By the early 2000s, Resident Evil began to resemble a lingering party guest that just couldn't take a hint.
Of course, the series wasn't without its fans, but the sun had set on the brief wave of survival horror games inspired by the success of its 1996 debutand Nintendo's GameCube, of all platforms, was shaping up to be the genre's final resting place. 2002's stunning remake of the original stands as perhaps the definitive survival horror experience, yet sales of this Nintendo-exclusive release failed to meet Capcom's expectations. And the embarrassing Resident Evil Zero, released only a handful of months later, signaled a likely and unfortunate end for a series that once stood as one of the most exciting new experiences of the PlayStation era. With its reputation dragged through the mud, only drastic measures could save Resident Evil.
For Resident Evil to survive, it would need to wow players all over again; each successive game had refined things ever so slightly, but, by 2000's Code Veronica, Capcom had done pretty much everything possible with the formula they established. Much this repetition can be blamed on the technical shortcomings of the Sony PlayStationthere's only so many ways to play with polygonal characters skating across pre-rendered backgroundsbut the new generation of hardware held the promise of finally cutting Resident Evil free from its awkward roots. The only problem left, then, was figuring out the right direction to take it
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"Even if that's not the case, I would prefer this bill fail, since I'd rather see a Democrat get this win instead" - Doom_Art