It’s been a big few years for the horror franchise, so here are all of our theories about what will be the next Resident Evil game after the Resident Evil 4 Remake. It’s a bit of a weird interlude phase at the moment with the memory of Village still pretty fresh and a super slick remake recently in the bag.
It’s going to be interesting to see whether or not Capcom keeps the parasitic gravy train rolling or take a break to build momentum for the next big release. Either way, we’re pretty sure that there’s a whole lot more to come from the Resident Evil franchise in the future and the next game will probably already be in production.
AdvertisementThe Resident Evil film (Welcome To Racoon City) did OK, but even if it does inspire a sequel, it probably won’t come anywhere near the impact of the games. It would be cool to go on to get a movie adaptation of Resident Evil 4, but that shouldn’t have much if any impact on the next game we get to play.
Capcom has also tried its hand at a TV series with the Netflix live action show, but this picked up some of the worst reviews we’ve seen for such a big adaptation. The series was cancelled after season 1, so again this is unlikely to inspire anything for the core franchise.
All of that means that it can be seen as an open book, but there’s plenty to go on from the last few releases to give us a hint about the next game. There are arguments in favor of another remake, Resident Evil IX and a spin-off title, so we’ll suplex each of these into next week in the sections below.
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Option 1 – We get another remake
AdvertisementThis one isn’t going to take that much time, because we’ve literally just had the Resident Evil 4 Remake. Prior to that we had a remake of RE2 in 2019 and then RE3 in 2020 and all of them have been very well received.
2 and 4 landed the best, so it’s possible we might get another Resident Evil game remake next. With 2 and 3 coming out a year apart, it’s definitely a contender with 5 being the most likely option with the hints at the end of 4 and the release pattern we’ve seen in the last few years.
However, with the remake of RE3 not getting as much attention as the others, maybe Capcom has worked out that it needs to give things a bit more time. When you look at this and the fact that we’ve just had 4, we’ll be surprised if we see the next remake until 2024/25.
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It’s also possible that things won’t go straight to 5 either. There are plenty of other remake options that could be in the mix with Resident Evil Revelations being a big shout. It takes place just after the events of RE4, so it would fit in well and it was previously released as a 2017 HD update to the original 2012 Nintendo 3DS game.
With more of a dedicated remake it could be a very nice direction to backtrack to for the next returning challenger. Other options include the first Resident Evil game and prequel RE0, with both yet to get a remake, so they could be in the mix too.
Option 2 – Resident Evil IX will be the next game
AdvertisementThe gap between main series games averages out at one every four years and with Resident Evil Village – the eighth main game in the franchise – out in 2021 the best estimate for IX is 2025. A release next year is mathematically possible, but we’d need a teaser reveal in the next few months for it to be much of a possibility.
It doesn’t look like it’s on the cards as things stand, so we’re sticking to our 2025 prediction for now. The question is what exactly would that be in terms of story progression, so if you haven’t played Village and don’t want to know how it ends then you might want to skip to the next section without reading the following few points.
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There are a few directions that Capcom could go in after VIII. The main story ended with Chris planning on taking things up with the powers that be at the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance’s (BSAA) European Headquarters. This would make for a direct sequel to Village and give us a different Resident Evil experience than we’ve had in recent years.
We’ve had a lot of backwater boogeymen, and scary village settings, so it would be a bit unoriginal to give us another. However, the storming of the Headquarters would give us the potential of a new kind of RE experience, which could be cool.
AdvertisementThe other alternative is that IX could pick things up in the aftermath of Village DLC, Shadows of Rose. In that we pick up with Ethan Winters’ daughter Rose sixteen years after the events of Village, who battles the Megamycete consciousness.
In the end, she embraces her powers to defeat Miranda, who has survived within the consciousness, and leaves the Megamycete. Once on the outside, she visits Ethan’s grave, but gets interrupted by a BSAA agent who tells her they have a situation.
As they drive away in the car a distant figure approaches them and it fades out. If this is where the next Resident Evil game picks things up then we could have Rose as the main protagonist with the possibility of a team-up with her father figure Chris.
One of the interesting twists in Shadows of Rose is that it’s revealed that Rose has powers beyond what we’ve seen in a main character before, so this could be an interesting way to shake up the franchise in RE9. However, this is still likely to be a couple of years off, so possibly not the next Resident Evil game we get to play.
Option 3 – Something new is on the agenda next from Resident Evil
AdvertisementWith a new remake not expected until 2024 at the earliest and Resident Evil 9 a couple of years away by our estimates that points to the possibility of something completely new from the franchise. However, it’s also possible that we might just get a break for a while, so we could be back to a remake being next.
The last break we had was 2018 and before that it was a two years gap after Resident Evil 6 at the end of 2012. When you look at this it definitely points to a break for the series for the next year or so, but with the financial impact of RE for Capcom there’s also scope for it to keep the momentum going.
One option is that it could try something new again. We’re already expecting a VR version of the Resident Evil 4 Remake, so that doesn’t count, but it’s been a while since we had a new type of game for the franchise. The multiplayer add-ons like Re:Verse and Resistance don’t really count, so even if we do get a mutliplayer feature for 4 it doesn’t really constitute a new game as such.
AdvertisementInstead, you’ll have to go back to tactical shooter, Umbrella Corps, in 2016 for the last spin-off game. Before that it was Resident Evil Revelations 2, so it’s possible we could get a 3rd entry from this next.
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The other alternative is an on-rails shooter similar to The Darkside Chronicles. Admittedly, this was for the light gun capabilities of the Wii, but there are a number of them and they actually started out with Dead Aim on the PS2. We don’t have a light gun as such for the PlayStation 5, but with the big push to build hype for the PSVR2 it could be a contender for the next game.
We’ve just had something similar with the lead launch game for the updated virtual reality tech, Horizon Call of the Mountain. Take this and throw in the horrors of the Resident Evil series and you’ve got the makings of a pretty cool new game.
Drop us a comment over on Twitter if you’ve got any ideas of our own. Check out our computer games section for more gaming news and features, or visit the Resident Evil website at www.residentevil.com.
