Short answers, pulled from the story.
Resident Evil was released in 1994 after Capcom renamed the game from Biohazard due to trademark conflicts. The company held an internal contest to find a new title, and the winner was Resident Evil, a phrase that would come to define a generation of gaming.
Resident Evil was created by Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara, who drew core inspiration from Fujiwara's 1989 title Sweet Home. This earlier game introduced the concept of limited resources and permanent death to the genre.
Raccoon City was destroyed by a nuclear missile strike ordered by the U.S. government to sterilize a deadly T-virus outbreak. This event, depicted in Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, effectively erased the city and its history.
Albert Wesker is a double agent within the Special Tactics and Rescue Service who betrays his comrades to work for the Umbrella Corporation. In Resident Evil 5, Wesker seeks to unleash a highly mutagenic virus that will infect all of humanity, a plan that is thwarted by Chris and the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance.
The Resident Evil film series has grossed more than $1.2 billion worldwide, making it a financial juggernaut. The series holds the record for the most live-action film adaptations of a video game, as recognized by the 2012 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition.
The Resident Evil 4 remake was released on the 24th of March 2023 and became one of the fastest-selling Resident Evil games. It sold four million copies in its first two weeks of release.