The Resident Evil franchise is making a triumphant return in Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline entry in the franchise. Of course, there have been much, much more than just nine Resident Evil games, with remakes, spin-offs, and stopgap releases often filling the void between major entries.
Resident Evil has changed quite a bit over the years, with its newfound focus on ambitious remakes, introduced with 2019’s phenomenal Resident Evil 2 remake, helping to reestablish its foothold in survival horror. But proper sequels, such as Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil Village, and now Resident Evil Requiem, are still essential for maintaining the IP’s relevance and narrative development over time. Capcom appears to be sticking to this blend of remakes and all-new entries, according to recent leaks from longtime RE insider Dusk Golem, though the developer also seems to be neglecting a third category of Resident Evil game, one that has been instrumental in fleshing out the lore of the franchise and fostering novel creative ideas.
As always, any and all leaks should be taken with a grain of salt. Dusk Golem has been right about Resident Evil in the past, but they have also been proven incorrect before, so their word should not necessarily be taken as gospel.
Resident Evil’s Three-Year Plan Doesn’t Include Spin-Off Games
Mapping out the next few years of Resident Evil, Dusk Golem made the following claims about upcoming games and their release windows:
- Resident Evil Requiem — February 27, 2026
- Resident Evil Requiem DLC — TBA 2026
- Resident Evil Code: Veronica Remake — 2027
- Resident Evil Zero Remake — 2028
- Resident Evil 10 — 2029
Resident Evil Requiem‘s release is imminent and widely publicized, and eventual DLC for the game seems like a safe bet as well, considering the series’ precedent for expansions. Similarly, remakes of Code Veronica and Zero have been rumored for quite some time, with Dusk Golem and other prominent leakers making claims about them over the past few years. A 2029 release for Resident Evil 10 (which Dusk Golem says won’t actually be called Resident Evil 10) is a bit of a tight turnaround, but it’s not too unrealistic.
Drag weapons to fill the grid
Drag weapons to fill the grid
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Notably absent from this lineup are spin-off games, which used to be a core part of the Resident Evil release strategy. Even back on the PlayStation 1, Capcom released Resident Evil Survivor, a now-archaic FPS with tank controls that played remarkably differently from the rest of the RE catalog at the time. Survivor was succeeded by a number of fan-favorite spin-offs, including the Revelations duology, which some fans even consider part of the mainline franchise due to its narrative significance and high quality bar.
Resident Evil’s Spin-Off Drought Is Understandable, but Still Frustrating
The last Resident Evil spin-off, if you don’t count multiplayer-only games, was 2016’s Umbrella Corps, a critical and commercial failure by just about any metric. If you are counting multiplayer-only games, then the last spin-off would be Resident Evil Re:Verse, which didn’t fare much better. There’s a case to be made that the action-and-multiplayer-oriented nature of these games was what caused them to fail, but that’s somewhat immaterial when speculating about business decisions; it’s not hard to imagine that the lesson Capcom learned from these failures was “people don’t like Resident Evil spin-offs.” But in fact, many people do like Resident Evil spin-offs, quite a bit, actually, and it would behoove Capcom to bring them back sooner rather than later.
Resident Evil Spin-Offs Have Been Vital to the IP’s Overall Health and Richness
They might not all be winners, but Resident Evil‘s spin-offs have regularly been valuable from both a narrative and mechanical standpoint. Take Resident Evil Outbreak, for instance: the 2003 game focuses on a cast that is mostly disconnected from the main series, but one of the playable characters, Alyssa Ashcroft, was recently revealed to have a daughter. That daughter, of course, is Grace Ashcroft, the deuteragonist of Resident Evil Requiem alongside Leon Kennedy. Thus, Outbreak serves as a source of further inspiration and narrative significance for the franchise, over two decades later. The same can be said about the likes of The Umbrella Chronicles, which further illuminates Wesker’s involvement in the events of the main storyline.
Beyond helpful or enriching narrative context, Resident Evil‘s various spin-off titles have served as proving grounds—or perhaps playgrounds would be a better term—for mechanical experimentation. Whether it’s through the light-gun formula of the Chronicles games or the top-down exploration of Resident Evil Gaiden, stepping beyond the core RE chronology has allowed for new ideas to come to the forefront. One might even argue that without Resident Evil Survivor, The Umbrella Chronicles, and The Darkside Chronicles, we would never have gotten the first-person adventures of RE7 and RE Village.
For these reasons, as well as more practical ones (spin-offs can often be cheaper to produce, for one thing), spin-off games ought to find their way back into Capcom’s priorities list. If Dusk Golem’s recent claims are correct, then it could be a while before this happens, but who knows—maybe the 2030s will be the decade of fresh Resident Evil side adventures.
- Released
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February 27, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases
