Evil Lies Within
When it comes to survival horror, it’s hard not to think of Shinji Mikami’s iconic franchise. With a staggering 27 games and a movie series worth over a billion dollars, there’s probably a reason for that, but the series has passed yet another milestone with a total of 103,000,000 copies sold globally.
Not only does this make the series the best selling horror franchise in gaming history by around seventy-five million copies, but it also manages to scrape its way into the top twenty bestselling game franchises, period, even beating out fan-favorite franchises like Legend of Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, and Star Wars. It’s also sold forty million more copies than Capcom’s next biggest seller, Monster Hunter.
Surprisingly, the biggest sellers were Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 6, and Resident Evil 7. While 7 was well-regarded and seen as a return to form for the series, 5 and 6 proved divisive to fans for a heightened focus on shooting compared to the older games and their focus on horror. The beloved Resident Evil 4, often seen as a high point for the franchise, was surprisingly not as successful as the games which took it’s innovations and decided “too much is never enough”.
So what’s next for the franchise? Resident Evil Village launches next year, with returning Resident Evil 7 protagonist Ethan investigating a mysterious village besieged by monsters. Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario have reportedly been approached to star in a reboot of the film franchise, and a remake of the fourth game is apparently in production, although as one of the best-regarded games in the franchise we hope that they don’t change too much of what worked in the process of retooling the game for modern audiences.
What we can be certain of is that there’s still an appetite for the franchise, and if Village is as scary as it looks, we might be in for a treat.
What’s your favorite Resident Evil game? Did the regenerators terrify you or are you some kind of robot? Let us know in the comments.