On May 4, 2021, I published the first text of this blog: The Romania that will bring us Resident Evil Village (yet to be translated to English). We were just three days away from the release of that bold new numbered title of our favorite video game franchise, and I chose to launch the blog at that time precisely to profit from the hype.
But I had no idea how the response to that first and humble text would be positive, both with the praise and with the amount of people who were interested in the material and the blog right away. In that May, there were 68 views on that text alone! And then came the other texts’ success, which even culminated in an episode of Resident Evil Database’s podcast.
The blog grew very fast in a very short time and that was a big (and wonderful!) surprise for me, because I didn’t think that such a niche proposal – a specific game with an even more specific approach – would have so many followers.
It was delightful to see how many people liked to discuss real-life historical issues related to Resident Evil, and that gave my work extra motivation, after all, historians don’t do research only for themselves (or at least they shouldn’t), but to the world, and that includes talking about history and pop culture/nerd/geek and similar.
Why do we like to talk about Resident Evil and history then? Why talk about Resident Evil and history?
Every cultural product has a context
Any book, movie, poem, TV show, song and even videogame is inspired by something. This includes other works of fiction – themselves inspired by real life – as well as elements of the historical, social, and cultural reality of their creators.
It is common knowledge that Resident Evil had inspirations such as the game Sweet Home and the zombie movies by George A. Romero, but it is also evident how real events and phenomena influence the course of its events. Umbrella was producing bioweapons in a late Cold War context, the US government of the RE universe broke the real-life 1972 Treaty against Chemical and Biological Weapons, Umbrella’s founders’ motivations were related to the same eugenics that led to the horrors of Nazism.
These details are conscious choices made by people like Shinji Mikami, Kenichi Iwao, Noboru Sugimura, Dai Satō and so many others who have passed through the franchise to this day.
And we cannot forget that, as human beings belonging to their own historical moment, to certain worldviews, to a certain culture, a certain life trajectory, these people also bring their personal and social experiences to their games.
A world close to ours
While most adventure games that the public was used to made use of fantastic elements, whether in the realm of magic or science fiction, 1996’s Resident Evil brought something that, in my view, is one of its differentials still today: a proximity to the real world like few other games did until then.
How many people have I heard saying that they had never seen anything like it! The feeling of vulnerability of an ordinary character – a trained police officer, but still a human being without superpowers or cybernetic prostheses – facing monstrosities created by a megacorporation (which we have in droves full of allegations of slave or precarious work, destruction of the environment etc) through an antithetical use of science for political purposes (Cold War, eugenics, vaccine negationism).
It was a mixture of adventure, horror and science fiction that didn’t stray too far from the reality that surrounded us, and how many of us have already found ourselves thinking: is an epidemic caused by a zombie virus possible?
I always like to go back to Kenichi Iwao, who was the creator of the concept of the viral infection and who I think deserves as much credit in creating Resident Evil as Mikami does. For him, the realism of the setting is part of the fear, as the player relates with that situation and feels even more helpless. I highly recommend you read this absolutely incredible interview of him for Crimson Head.
Deepening the lore
For lore lovers like me and probably those of you who follow me, understanding the context behind Resident Evil’s plot construction contributes very much to understanding it more deeply.
Knowing the importance of the werewolf in Romanian folklore, we understand why they were chosen to be the main enemies of RE Village; when we understand how American war veterans are often abandoned by the state, we understand why Jason wanted to show fear to the world in Infinite Darkness; when we remember that the US dropped two atomic bombs on civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we get an idea of why in the gaming universe the US government had no qualms about decimating Raccoon City with a bomb even with the possibility of survivors being killed together with the monsters.
Games are culture
It is true that video games are a commercial product made for companies to make money. However, their creation process involves much more than that – it is full of true artists who work hard to build engaging narratives, beautiful settings that help tell a story, captivating characters whom we relate to and end up loving.
That’s why I believe video games are art just as much as literature or cinema. Resident Evil is by no means out of it, with its 26 years telling the story of what our world would be like if a megacorporation decided to create monsters as weapons. Well, we do have megacorporations that sell common weapons and that take advantage of other people’s wars to sell, don’t we?
Therefore, talking about games and history, about Resident Evil and history, is still a way to reflect upon our own world and ourselves. And I am very grateful to everyone – more than 1,000 visitors and almost 2,000 views from more than 30 countries – who have embarked on this endeavor with me this past year.
Thank you so much and shall we have many more!
