Games · 11 events
Resident Evil chronology and timeline
The chronology of Raccoon City almost fits inside 1998. The timeline on the shelf starts in 1996 and has not closed. Both clocks sit on this spine.
Two weeks and twenty-five years
The first Resident Evil is set on 24 July 1998, a Saturday night in the woods outside Raccoon. The game reached Saturn and PlayStation two years before that date. Inside the story the worst of the series packs into a few months of 1998, then jumps years. In the shop each new number delayed, jumped, or punched a hole in that inner calendar.
This page is not a “play in this order” list. It is the contrast between chronology and timeline. On the in-world ruler, Resident Evil 0 opens the line because Rebecca and Billy walk into the training facility a day before Chris and Jill. On the release tab, Zero only exists in 2002, after Code Veronica, because GameCube asked for a prelude.
What ships and what stays off
The numbered games ship, plus Zero, Code Veronica, Revelations, 7 and Village. Rail shooters, Survivor, Gaiden and the Outbreaks stay off — useful for a city map, weak for the main ruler. Remakes occupy the same story point as the original; the street date quoted is the first disc of that story, not the remake.
When the work says “autumn” or “six years later”, the label stays that way. No invented 17th of the month to look precise.
In-world
July 1998
Spencer Mansion and the training facility, two days in a row.
Resident Evil 0
Release: 12 Nov 2002 (GameCube, Japan)
23 July 1998. The Ecliptic Express and Umbrella’s training facility, in the same woods as Spencer Mansion. Rebecca Chambers is not yet S.T.A.R.S. in the field; Billy Coen is the prisoner the plot needs to open doors. The game explains the progenitor virus on the wrong shelf: it arrived in 2002, on GameCube, as a prelude to a story the world had known for six years.
In-world, it is the first step. On release, it is the fifth chapter of a series that had already gone to Antarctica.
Resident Evil
Release: 22 Mar 1996 (PlayStation, Japan)
24 July 1998. Chris, Jill, Barry and Wesker walk into the mansion. The T-virus has already leaked; the Tyrant has not. This is the Saturday the whole series uses as year zero, even though it was written in 1996.
The Japanese street date — 22 March 1996 — sits before the in-world date. Capcom sold the weekend of 1998 two years before it “happened”. Remakes in 2002 and 2022 do not change the day; they change the floor, the camera, and how much Wesker already knew.
Raccoon City
September 1998. Jill starts a day before Leon and Claire.
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Release: 22 Sep 1999 (PlayStation, Japan)
28 September 1998. Jill Valentine tries to leave Raccoon while the city still has buses and a pharmacy. Nemesis hunts her because Umbrella wants S.T.A.R.S. dead, not because the calendar asked for a “3” after a “2”.
In the story Jill starts a day before Leon and Claire. In the shop Nemesis arrived in 1999, after Resident Evil 2. Play by the numbers and you reach a city already ruined; play by the world and Jill opens the path the second game will close.
Resident Evil 2
Release: 21 Jan 1998 (PlayStation, Japan)
29 September 1998. Leon S. Kennedy on his first day, Claire Redfield looking for her brother. Raccoon police station is the board; the G-virus is why the city has no way back.
The Japanese disc shipped on 21 January 1998 — eight months before the in-world date. It is the only numbered entry the shop delivered before the story’s own calendar. The 2019 remake keeps the day and swaps the map.
After the city
Rockfort, Spain, Africa, Eastern Europe, Louisiana.
Resident Evil Code: Veronica
Release: 3 Feb 2000 (Dreamcast, Japan)
December 1998. Claire is locked on Rockfort after Raccoon. Alfred Ashford, the island, the Antarctic base, Steve Burnside, and Chris arriving late. The city has already been bombed; Umbrella still has heirs.
It shipped on Dreamcast on 3 February 2000, between 3 and Zero. In-world it closes 1998. Without Code Veronica the jump to Spain in Resident Evil 4 looks like a hole. With it, the hole is only geography.
Resident Evil 4
Release: 11 Jan 2005 (GameCube, Japan)
Autumn 2004. Leon, now a federal agent, hunts the president’s daughter in a European village taken by Los Iluminados. Six years after Raccoon, the T-virus is no longer the centre; plaga takes its place.
It arrived on 11 January 2005 on GameCube. On the shelf it is the series’ big camera cut. On the spine it is the first long breath after the year 1998.
Resident Evil Revelations
Release: 26 Jan 2012 (Nintendo 3DS)
2005. The liner Queen Zenobia, Jill and Parker, Chris and a young BSAA. The game exists to stitch the gap between Spain and Africa: Umbrella fell, the bioweapons did not.
It shipped on Nintendo 3DS on 26 January 2012, after Resident Evil 5 and 6 in the shop. In the story it sits between 4 and 5. It is the cleanest case on this line of a shelf number fighting an inner calendar.
Resident Evil 5
Release: 5 Mar 2009 (Japan)
March 2009. Kijuju, West Africa. Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar against TRICELL and against Wesker, whom the series had dragged since the mansion. Uroboros is the bet of a man who should have left the stage in 1998.
Japanese release on 5 March 2009 — street date and in-world month coincide, rare in this series.
Resident Evil 6
Release: 4 Oct 2012 (Japan)
2012 and 2013. Four campaigns, three cities, the C-virus. Leon on American soil again, Chris in a war that no longer fits a mansion, Jake Muller as the son the series owes Wesker, Ada on her own board.
It shipped on 4 October 2012. It is the last “wide” game before the first-person cut. On the spine it closes classic BSAA before Ethan Winters is born for the public.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Release: 24 Jan 2017
2017. Dulvey, Louisiana. Ethan Winters walks into the Baker house after Mia. The series swaps the trained agent for a lost husband and the camera for an eye. Eveline and the Mold tie an Umbrella lab to a rural family with no uniform.
Worldwide debut 24 January 2017. The story sits in the same year. After two decades of jumps, the inner clock and the shop clock walked together again.
Resident Evil Village
Release: 7 May 2021
February 2021. An Eastern European village, a newborn daughter, Mother Miranda. Four years after Louisiana, Ethan is still not a poster hero; he is the body the Mold still uses. Chris returns on the other side of the door, with a BSAA a 1996 player would not recognise.
It shipped on 7 May 2021, after the in-world date. The village winter had already happened when the disc arrived.
See also the timeline index and games.