Resident Evil / Bio Hazard / バイオ ハザード / Baio Hazādo Chris Redfield

Resident Evil[b] is a 1996 survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom originally for the PlayStation. It is the first title in Capcom's Resident Evil franchise. Players control Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, members of the elite task force S.T.A.R.S., who must escape a mansion infested with zombies and other monsters.

Conceived by producer Tokuro Fujiwara as a remake of his earlier horror game Sweet Home (1989), the development of Resident Evil was led by Shinji Mikami. It went through several redesigns, first as Super NES game in 1993, then a fully 3D first-person PlayStation game in 1994 and finally a third-person game. Gameplay consists of action, exploration, puzzle solving and inventory management. Resident Evil establishes many conventions seen later in the series, including the control scheme, inventory system, save system, and use of 3D models superimposed over pre-rendered backgrounds.

Resident Evil was praised for its graphics, gameplay, sound, and atmosphere, although it received criticism for its voice acting. It was an international best-seller, and became the best-selling PlayStation game ever at the time. By December 1997, it had sold about 4 million copies worldwide and had grossed more than $200,000,000 (equivalent to $346,000,000 in 2021).

Resident Evil is often cited as one of the most influential and greatest video games. It is credited with defining the survival horror genre and with returning zombies to popular culture, leading to a renewed interest in zombie films by the 2000s. It created a franchise including video games, films, comics, novels, and other merchandise. It has been ported to Sega Saturn, Windows and Nintendo DS. In 2002, a Resident Evil remake was released for the GameCube and ported to other platforms in 2015. A sequel, Resident Evil 2, was released in 1998, and a prequel, Resident Evil Zero, in 2002.

Gameplay

A screenshot of a puzzle that has to be solved at the beginning of the game. The environmental graphics are pre-rendered, whereas the characters and the objects that can be interacted with are real-time polygonal models
The player's character is a member of a special law enforcement task force who is trapped in a mansion populated by dangerous mutated creatures. The objective of the game is to uncover the mystery of the mansion and ultimately escape alive. The game's graphics consist of real-time 3D polygonal characters and objects, superimposed over pre-rendered backdrops with fixed camera angles. The player controls the character by pushing the D-pad or analog stick left or right to rotate the character and then move the character forward or backwards by pushing the d-pad up or down (tank controls).

To fulfill the game's objective, the player uncovers various documents that provide exposition about the game's narrative, as well as clues that help them solve various puzzles within the mansion. Key items are also available that give the player access to other items or new areas. The player can arm their character with weapons to defend themselves from enemies, although the ammunition available for each firearm is limited and the player must learn to conserve the ammunition they have for situations where they will really need it. To restore the character's health, the player uses first-aid sprays or three types of healing herbs that can be mixed together in different combinations for different healing effects. The carrying capacity of the player is limited depending on the character and items that the player does not wish to carry at the moment can be stored into an item box to be retrieved for later use. To save their progress, the player must pick up an ink ribbon and use it on any of the typewriters scattered through key locations in the game. However, the supply of ink ribbons the player can acquire is limited, much like the player's ammunition and healing supplies. Players will encounter and fight various infected creatures such as flesh-eating zombies and zombie dogs, giant spiders, sharks, and other monsters. The player character is assisted by another character (Rebecca Chambers or Barry Burton) throughout the game.

Developer(s) Capcom[a]
Publisher(s)
Capcom
Director(s) Shinji Mikami
Producer(s)
Tokuro Fujiwara
Masayuki Akahori
Designer(s)
Takahiro Arimitsu
Isao Ōishi
Programmer(s) Yasuhiro Anpo
Writer(s)
Kenichi Iwao
Yasuyuki Saga
Composer(s)
Makoto Tomozawa
Koichi Hiroki
Masami Ueda
Series Resident Evil
Platform(s)
PlayStation
Microsoft Windows
Sega Saturn
Nintendo DS
Release
March 22, 1996
Genre(s) Survival horror
Mode(s) Single-player

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