom's attempt at a godawful RE multiplayer game).

Unlike other games, Survivor is played in a first-person view, but still uses the tank controls of previous RE games. It was meant to be played with a light gun, but due to the US' political climate at the time(this was right after the Columbine shootings), the light gun feature was removed and you now aim a nondescript crosshair with your controller. Additionally, the survival horror tension of the previous game is largely removed due to having unlimited ammo for your handgun, ensuring you can just blast away to your heart's content.

For the game's story, you're transported into not-Europe on an island named "Sheena Island", which houses a secret Umbrella lab and unnamed city. The protag is Ark Thompson, an investigator hired by Leon Kennedy, but gets amnesia and think he's Vincent Goldman, the big-bad of the island. Vincent is the reason for the T-virus outbreak on the island, largely because he's a maniacal dick (we're not kidding, he did it to spite the people he thinks are trying to oust him). Now, Ark wanders around with a gun in hand, thinking he's Vincent, and attempt to uncover the truth about him and the island's outbreak.

Needless to say, the combination of bad game mechanics and story-telling unanimously roped it into being considered as the first black mark of the Resident Evil series. Its so bad that nobody in-universe even acknowledges Survivor happened, no references of it in files or conversations. Hell, even Leon doesn't talk about it. The only thing that keeps it from being officially non-canon is that "Sheena Island" is mentioned in the list of T-Virus outbreaks during the prologue cinematic for RE0.

==Resident Evil Survivor 2: Code Veronica==
A "sequel" to the Survivor series that uses Code Veronica as a setting. This is basically a quicker re-telling of the story, but in first-person and there's a model for the gun and characters now, so it plays like a traditional-ish FPS. There's still nothing really "survivor-ish" about it as it largely plays out like an arcade game, complete with infinite ammo for your handgun.

Also the entire game was a dream by Claire, so this is even more pointless than the prequel. It only escapes the negative attention due to how obscure it is.

==Resident Evil Dead Aim==
Officially part of and the last of the Survivor series. Dead Aim tried to mix things up by combining third and first-person playstyles. While walking around, you're in an over-the-shoulder view, but you'll change into first person when you're aiming your weapon, and can also be used with a light gun. The concept was novel, but it overall didn't really do anything revolutionary, so RE:DA ended up as one successful but forgettable game in Capcom's repertoire.

For the story, it has protagonist Bruce McGivern, a gung-ho US secret agent being sent in to investigate the Umbrella-owned ship: Spencer Rain. The ship was infected with the T-virus by a rogue Umbrella scientist named Morpheus Duvall, a [[Slaanesh|beauty-obsessed perfectionist]], who wanted to bomb the world with the T-virus to re-create it in his own image, unless he was paid 5 billion US Dollars (which he just did for shits and giggles as he was going to go through it anyway). At the same time, a by-the-book Chinese secret service agent named Fong Ling also infiltrates the ship with the same mission. With their goals aligning and stuck on a murderboat filled with undead, flesh-eating mutants, Bruce and Ling form a tenuous alliance to brave the horrors of the Spencer Rain and bring down Dr. Duvall to save the world from his harebrained scheme.

Predictably, an operation involving two secret agents from two opposing nations, working together despite having two completely polarizing personalities to bring down a hedonistic prettyboy attempting to usher in the apocalypse, does not go as planned.

==Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles==
RE:UC is a different take on the series. It was originally exclusive for the Nintendo Wii, later being ported onto the PS3, and its an on-rails arcade shooter of varying quality.

While gameplay is limited (and the gunplay is kinda finicky at best), its more of a platform for Capcom to expand further into the story, without actually investing on too many resources to do so (huehue). Along with some pre-existing storylines, namely RE3 and RE1 (that were condensed and ranges from kinda-canon to "how the fuck did you cram 3 hours of gameplay into a 20-minute hallway and expect it to be good"), it also explores the stories of some of the side characters, such as:

* What Wesker did during his time in the Arklay mansion and how he escaped
* Ada's escape from Raccoon City and how she extracted the G-virus
* How Wesker rose to power during Umbrella's twilight days

It does have a unique plot, however, and tells the story of Jill and Chris' operation in Russia to permanently shut down the last of Umbrella's labs. Other than that, there's not really much to talk about. It's pretty forgettable in the long run.

==Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles==
RE:DC is a sequel to Umbrella Chronicles, and its still an on-rails arcade shooter.

Gameplay remains the same, albeit with some graphical enhancements, but decides to focus more on story quality, than quantity. It only features two previous stories now: RE2 and RE:CV, all of which are still condensed, but follow the major events more closely so that it genuinely feels like a decent re-telling of the previous games.

It does however, feature one unique story: Operation Javier, an top-secret US military op involving Leon Kennedy and Jack Krauser. It has them going deep into not-Latin America to stop a drug cartel called the "Sacred Snakes", which is led by Javier Hidalgo. The Snakes attracted the world's attention after Javier began employing BOWs to bolster his forces, and led to a localized T-virus outbreak that forced the US' hand to send in a covert team to stop Javier before he unleashes another Raccoon city incident. On the way, they meet a mysterious girl named Manuela, who escaped from Javier's compound. Now, the three of them venture through the infested jungle to put an end to Javier's schemes for the sake of the world.

While it wasn't explored when he was first introduced, Krauser was shown to be a bro-tier tactical muscle head who supported Leon every step of the way throughout the operation. He was only embittered after suffering a crippling injury during the operation that forced him out of the military. [[Avitus|Living only for constant conflict, Krauser sought a way for him to get back into the action, which led to him being employed by Saddler during the events of RE4 and turned into a traitor and monster]], and the rest is history.

==Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City==

Another ''very'' strange spin-off, Capcom had the wonderful idea of trying to make a SOCOM (Special Forces themed, "tactical" shooters that went the way of the Dinosaur) themed ''Resident Evil'' game and even employed the series creators into doing so. Even compared to the divisive games in the series, not many people like Operation Raccoon City, which goes to show how boringly average it is, there's not much [[Skub]] to it, it's just considered a very, very mediocre shooter with a Resident Evil skin. It's a non-canon "What If?" game; depicting the events of fall of Raccoon City from the perspective of the bad guys, the USS (and there's another campaign in which you play as United State Special Forces). It can be considered a loose adaption of ''Resident Evil 2'' and ''Resident Evil 3'', as it features many of the same events and characters. Not else much to say, but the Wolf-Pack, the game's villain protagonists, are more well-liked then the actual game itself.

If you want a straight up "Zombie" shooter, even moreso then ''5'' and ''6'', or your a fan of SOCOM, it may be worth a look, but go in the pretty low expectations and try to play it with your friends in CO-OP (as every game is better with friends...).

==Resident Evil: Umbrella Corps==
Capcom's attempt at a competitive multiplayer game and what can be described as the poster child of them milking the franchise dry, until it's reboot with RE7. Its widely considered by the fanbase to be the current worst of the series, stealing the trophy from Survivor who held the title for 16 years. How bad is it you may ask? It died on release day, it didn't even have a chance to crash and burn: it just burned out of the gate.

There's no story for the single-player campaign (that was basically a pointless collectathon), AI is worse than that of ORC, gunfighting feels awkward, you can't even play the central multiplayer function since nobody bothered to play it online (''even during release day''), and is overall just a bad game in all regards. About the only good things you can say about it is that it visually looks alright (and even that's debatable thanks to the wonky character animations) and the customization options for guns and characters are okay.

==Movies==
Yeah, there are movies.

The first was a set of live-action films, but like pretty much all attempts at a live-action adaptation of a videogame, they fucking sucked like all shit. These are the atrocities that unleashed [[Alice]] upon the world, specifically so that director Paul W.S. Anderson could show off how awesome his wife Milla Jovovich is. [[wat|No, really]]. And despite the shit quality, the series remains one of the top-grossing film series of all time based on a video game. For these crimes (detailed on her page linked above), they shall never be forgiven.

Mercifully, Capcom got off their asses and have given us some '''real''' Resident Evil movies; three so far, they are all fully animated CGI affairs that are actually set in the actual universe of Resident Evil and use regular characters.

''Degeneration'', the first film, brings back fan-favorite characters Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy. Set between ''Code Veronica'' and ''4'', it involves their efforts to stop an attempt by a madman to unleash the deadly G-virus and T-virus upon America.

''Damnation'' is a post-''4'' Leon fest involving Leon fighting ganados and lickers in some made-up Eastern European country.

''Vendetta'' is a London has fallen ripoff about Chris and Leon fighting a weapons dealer who got his hands on some Umbrella leftovers. Notable for some impressive John Wick-style gun battles and for finally bringing back Rebecca Chambers. Also notable for breaking the RE canon on par with the movies, the only saving grace for it is the non-stop, dickflick-tier action and them properly using the game's cast.

''4D-Executer'' is the very early CGI movie in the Resident Evil franchise and most disturbing one to boot. The plot of this 19 minute-long movie is centered around a group of mercenaries coming to Raccoon City, before being wiped out, in order to find a scientist and her data on a new viral form. Everything goes south when they are attacked by a unknown B.O.W., defeat it, only to realize that the darn monstrosity has a truly scary ability...not to mention the plot twist will horrify you.

==Man-Made Pestilence==
The basic core of the RE universe is the idea of infectious agents - traditionally viruses, but the series has experimented (no pun intended) - that can twist living creatures into unnatural monsters. So let's try and break down the major mutagens of the series, shall we?

'''Progenitor Virus:''' The original, in more ways than one. This mutagenic virus was native only to a small cave system in West Africa, and was literally the birth of the Umbrella corporation. Compatible hosts typically become stronger, tougher, and, in animals at least, much larger. Incompatible hosts end up dead. Largely considered to be rather weak as a B.O.W producing agent; supplanted by its successor, the T-Virus.
* '''T-Virus:''' The result of combining Progenitor Virus and Leech DNA, this was the creation of Dr. James Marcus. Much more virulent and with more powerful mutagenic properties than its predecessor; it even allows for the successful fusion of genes across species, allowing for the creation of the Hunter line and the experimental Chimera B.O.W. One disadvantage is that it introduces uncontrollable necrosis (rotting flesh). Humans exposed to the T-Virus become the iconic zombies. This was the mainstay of Umbrella's research going forward.
* '''T-Veronica Virus:''' A fusion between the T-Virus and an ancient virus that Alexia Ashford discovered inside of a fossilized queen ant. Much more potent than the regular T-Virus. Infectees often display arthropod or even plant-like traits. Prolonged exposure to the virus without being overcome by it - say, through cryogenic suspension or a prolonged regime of organ transplants - causes it to become symbiotic with the host, granting them superhuman abilities.
* '''T+G Virus:''' An experiment in fusing the T-virus and G-virus that didn't exactly work out. Most notorious for turning a male victim into a female(?) Tyrant-like creature. One that could shoot lightning, no less.
* '''T-Abyss Virus:''' A fusion between the T-Virus and an unnamed virus discovered in a deep sea fish. Highly mutagenic; bestows increased aquatic affinity in infectees. Seems to be especially compatible with sea life.
* '''T-Phobos Virus:''' Experiments with the T-Virus had suggested that there was a psychoreactive component to the virus - that is, the mutations were literally shaped by the subconscious mind of the host. T-Phobos is the product of experimentation and research into that aspect, creating a mutagenic virus that will affect you if you become too scared.

'''NE-Alpha Parasite:''' An unknown macro-parasite engineered by the French branch of Umbrella, intended to grant greater control over (and durability to) B.O.W hosts by serving as a surrogate brain. Nobody knows ''how'' they cooked this up, but a popular theory is that it's an artificial recreation of Las Plagas.

'''G-Virus:''' A bizarre virus refined from an unnamed strain discovered in the body of Lisa Trevor after an attempt to infect her with the NE-Alpha Parasite failed. Incredibly mutagenic, granting the host constant bodily evolution and high regenerative abilities, but not terribly virulent. In fact, it's ''too'' mutagenic, [[Chaos Spawn|devolving the hosts into squamous masses of malformed meat]] once they experience enough trauma.

'''Uroboros Virus:''' Wesker's ultimate genocidal virus. If, on the literally millions to one chance you're compatible with it, you'll gain superpowers. Otherwise, you just end up as a mass of slimy black flesh-eating worms.

'''C-Virus:''' A super-virus cooked up by Neo-Umbrella, intended to be superior to the T-Virus and G-Virus. Direct injection turns victims into J'avo; aerial infection turns them into C-Viral Zombies.

'''Las Plagas:''' A macroparasite discovered somewhere in remote Spain. Although buried for centuries, it was dug up by a cult that worshipped it; "Los Illuminados". Whilst it has some mutagenic properties, mostly it acts to turn hosts into pack-hunting neo-zombies. This makes the hosts unusually tanky compared to "standard" zombies, as when the host is injured, the plaga may burst out of them to continue fighting - luckily, they can't stand UV light, so a simple flash grenade will kill them. Infection is also notably slow compared to Umbrella's viruses, requiring the injection of plaga eggs and taking about a day or so for the plaga to hatch, mature, and seize control. RE5 introduced the genetically engineered Type-2 Plaga, which reproduces more quickly and can directly infect hosts by having an infectee spit up a larval plaga and shove it in a victim's mouth. It also introduced the Type-3 Plaga, an attempt to create an even more virulent strain that turned out to make its hosts even crazier than regular plagas, and was also [[Female Space Marines|lethally genetically incompatible with female hosts]].

'''Mutamycete:''' Aka "The Mold". Symbiotic fungus bio-weapon linked with the B.O.W E-001, aka "Eveline", who can generate humanoid servitors out of fungal strands and control the minds of anyone infected with the fungus. RE8 reveals it's actually a derivative of a naturally occurring parasitic mold with [[psionics|mind-absorbing capabilities]] referred to as the '''Megamycete'''.

'''Cadou:''' A macroparasite derived from infecting a parasitic nematode with Megamycete, created by Mother Miranda as part of her efforts to revive her daughter. Responsible for the Lycans, the four houses, and the other monstrosities faced during the events of Resident Evil 8. Exactly whether the victim becomes a neo-[[Vampire]] in the style of Lady 'Step on me Harder' Dimitrescu or devolves into a not-[[Werewolf]] appears to be down to genetic factors.

==Bio-Organic Weapons & Irregular Mutations==
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And what's the point of a Resident Evil page that doesn't give you at least a basic rundown of the extensive series bestiary? In-universe, the terms "Bio-Organic Weapon" (B.O.W) refers to any creature that was specifically created as at least an experiment in engineering a living weapon/super soldier, whilst "Irregular Mutation" refers to critters that just popped up on their own when the latest virus was spilled. The distinctions are kind of interchangeable as a result; infected animals, for example, can be considered both B.O.W (when created deliberately) and mutation (when produced by accident), despite being identical in all other details.

'''Zombies:''' These are the most basic enemy in the game, and actually straddle the line between B.O.W and irregular mutation; the zombifying element of the T-Virus ''was'' an intended by-product, but usually when you encounter zombies, they're the result of an accident leak rather than a deliberate B.O.W strike. Zombies are only produced by the T-Virus, although some T-derivatives have equivalent creatures. They're your fairly basic shamblers; they're slow, mindless, rotbags. Shoot them enough, and they'll go down. They can be killed with enough trauma in general, but headshots put them down much more efficiently.
* ''Crimson Head:'' Only seen in the 2002 REmake of RE1, Crimson Heads are zombies that have been subjected to massive trauma, but which had their bodies left relatively intact (ie: you didn't kneecap them, blow their heads off, or burn them). As a result, the T-Virus kicks in and mutates them into a faster-moving, more aggressive form distinguished by its blood-infused crimson skin and its elongated claws.
* ''Green Zombie:'' Introduced in Outbreak: File 2, Green Zombies have been infested by a parasitic T-virus-infected plant. This causes flowers to grow from their heads which spew toxic pollen at potential prey.
* ''C Zombie:'' Zombie created from exposure to the C-Virus. Slightly smarter (enough to swing objects as clubs) and faster, but also more fragile than their T-Virus counterparts.
* ''Ivy Zombie:'' Only appears in the RE2make. Corpse infested by parasitic seedlings of mutant Plant 43. Can be stunned temporarily by destroying large yellow growths on body, but can only be killed by burning them.
* ''Ooze:'' The zombies created by exposure to T-Abyss; these horrors are drastically more mutated than standard zombies, and have the ability to squeeze through surprisingly narrow spaces. Rather than flesh-eaters, they're blood-drinkers, seeking to suck victims dry of bodily fluids via hideous leech-like tongues.
* ''Afflicted:'' The result of experiments with the T-Phobos virus, the Afflicted are less "zombies" and more "hideously mutilated homicidally insane lunatics driven crazy with pain and fear". Thus, they act a lot like Ganados or Majini. If they die, they can come back as more standard zombie-like creatures referred to as ''The Rotten''.

'''Tyrants:''' The ultimate super-soldier product ''intended'' to be created with the T-Virus, but very few people are sufficiently genetically compatible. Generally resemble tall, hulking humanoids with impossibly solid musculature and oversized claws, although it depends a ''lot'' on the specific model.
* ''T-001:'' The Prototype Tyrant, the very first ever produced and thus the most visibly flawed. One hand has partially begun transforming into the trademark claw. Spinal cord has been exposed by necrosis, resulting in considerably higher vulnerability compared to later Tyrants - this is the only Tyrant to have ever been taken down completely with small arms fire.
* ''T-002:'' The Test-Type Tyrant, more successful than its T-001 predecessor, though still horribly mutilated. This was the Tyrant seen in Resident Evil 1, so it's arguably the most iconic Tyrant of them all, at least for the older fans. It's tough enough that it requires anti-tank ordinance to destroy.
* ''T-103:'' The Production Model Tyrant, aka "Mr. X". This is the one introduced in RE2 and which was the base model for all of the other official Tyrants seen in subsequent games, so to slightly younger fans, ''this'' is probably the most iconic Tyrant.
* ''Nemesis:'' A T-103 infected with the NE-Alpha Parasite for use as a super-powered assassin. Even smarter and more dangerous than the vanilla T-103.
* ''Ivan:'' A more advanced T-103 sub-model specifically engineered to pass as human, created for use as bodyguards.
* ''Tyrant-Armored Lethal Organic System:'' One of the recurring problems with the Tyrant model was that they were pretty rubbish against enemy vehicles, especially aircraft. So, they decided the only sane and rational thing to do was take a Tyrant, hook it up to a mind-controlling super-computer, stuff it into a suit of [[Powered Armor]], and give it a rapid-fire multiple rocket launcher outfitted with heat-seeking missiles. Absolutely none of this is made up. The T-A.L.O.S only appears in the rail shooter "The Umbrella Chronicles".
* ''Bandersnatch:'' A failed attempt to create a cheaper alternative to the Tyrant, characterized by its only possessing a single arm, which is basically a giant claw on a tentacle, so they can reach out and kill you from a gunshot length away. Except that Bandersnatches, unlike Tyrants, often hunt in pairs or trios...

'''Hunters:''' Human/reptile genetic fusions made possible through the T-Virus, created as living weapons. Incredibly intelligent, almost human-like, these predators possess thick armor-like scaly hides, razor-sharp claws, and powerful muscles.
* ''Alpha:'' The original Hunter model, and the most famous, debuting in the original Resident Evil 1. They're generally considered, in-universe and out, to be Umbrella's most successful B.O.W line.
* ''Beta:'' Appearing in RE3, Betas were a failed attempt to improve on the Alpha, resulting in a stronger and tougher, but slower, almost blind creature covered in hideous tumors. Whilst non-Gamma Hunters do appear in the RE3make, fans are split on if they're supposed to be Alphas or redesigned Betas.
* ''Gamma:'' An attempt to fuse human genes into a frog, as opposed to adding lizard DNA to a human embryo. Gammas were regarded as a failure because they remained moisture dependent; like their froggy cousins, they die if they get too dry. They debuted in the original RE3, and were given an incredibly effective redesign in the RE3make that clearly builds on what came before.
* ''Sweeper:'' A Hunter with venomous claw attacks.
* ''Farfarello:'' A Hunter infected with T-Abyss, which makes it amphibious(?) and somehow able to turn invisible for short periods of time.

'''Zombie Animals:''' Any animal infected with the T-Virus becomes an insanely aggressive carnivore, typically sporting necrosis in a similar manner to a zombie. A significant minority of infected animals also grow to unnatural sizes, a lingering remnant of the Progenitor virus. Some of the more iconic critters that have shown up in the series are zombie dogs, zombie crows, and giant zombie spiders, which can range from "the size of a really big dog" (common enemies) to "bigger than a car" (bosses). The list of one-off giant bosses is incredibly long and takes up a major part of the series' bestiary, including but not limited to: giant zombie snakes, giant zombie sharks, giant zombie scorpions, giant zombie centipedes, and a zombie elephant.

'''Mutant Leeches:''' It's telling the kind of games that the RE series are that ''three'' different forms of mutant leeches have shown up over the series.
* ''Marcus Leeches:'' The original mutant leeches, these are leeches infected with Progenitor Virus who subsequently incubated inside the decaying corpse of their creator. They are hive-minded predators, more than capable of killing enemies in a swarm of horrific sluggy bodies with giant toothy mouths in their underbellies, but their preferred tactic is to twist themselves into a repulsive mockery of a humanoid form that eats bullets and can beat a man to death with a few blows of their elongated whip-like arms. Oh, and if critically injured, they ''explode'' like acid-stuffed grenades. Kill it with fire.
* ''Leech Man:'' Another swarm-hunting strain of infected leeches, this one appeared in Resident Evil: Outbreak. What distinguishes them from Marcus Leeches is that they can parasitize the corpses of those they kill and use them as ridiculously tanky [[zombie]]s to take on prey. Once again, kill it with fire.
* ''Giant Leeches:'' These are just leeches grown to the size of a good-sized car. Resident Evil: Outbreak features them in the sewers.

'''Licker:''' One of the most iconic monsters to appear in Resident Evil 2, lickers resemble flayed humans twisted into quadrupedal predators, with removed skullcaps exposing their brains, giant claws for hands and feet, mouths full of oversized fangs, and their iconic elongated tongues, which can cut and stab like whip-swords. For the longest time, nobody was sure if they were some kind of mutant abomination, or if they were a B.O.W experiment; Capcom finally declared that zombies which are particularly compatible with the T-Virus will ultimately evolve into lickers. One of the things the RE2make has justifiably earned praise for is its efforts to capture the intimidating nature of lickers on next-gen graphical hardware; they are ''creepy'' sons of bitches.

'''Ivy:''' During the original Mansion Incident, the S.T.A.R.S survivors fought "Plant 42", a common houseplant in the bunkhouse that had mutated into a giant man-eater after its roots were exposed to T-Virus-laced water. Apparently, news on this got back to Umbrella, so they tried to weaponize it; officially called "Plant 43s", Ivys are carnivorous plants injected with a cocktail of the T-Virus and human DNA, resulting in humanoid killer plants that can actively hunt you down. They're slow, but they are ''tough''.

'''Ganados & Majini:''' The Zombie equivalents for Resident Evils 4 and 5 respectively, the result of infecting humans with Las Plagas. They have a zombie-like durability and fearlessness, but still retain enough human intelligence to use at least simple weapons and basic tactics, making fighting them much more unpredictable. Both varieties will use different weapons depending on the area where you encounter them, and can spawn secondary Plaga-based enemies to fight which, again, largely depends on the area where you encounter them.

'''Regeneradors:''' An experiment in creating the Las Plagas equivalent of a Tyrant. As their name implies (it's Spanish for "Regenerator"), Regeneradors constantly regrow severed limbs and heal gaping wounds in rapid time. The only way to easily kill them is to use a sniper rifle outfitted with a thermal scope to deliver accurate shots to the multiple engineered Plagas infesting their bodies which give them this ability. A variant called the ''Iron Maiden'' bristles with spikes that it extends from its body, preferring to impale its victims on these spikes as opposed to simply ripping them apart with its gaping maw filled with jagged fangs like the standard Regenerador. Considered by many to be the only true contender against the Licker for position of "most creepy enemy in Resident Evil".

'''J'Avo:''' Infected by injection with the C-Virus, J'avo are the Ganado/Majini replacement for RE6. Aside from being smarter than Ganados, at least to the point they can all wield guns, the main trick up a J'avo's sleeve is that it can mutate in response to injury. Most commonly, this results in the bodypart you've been shooting morphing into a random form - a torso may develop armor plating or swell up into a living bomb, an arm may be become a shield, a grappling tentacle or a giant sickle claw, stuff like that. Sometimes, though, the J'avo will undergo a "Complete Mutation" and transform into an entirely inhuman monster.

'''Lycans:''' The new default enemy for RE8, the Lycans are bestial, hair-covered humanoids with vaguely wolflike features (more Universal Films' Wolfman than the classic pseudo-[[furry]] [[werewolf]]). They function most similarly to Ganados or Majini, being surprisingly fast and agile as well as using basic tactics to coordinate against Ethan. Though they happily wield weapons, they're equally happy to just attack with their fangs and claws. Infected with a parasite called "Cadou", they can spread it through wounds, and the fact Ethan never gets infected actually turns into a plot point. There's some variant lycans, including lycans in crude armor that needs to be blown apart to make them vulnerable, and two Lycan mini-bosses; the brothers Uriaș and his big brother Uriaș Străjer.

'''Moroaicǎ:''' Shambling [[zombie]]-like creatures found in Castle Dimitrescu, the Cadou-reanimated victims of Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters. Similar to the C-Zombies, they clumsily wield melee weapons, but also try to grab Ethan and rip his throat out with their teeth. They have a winged variant called the Samcă.

'''Soldat:''' Special creations of Karl Heisenburg, the Soldat are Cadou zombies augmented with cybernetic implants, and come in varying degrees of [[cyborg]], to the point that the most powerful, the ''Panzer'', basically just looks like a killer robot.

One peculiar thing about Resident Evil's menagerie of horrors is that you rarely see female enemies. Female bosses, sure, but female mooks? Only RE2, RE3 and RE6 have female zombies. In RE4 and RE5, only the initial "Village" section of the game features female plaga hosts. In Revelations, female victims of T-Abyss become "sea creepers", which are only seen in the flooded areas and far outnumbered by the standard "ooze" enemies... although, in fairness, oozes are so mutated it's anybody's guess what they were beforehand, although you still fight a recognizably female ooze as a boss. RE8 also gives us what is implied to be an entirely female "mook" creature in the Moroaicǎ, although they don't really look like women any more.

==/tg/ Stuff==
You can find material for running RE games under [[All Flesh Must Be Eaten]] here: http://thegraveyard.xtreemhost.com/resievilselect.html?ckattempt=1

[[User:QuietBrowser|This loser here]] has a half-completed attempt at creating a splatbook for running RE games under the 2nd edition New [[World of Darkness]] rules, in the form of [[Resident Evil: Chronicles of Darkness]].

[[Category: Video Games]]