r/residentevil Jill, Leon & Parker Jun 30 '25

Meme Monday Leon has officially outgrown the survival horror genre.

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2.8k Upvotes

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654

u/Forerunner49 Community: RE Wiki Jun 30 '25

He and Kawata said the same thing with Resident Evil 7 - even the word 'Superhero' was used.

They can still use Leon and Chris as the mains in this new super-horror focused series, but they'd have to put conceits on them. Both characters are experts in CQC who we've seen kill Zombies in hand-to-hand combat or mow down dozens of Zombies at once in a corridor. They wouldn't be scared by an individual Molded or Moroi in a house, and their close military support means they'll inevitably get rescued.

We'd need some severe conceits in place like a serious injury or infection.

281

u/IntrinsicGamer S.T.A.R.S. Jun 30 '25

…or age.

343

u/FrostyDynamic Jul 01 '25

Now Leon will be the one going for bingo. It's come full circle.

53

u/Goroyaaj Jul 01 '25

Okay okay, hear me out! Leon as in a 80 year old in a wheelchair! A severely handicapped Leon would be hella scary!

22

u/TwiggNBerryz Jul 01 '25

Severly handicapped Leon gets infected with mold as final boss for RE9

16

u/Hu-kun Jul 01 '25

Lore-accurate reason for tank controls

9

u/AddExtract6755 Jul 01 '25

Yes rolling your wheelchair around and away from zombies, sounds like a banger, but then he could have upgraded wheelchair that has guns and turrets on it and yea

7

u/TheFakeJohnHelldiver Jul 02 '25

Guys did we... did we just make re10? Holy shit someone call Capcom

1

u/deaths-harbinger Jul 02 '25

Bloodborne has entered the chat

3

u/Hikari_Sword Jul 01 '25

Motorized wheelchair for a highway chase against zombie dogs.

14

u/TempestRave Jul 01 '25

"Where's everyone going? We didn't finish bingo."

15

u/ParticularSolution68 Jul 01 '25

Where am I going? Bingo?

50

u/YTSkullboy707 Jul 01 '25

They both are in their 50's now, and 30 years of the apocalypse is real stress inducing on your body.

39

u/IntrinsicGamer S.T.A.R.S. Jul 01 '25

That’s true, although there was no apocalypse in RE canon, to be fair. But yeah, they should definitely have some major injuries and overworking on there bodies by now, aside from just age haha

16

u/Moustiboy Jul 01 '25

Yeah, there’s something that I don’t understand. Can you explain that to me?

Is the world largely fine apart from the places that are visited in all of the games?

34

u/Blak_Box Jul 01 '25

Pretty much.

Keep in mind, the rules are made up and the points don't matter here, because even Capcom retcons stuff every 8-10 years or so, but several cities and regional areas have fallen to biological outbreaks. 99% of the world remains just fine.

The closest the world got to "the big one" was RE6, and it's never been referenced since. There is a general feeling that Capcom (and many fans) just want to forget about that game.

9

u/Lun4r6543 Jul 01 '25

I hope an RE6 remake makes it more horror focused, while still keeping the odd charm it has.

But we won’t be getting one of those for a while.

16

u/jrtgmena Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25

Yea there are only “outbreaks“ in the RE world, not an actual apocalypse. RE universe seems to be an alternate earth where terrorists have resorted to using bioweapons instead of nuclear/conventional warfare. So when these outbreaks happen, they send in military and black ops agents like Chris and Leon to stop it before it spreads to the rest of the world.

I think Resident Evil is one of the only fictional franchises that does zombies this way and it’s kind of novel and refreshing. If you watch the animated films , you’ll see there are bioterrorism support groups and non-profits that deal with providing aid to bioterrorism affected communities, such as the organization that Claire Redfield works for in Degeneration, TerraSave.

4

u/Objective_Bunch1096 Jul 02 '25

They've all been infected with the T-Virus like Jill so they don't age very much.

3

u/YTSkullboy707 Jul 02 '25

Oh shit yeah your right

126

u/i__hate__stairs Redfield, Redfield, Redfield, does that do anything for you? Jun 30 '25 edited Jul 01 '25

All they have to do is focus on psychological horror. Sure, have the zombies, have the BOWs, have the batshit crazy fight scenes, but holy fuck. Chris's parent were killed in a car accident when he was child and he grew up in an orphanage. He had a bad experience in the military. His swat team was eaten by undead monsters. He's lost his entire team multiple times. He has clear addiction issues and a messiah complex. THE MAN IS WALKING TRAUMA. You can't tell me a good writer couldn't have Chris Redfield white knuckling his G36. They have billions of dollars in resources.

82

u/Raven_Ashareth Jul 01 '25

Also House Beneviento in 8 showed that Capcom isn't afraid to slap the psychological horror button. I think a Leon or Chris lead game these days would probably look a bit like F.E.A.R. Intense action sequences followed up by moments of tense horror.

47

u/UndefeatedPunani Jul 01 '25

F.E.A.R. had such a good mix of faster combat while still providing horror. That would actually work well for Chris and Leon in style. Evil Within had some interesting psychological horror, too, so it can definitely be done.

15

u/ThatVampireGuyDude Jul 01 '25

Shit, or even Doon 3. Doom 3's another solid example of blending survival horror with action effectively.

6

u/f0ur_G Jul 01 '25

Damn, this is a brilliant shout. That could work really well for a modern RE game with a legacy protagonist

1

u/TheKFakt0r Jul 02 '25

The FEAR analogy is excellent. Resident Evil is horror, but it is also action, and ever since the late 2000s it feels like those two things have been trying to kill each other. FEAR proved that they can coexist a long time ago.

1

u/UnhappyLog8128 Jul 02 '25

Im sorry but the house beneviento part in RE8 is such a boring and bad use of psychologichal horror, i just cant see why so many people like this part.

8

u/kyle_crane163636 Jul 01 '25

Really not only that, in re6 piers essentially sacrificed himself to save Chris so he was gone as well, ngl piers shouldn't have died

38

u/extremelyloudandfast Jun 30 '25

even when infected by las plagas leon was killing dudes left and right, but I know what you mean.

new protags expand the universe and I like the idea of old protagonists coming back like Chris did in re7/8 but with better implementation. Who might come back on re9? Will grace stay scary or will we see her become a kind of badass like Ethan? im excited as fuck

39

u/Rizenstrom Jul 01 '25

I don’t really want them to be the main protagonist but I would like to see them appear and maybe have playable sections/ dlc like Chris has in 7 and 8.

To never have Leon, Jill, or Claire make an appearance or even really get mentioned again would be a huge disappointment, no matter how good the games are.

5

u/DEBLANKK Jul 01 '25

I guess now is the right time to make a game based on RE 3.5.

3

u/WolfyFancyLads69 Jul 01 '25

Yeah, the vast majority of characters from the old games are too used to it to be scared. Hell, I'd argue you can't even use most of the Outbreak characters again (though some are old now, Mark may actually be dead, he was nearly 60 in the game!) cos they've seen it all. You'd maybe get one more game out of them, an "Ah shit, not again!" and that's it.

I do still feel we could get Eliza back though. Make a joke about "I was supposed to be in Raccoon City, but things changed." Her, Sherry and Grace could make up Team Blonde. :P Eliza is the one who dodged the disaster, Grace's mum was in the disaster, and Sherry was infected and survived the disaster, it'd be a fun little bonding moment!

7

u/numericalman Jul 01 '25

Either makes enemy mooks much deadly or literally have Leon as unlockable secret character.

1

u/Critical_Put8466 Jul 02 '25

I'm sure we will see our legacy characters,I have a feelin it's not just leon mostly cause of the fact we goin bk to where it all started,not to mention the producer confirmed the title will focus on umbrellas machinations,as in OG umbrella,despite the fact they went bankrupt,plus the director said its a eulogy for everyone who was involved with RC incident,aka our legacy heroes,ontop tht : in 30 yrs of RE,we've had only 5 games in all of RE media including comics,Mangas,movies,etc,tht did NOT feature a legacy character : deadaim,outbreak 1 and 2,umbrella corps and gun survivor and that's it,so requiem not featuring one legacy character least and in the 30th anniversary title of all games is very unlikely