The Resident Evil series has been quite successful recently, with its developers, Capcom, releasing hit after hit and routinely making the Game of the Year list at year’s end. Its games are fun to play, look gorgeous, and consistently push the industry forward regarding graphical fidelity and pure scope. All these positive attributes and more make it almost outrageous for us to ask what’s next for the franchise. However…
The most recent Resident Evil title was the Resident Evil 4 Remake, released in 2023. But if you want an original game, you have to go all the way back to Resident Evil Village, which came out in 2021. It’s the right time to push the series forward, especially after director Kashi Nakanishi and Capcom confirmed that a new instalment is officially in development.
So, during the Capcom Summer Fest this year, Nakanishi said, “We’re making a new Resident Evil. It was really difficult to figure out what to do after 7. But I found it, and to be honest it feels substantial. I can’t share any details just yet, but I hope you’re excited for the day I can.” Based on his comments here, we can at least expect the game to take several notes from Resident Evil 7, especially how later he said the series should, “scare the hell out of you.”
Plus, there’s also a chance it will follow Resident Evil Village‘s story and continue focusing on Ethan Winters, but without an official word from Capcom, we cannot know if this is true. The rumour mill for this new entry has been churning for years, and one of those rumours is that it’ll be open-world for the first time in the franchise’s history.
For one, these games pride themselves on their expertly crafted worlds and secrets, so forgetting all that in favour of a neverending world with nothing to do in it doesn’t seem like a good idea at all. If it’s not broken, why fix it? They likely won’t.
There have also been some fan theories about the potential of this new Resident Evil game bringing back the previous protagonists in the series as a way to have a story spread across two different games. While Resident Evil does have some continuity, it’s mainly shown in characters like Leon showing up in a few titles here or there, but Resident Evil 7 was also a new break for the series. So, creating an entirely new continuity out of thin air is not a good idea.
Based on Naknishi’s comments and how many consider his previous work to be the scariest entry in the franchise, it seems to assume that 9 will also be terrifying. There is no point in ruining what works, so we can probably expect something similar to Resident Evil 7. If you consider how Nakanishi considered his last game a “starting point,” we can be pretty confident in saying the characters from that title will also return in Resident Evil 9. Of course, this is all speculation, but we’re fairly certain that it won’t be open-world, will continue with the horror-based gameplay, and will bring Ethan Winters back so he can have a terrible day all over again. As for anything outside of that, we’ll have to wait for more information from Capcom…