With Resident Evil Village and the Resident Evil 4 remake claiming many a wallet last year, you knew that the rumours of Capcom’s next remake of a Resident Evil game would eventually return to the one that started it all. That’s in addition to rumours for the next entry in the series, which multiple insiders have claimed is close to being announced.
As with all of these rumours, one has to take these with the usual hefty grain of salt.
The latest rumours for the next remake come from X user PRE_Alarabiya, which have been corroborated to some extent by industry insider DanielRPK on his Patreon, as well as YouTuber Biohazard Declassified. The rumours revolve around Capcom supposedly planning a remake of the original Resident Evil for 2026, which would coincide with franchise’s 30th anniversary. According to Biohazard Declassified, they had received an email from an old contact with knowledge of the remake, going as far back as early 2023.
According to their insider, the RE remake will be slower paced, similar to the remake of Resident Evil 2. Furthermore, the zombies will each have their own unique model, due to the small number of enemies within the game. They will also be tougher, requiring more bullets to put down. This new remake will also borrow from the 2002 remake with the return of the fan favourite (or not) Crimson Head enemy, as well as use the over-the-shoulder camera from the other recent remakes.
Meanwhile, the ninth entry has its own set of rumours, which also includes input from longtime industry insider Dusk Golem. According to PRE_Alarabiya’s sources, the new game will centre around Leon Kennedy in the game’s introduction, which will take place in Southeast Asia in the summer of 2025. Note the specificity, as according to the source, the character “may change with the passage of events.”
This potential change is also acknowledged by Dusk Golem, who says that this information comes from 2021, notably after the November 2020 security data incident that saw Capcom hit with a ransomware attack. Dusk Golem goes on to say that Capcom potentially could reveal Resident Evil 9 this summer, with the game releasing in January 2025. However, this supposed release date is not set in stone, as RE9 could see a release in 2026.
Obviously, Capcom is remaining tight-lipped about anything related to Resident Evil at the moment, but with the 2024 edition of Summer Game Fest being right around the corner (June 7, to be exact), we could have our answer to some of these rumours very soon.