Summary
TheResident Evil Requiemtrailer heavily implies a trip down memory lane as protagonist Grace Ashcroft might have to go back to the ruins of Raccoon City to solve yet another string of deaths tied to a mysterious disease — this time around, it’s an incident potentially related to the murder of her mother, Alyssa Ashcroft.
However, while this trip to Raccoon City might settle (and introduce fans to) elements surrounding Grace’s life and perhaps her motivation for becoming an FBI technical analyst, seeing Raccoon City for the first time since its destruction might finally solve some interesting details that have perplexed fans throughout the games about the city-wide T-Virus outbreak.
Spoiler Warning: This list will delve into some story spoilers related to earlier Resident Evil games.
One of the more worthwhile tangents ofResident Evil 3 Remakewas Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliviera’s race against time finding a cure for the T-Virus — which turned out to be a vaccine created by former Umbrella researcher Dr. Nathaniel Bard. While they found Bard assassinated by the double-agent Nikolai Zinoviev, Carlos manages to cure Jill’s infection with it. The pair even plans on bringing a vaccine canister to authorities outside the city to stop its destruction. Unfortunately, Nikolai shoots the canister. In the end, Jill and Carlos leave the city via helicopter just seconds before it is destroyed.
However, the game’s post-credits scene is interesting, as it depicts a thin person wearing a green shirt getting the empty vaccine canister in front of a laptop. It’s the same vaccine canister, as its central part is busted open. Some speculate this person is thin enough to be Jill herself, although the franchise’s thematic coloring implies this is Chris. Based on the original storyline, Chris or Jill getting that canister could lead to their eventual investigationthat shut down Umbrella for good(The Umbrella Chronicles). However, things could spell trouble for Grace Ashcroft if this person turned out to be someone else.
One of the most perplexing mysteries inResident Evil 2would have to bethe survival of Ada Wong— specifically both her presumed death when she falls from the walkway, as well as the self-destruction of the NEST facility entirely. In both the original andRemakevariations, Ada still assists Leon by throwing him a nifty rocket launcher to finish off Mr. X, and the original timeline’sUmbrella Chroniclesshows Ada managing to leave Raccoon City just as it’s being destroyed. While the opening of her chapter inUmbrella Chroniclesshowed she had already reached the sewers by the time NEST met its demise… “how” she did it hasn’t been exactly revealed. She didn’t have her Hookshot at the time — Ada got her signature grappling hook after she already survived NEST.
Although not as big of a mystery compared to other curious questions about Raccoon City,Resident Evil 9could allow Grace to see where exactly in NEST Ada could have found a means to escape. Perhaps a boss fight could force her to escape from the abandoned NEST and into the sewers, giving players some semblance of “realism” as to how much of a resourceful badass Ada was to have survived the city’s destruction despite her injuries.
Introduced inResident Evil 3as the “rival” ofthe ever-enigmatic HUNKof the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service, Nikolai Zinoviev came to Raccoon City alongside platoons of other soldiers to eliminate the infected and evacuate civilians. As a Monitor, however, Nikolai had different objectives: most notably, to destroy evidence of T-Virus vaccine research, observe the performance of the Nemesis-T Type, and kill STARS survivor Jill Valentine. Seeing as the Nemesis-T Type is already pursuing Jill, Nikolai preferred not to interfere and just enjoy the monetary award that came along with Jill’s death.
While Nikolai made plans to escape the city with his data (to be sold to a third party) after learning of its inevitable destruction, his true fate is left ambiguous. In some accounts, Nikolai was killed by the Nemesis-T Type or died in combat while riding a helicopter, or even escaping with said chopper. Nikolai is never seen in the series again, except perhaps in a report inResident Evil Survivor,where Nikolai recounts the extreme difficulty of recovering T-Virus data amid the chaos. Curiously enough, this Umbrella report is dated 6th October 1998, some days after the destruction of Raccoon City.
Fans will eventually discover that the entirety of the Raccoon City outbreak (and its destruction) began as Umbrella Corporation’s retaliation against rogue scientist William Birkin, who decided to sell his researchabout the G-Virusto the US military when he found out Umbrella didn’t have any plans of promoting him into an executive. While samples of the virus did technically reach the US government courtesy of G-Virus carrier Sherry Birkin’s adoption by former National Security Advisor Derek Simmons, there was no such large-scale development of US-based bioweapons in the series.
The closest US-based bioweapons operation in the franchise would be tied to Defense Secretary Wilson inInfinite Darkness, where he wanted to profit by creating T-Virus-enhanced super-soldiers and selling vaccines to keep them from being turned. This was more of a side project than a “sanctioned” illegal project, however. This could have been a story Alyssa Ashcroft was pursuing before her demise, and something her daughter Grace could resolve.
Fans playing throughthe events ofResident Evil 2will remember encountering journalist Ben Bertolucci inside the precinct jail. His investigation into the Raccoon City Police Department’s involvement in the potential cover-up of the mysterious deaths in the Arklay Mountains led to his incarceration — a miracle of sorts, as Ben managed to survive the ensuing chaos because of it. Unfortunately for Ben, he dies a horrible death regardless of the way players encounter him. And, it’s revealed that most of his research was lost during his arrest.
However, where exactly did his research go? Knowing the wayResident Evilloves leaving lore throughout notes, it’s possible scraps of Ben’s research still exist in some form or fashion. Grace’s visit to the remains of Raccoon City could finally lead her to the whereabouts of Ben’s lost data. Or perhaps Alyssa acquired this as well, as Ben and Alyssa knew each other and were both investigating the Arklay Mountains incident at the time.
6What Happened to the Nemesis Variants that Escaped?
Jill’s Pursuer Might Still be on the Loose
Thehorrific NemesisofResident Evil 3ties its origins to Umbrella’s desire to profit from the creation of intelligent Bio Organic Weaponry (BOW), an objective pursued on two fronts: mutants created by the Tyrant Project and the parasite-controlled undead of the Nemesis Project. When the STARS unit managed to destroy the promisingly powerful T-002 model, the two teams set aside their differences and used T-003 clones to house their Nemesis-Alpha parasite. This created the Nemesis-T Type, which is capable of remembering its targets and even utilizing complex weapons. Such is the same Nemesis deployed in Raccoon City to pursue STARS survivors as a field test.
While Jill Valentine does manage to kill her “Pursuer,” it certainly wasn’t the only “copy” of Nemesis created. The “Complete Conquest of Nemesis” guidebook revealed that some copies of Nemesis had developed a pretty tremendous ego, and they forced their way out of captivity. The guidebook conveniently doesn’t share whether these escapees were found and terminated, which means there’s a possibility they are still out there… and perhaps waiting for an unfortunate soul like Grace to pique their interest.
7Why Aren’t There More Railguns?
They Seem Rather Convenient in Large Outbreaks
A rocket launcher conveniently appears whenResident Evilprotagonists have to defeat a large villain, or else theysuffer a horrifying death. So, when Jill Valentine faces the rather large mutated iteration of Nemesis in the NEST 2 facility, all seems lost — until she spots the Ferromagnetic Infantry-use Next Generation Railgun (FINGeR) just waiting to be used. After powering up ten batteries, Jill manages to use the railgun’s destructive power to destroy Nemesis once and for all, ending the beast just in time for her and Carlos to escape Raccoon City before its destruction.
This should be a happy ever after, except outbreaks have become difficult to contain in future titles. Given that the US military had already developed the FINGeR as an anti-bioweapon measure, one might wonder if other railguns have been deployed beyond Raccoon City. Shouldn’t mini-ferromagnetic railguns be something the BSAA could use, considering its efficiency? Should the FINGeR be its only remaining prototype, Grace might stumble upon it in the city’s ruins and may even be forced to activate it to fight a villain. Maybe its rediscovery could finally give humanity a new edge against more powerful bioweapon threats.
