As a horror franchise, death comes hand in hand with Resident Evil. The main characters have survived through many battles, but the supporting characters often get the short end of the stick. However, this list won't talk about all the deaths in the series.
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Instead, it will focus on deaths that seem to waste the potential of these characters, or deaths that somehow felt anticlimactic. There are thirty years of history worth revisiting, and that means spoilers are needed to fully go into why these deaths were important to many side and main heroes and villains.
There will potentially be spoilers for every game in the series, going forward Resident Evil 0 and goes up through Resident Evil Requiem.
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Harry Reed
Go to Chopper!
Harry Reed is in Resident Evil Requiem very briefly as a helicopter pilot who presumably works for the hospital and the villain of the game, Victor, in some capacity. Once players get the key for the helicopter to escape, Grace, Emily, and Harry all try to take off when an army of zombies raids the launch pad, leading to a turbulent takeoff.
Once airborne, the helicopter quickly crashes into a set of trees, where Harry is revealed to be impaled by a branch. Resident Evil often doesn't treat its supporting characters very well, but the violence and abrupt nature just feels a little distasteful even for a horror game. Harry didn't have to survive the game, but he could have had a bigger role, or at least Grace could have shown more sympathy.
Richard Aiken
From snakes to sharks
Resident Evil
- Released
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April 30, 2002
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Violence
Richard Aiken is one of the members of STARS who enters the Spencer Mansion in the first game, but his role, along with most of the other STARS members, is expanded in the GameCube remake by Resident Evil. In the game, players can choose to play as Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield, and their partners and stories will be different, but they basically go through most of the same set gameplay in the mansion.
A major difference between the two is how Richard dies. Chris stumbles upon him in an aquarium, where he waves Chris away before being unceremoniously eaten by a giant shark. In Jill's scenario, he bravely steps in to save her from a giant snake, but then dies seconds later. At least with Jill he dies a hero's death, but with Chris it's just messy. Other factors at play could lead to Richard's death, but these are the main ones worth noting.
Mikhail Victor
Get off my train!
Mikhail Viktor is one of the mercenaries Umbrella hires to handle business in Raccoon City. His death is somewhat different between Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and its 2020 remake. Both deaths occur on the train after Jill repairs it, and the remake's version of the train is more elaborate. Unfortunately, Nemesis comes aboard in both versions, leading to Mikhail's death.
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In the original, he puts up more of a fight, blasting Nemesis with a gun before blowing up the car after the others escape. In the remake, it's a much faster confrontation, but Mikhail blows up similarly. It's a hero's death to buy time, but in the end the sacrifice isn't that great.
Steve Burnside
Claire's lost love
Steve is one of the playable characters in Resident Evil – Code: Veronicawho Claire Redfield meets on the prison island she is taken to. His trademark weapon is his golden Lugers, and while he may not be a fan favorite character due to his loud voice and some of his questionable actions, his death is undeserved.
The two manage to escape the island only to be captured again, leading to Steve being experimented on. That's when the perspective switches to Chris, Claire's sister, who is attempting a rescue mission. Unfortunately, Steve turns into a monster before the rescue and nearly kills Claire. However, because he is in love with Claire, Steve manages to suppress his transformation and dies immediately after doing so. It's a bittersweet ending for Claire as she potentially lost a love interest.
Luis Serra
Red Dead Redemption
When it comes to in-game deaths, Final Fantasy 7 fans have a certain character they wish had survived when the remakes started happening. For Resident Evil 4 fans, they also had a character death they wanted to avoid in the game's 2023 remake, but unfortunately it still happened. In both games, Leon S. Kennedy meets Luis, a scientist, after they become bonded together. After escaping, they run into each other several more times, and Luis helps out in any way he can.
In his moment of triumph, Luis Leon gets some pills to prevent the parasite from killing him, but out of nowhere, the main villain, Saddler, stabs Luis in the back. In it Resident Evil 4 Remake, Capcom teases fans by letting Luis get further into the game only to die the same way, but this time it's Krauser, Leon's former trainer, who is the killer. It's just a dagger too, so it doesn't make much sense compared to Saddler's giant tentacle.
Piers Nivans
BioShocked
Resident Evil 6 is divided into three main campaigns, with core Resident Evil characters paired with new faces. Leon is with Helena Harper, Sherry Birkin is with Jake Muller and Chris is with Piers Nivans. In the final act of Chris's campaign, Piers injects himself with the C virus to gain extra power to help Chris, who is about to die, but it also mutates him. Although Piers and Chris make it to the escape pod after this incident, Piers just shoves Chris into a pod, launches him, and then dies in the underwater base.
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Piers might have been okay if they had found a suppressor for the C virus, or maybe he could have even controlled it, much like others Resident Evil characters who have controlled diseases such as Albert Wesker. Of the three new partner characters, Piers is the only one who dies, which makes it even stranger.
Zeno
Where's your head at?
Zeno is another new character in the franchise, first appearing about halfway through Resident Evil Requiem. He is Victor's mysterious benefactor who provided him with everything he needed in his pursuit of Elpis in Raccoon City. Between Zeno's sunglasses and moves, it seemed like Capcom was building him up to be the next Wesker, but then things took a turn in the Umbrella Ark facility. Having no idea what Elpis is, Zeno injects it into his body and then begins to grow weak as it is not a bioweapon at all, but a cure.
Robbed of his Wesker-like powers, Victor then kills him with a clear head chip, and that's the end of Zeno. There's no boss fight with him at all, leading to wasted potential for a villain. In a way, it should be applauded because Capcom subverted expectations. But it's also just an odd thing to do with such a well-designed villain.
Ethan Winters
Dead before the trilogy
The worst death in the entire franchise, between playable and non-playable characters, has to be Ethan Winters i Resident Evil Village. Ethan entered first Resident Evil 7: Biohazardand he went through a hell of a trial in it, more than anyone else Resident Evil protagonist together. He went through the twister in this sequel too, seeing his wife die in front of him, his daughter cut up into pieces, which he has to magically reassemble, and the amount of hand trauma is staggering.
When Ethan met Mother Miranda, the game's main villain, Ethan has his heart ripped out as if she was channeling Mola Ram from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Through all of this, Ethan survived because his body was made of a special form, the Megamycete, which allowed him to fight Mother Miranda and save Rose, his daughter. After defeating her, the Megamyceten begins to shrink, and since Ethan is part of this hive mind system, he also begins to crystallize. In the DLC, Ethan returns in Rose's memories, but at the end he is still dead. Torturing a character through two games and then killing off that main character after is simply not something most developers would consider doing, which leaves a lot of potential for Ethan on the table.
