Resident Evil 3 (2020 video game)

• 1. Introduction

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  Resident Evil 3 is a horror game from Capcom, released in 2020, in which a former police officer named Jill Valentine tries to get out of a city full of zombies. She is not simply fleeing. Something was built to find her, and it keeps finding her.

  The game is a remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, which arrived on the original PlayStation in 1999. Remaking a classic means choosing what to keep, and here the choices were sharp. Whole locations vanished, endings disappeared, and a famous monster was dressed in something new.

  Why did Capcom return to this particular game? What did the developers cut, and what did they invent to replace it? How do you redesign a monster that players already know? And did the people who played it think the trade was worth making?

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• 2. Raccoon City Burning

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  The story begins on the 28th of September 1998, twenty-four hours before the events of Resident Evil 2. Most of Raccoon City has already turned into zombies, victims of the T-virus, a mutagenic virus secretly developed by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella. Jill Valentine, once a member of the Raccoon Police Department's Special Tactics And Rescue Service, known as S.T.A.R.S., is attacked in her own apartment. The attacker is the Nemesis T-Type, an intelligent bioweapon that Umbrella programmed to eliminate every surviving S.T.A.R.S. member. Her fellow officer Brad Vickers helps for a moment before zombies kill him. Jill slips away from the monster and is rescued by Carlos Oliveira, a mercenary with the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service. Carlos leads a surviving group that also includes Mikhail Victor, Tyrell Patrick and Nicholai Ginovaef, and they have set up subway trains to carry civilians out of the city.

  Jill helps restore power to the subway and boards a train with Nicholai and Mikhail. Carlos and Tyrell stay behind to look for Dr. Nathaniel Bard, an Umbrella scientist who may have developed a vaccine. Mikhail voices doubts about Nicholai and how their platoon was ambushed by zombies. Then Nemesis attacks the train and kills the civilians aboard. Nicholai locks Jill and Mikhail out, and Mikhail gives his life by setting off an explosive that derails the train.

  At the police department, Carlos and Tyrell learn that Bard has taken refuge at a nearby hospital. Jill, who survived the crash, contacts Carlos while a mutating Nemesis hunts her. She defeats it, but the creature infects her with the T-virus and she collapses. Carlos finds her half a day later and carries her to the hospital, hoping for a cure. He discovers that Bard has been murdered. A video message from the scientist explains that Umbrella's board is destroying the vaccines and any evidence that ties the company to the virus. Carlos retrieves Bard's vaccine and gives it to Jill.

  Then Tyrell makes a worse discovery. The United States government plans to destroy Raccoon City with a missile strike to wipe out the infection. Jill wakes on the 1st of October, the day of the strike, and follows Carlos into a laboratory beneath the hospital. Tyrell tells her the missiles will be held back if a vaccine can be recovered within a few hours. Nemesis kills Tyrell soon afterward, but Jill manages to synthesize a vaccine herself.

  She also learns who Nicholai really is. He is a supervisor hired by an unknown contractor to undermine Umbrella's efforts to hide its role, and to gather combat data on its bioweapons, Nemesis among them. During another clash with the monster, Nicholai takes the vaccine from Jill and leaves her to fight. She destroys Nemesis with a railgun and confronts Nicholai on a helipad. He smashes the vaccine and admits he does not care what happens to the city, as long as he is paid. Carlos restrains him, and Jill, disgusted, shoots and wounds him. She and Carlos escape by helicopter and leave Nicholai on the roof. As the missile strike erases the city behind them, Jill vows to take down Umbrella at all costs.

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• 3. Two Ways to Survive

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  For most of the game the player is Jill, but for short stretches the controls pass to Carlos Oliveira. The game is a survival horror shooter seen from behind the character. The player opens doors, climbs ladders and gathers items, which go into an inventory available at any moment. Items can be used, examined and combined, and the combinations solve puzzles and open areas that were blocked before. Maps reveal unexplored parts of an automap that shows the player's position and whether anything is left to pick up in a room. Cutscenes arrive at regular intervals, sometimes asking for quick reactions to move the story along.

  Not everything in the city stays still. Computer-controlled monsters keep getting in the way, and the player can answer with combat knives, firearms and grenades. Some weapons accept extra parts that improve how they perform. Nemesis turns up at key moments, and each time the player beats him he mutates into a more aggressive form. On higher difficulty settings, ammunition and healing items become scarce, and slipping past an enemy is often wiser than killing it.

  The two characters defend themselves differently. Jill can dodge an attack at close range. Developers added a counter to that move, so a successful dodge lets the player automatically aim at an opponent's head. Carlos instead uses melee attacks to stagger enemies. When either of them dies, the player returns to the last save point.

  Finishing the game on its hardest setting unlocks two further difficulty modes. They switch off autosaves, make opponents tougher, alter certain encounters and shuffle where items sit. Completing the game once also opens an item shop on the main menu. Points for the shop come from challenges, which range from finding every weapon upgrade to destroying hidden bobbleheads called Charlie dolls. Without the shop's unlocks, the hardest modes cannot be finished.

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• 4. Rebuilding the Original

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  Capcom had already started work on its 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2 when the idea of remaking the third game came up. The company had remastered the 2002 remake of the first Resident Evil in 2015, so finishing the trilogy became a goal. Capcom's subsidiary K2 Inc assisted, along with the outside companies Red Works and M-Two. M-Two was founded by Tatsuya Minami, a former chief executive of PlatinumGames. The director was Kiyohiko Sakata, a PlatinumGames veteran who had worked as a programmer and designer on the first four Resident Evil games. The two remakes did not begin at the same moment, but their schedules overlapped heavily. For that reason they share technology and both run on Capcom's own RE Engine.

  Some of the people who built the 1999 game took part, and they got a second chance to shape how Raccoon City should look. Because the story runs almost alongside Resident Evil 2, the team tied the two games together more tightly than the originals had. Pacing came first, along with stronger characters, especially the bond between Jill and Carlos. The team wanted Jill to be resilient enough to survive nearly impossible odds, and Carlos to feel like a true ally. Her clothing became more practical, and his look grew grittier. Jill's face is based on the likeness of the Russian model Sasha Zotova.

  To capture the action-heavy feel of the original, the team took the movement speed and animations from the Resident Evil 2 remake and reworked them. Meanwhile, the cuts were large. The clock tower, the graveyard, the park and city hall are all gone. Dialogue and storytelling were expanded to make the narrative more consistent, and Carlos received a larger part. The original's multiple endings and live choices were removed completely, in favor of a tighter story. The Mercenaries - Operation: Mad Jackal mode, in which the player races to leave the city within a time limit, was also dropped.

  To make up for what was missing, Capcom packaged the game with Resident Evil: Resistance, a separate online multiplayer game made by NeoBards, a company from Taiwan. By January 2020 around 90% of the game was finished, leaving only final adjustments. The whole project took three years.

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• 5. The Prototype in Bodybags

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  The most noticeable change to Nemesis is his clothing. He now wears bodybags instead of regular clothes. Sakata said the choice was meant to show that "Nemesis is not a completed model, but a prototype." In an interview with PlayStation Blog he went further, describing the outfit as "restrictive gear that was haphazardly, quickly created to contain it, which is why it has such visuals." The producer, Peter Fabiano, called the redesign a way to "keep to the essence of the original game, but at the same time modernize it." The art team went through several iterations. They stayed faithful to the original concept, yet reshaped the character so he would fit a photorealistic setting.

  Behavior went through its own revision. Sakata first wanted Nemesis to hunt and stalk the player for the entire game. Then he saw that the Resident Evil 2 team was making its Tyrant behave in exactly that way. Players who knew the earlier game would not be surprised by the same trick, so the plan changed.

  Instead, the team gave Nemesis a richer set of abilities. He can use weapons, seize Jill with his tentacles, and leap long distances to land right beside her. The goal was a sense of being chased by something relentless. The developers also built in periods of respite, and they wanted players to believe Jill could actually beat him.

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• 6. Release and Rollout

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  Sony's State of Play livestream on the 10th of December 2019 was where Resident Evil 3 was officially announced, shortly after several sources had hinted at it. Capcom had already planted a tease inside the Resident Evil 2 remake through an update. Players who found and read a letter left by Jill earned an achievement. A demo followed on the 19th of March 2020, offering a small portion of the full game, and a trailer centered on Jill came out on the 27th of March 2020. Pre-orders at certain retailers included a downloadable pack with Jill's original outfit and Carlos' original hairstyle.

  The game launched on the 3rd of April 2020 for PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One. Its launch trailer reminded buyers that Resident Evil: Resistance came free with every purchase. Console players could buy a collector's edition with a Jill Valentine figurine, a hardcover art book, a Raccoon City map poster and a two-disc soundtrack. Reports suggested physical copies in Europe would probably be delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Capcom also released a board game on the 28th of April 2020. It supports up to four players and has a 19-hour campaign with an overarching storyline. In August 2020 a downloadable pack arrived that gave players Jill's S.T.A.R.S costume and items from the in-game shop without the need to complete challenges.

  In 2022 the game spread to new platforms. Versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S were announced on the 2nd of March 2022 and released digitally on the 13th of June 2022, alongside upgrades for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and the Resident Evil 2 remake. They added ray-tracing and high-framerate modes, and the PlayStation 5 version also supported haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. Owners of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions could upgrade free, and the Windows version received a free patch at the same time. Amazon Luna announced its version on the 26th of May 2022 and launched it on the 10th of June 2022. A Nintendo Switch cloud version followed on the 18th of November 2022. Then, in March 2025, versions for iOS, iPadOS and macOS arrived.

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• 7. A Divisive Remake

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  Metacritic summarized the reviews as "generally favorable," and OpenCritic gave the game a 79% score. IGN was very positive, saying the game "does an amazing job of recapturing the horror and tension of the late '90s original while completely modernizing its gameplay." It judged the remake as strong as its acclaimed predecessor. Game Informer called it "an incredible thrill ride." GameRevolution found it short yet exhilarating and thought it surpassed the original in presentation and storytelling. Destructoid offered a warning: the "remake of Resident Evil 3 is going to be divisive, just as the original was."

  That prediction proved accurate. GameSpot found the opening hours very effective, but felt the game could not hold that standard once its scope narrowed toward the end. PC Gamer was harsher, calling it "an extremely shallow game, with lavish production values failing to mask just how rushed and unambitious it feels."

  Presentation drew the warmest praise. Critics liked the detailed, polished environments, the lighting, the tense atmosphere and the varied locations. Destructoid singled out the character models and visual style, saying they deepened the dread of fighting through the city piece by piece. IGN admired storytelling that delivers dramatic moments without needless exposition. Edge magazine judged the writing better than the previous game's, because it embraces the original's pulpiness while updating its characters. Jill and Carlos were widely called believable, determined and likeable.

  The heavy use of scripted moments and cinematic set pieces disappointed some reviewers. VG247 pointed out that Nemesis is active in only a small part of the game, mostly during scripted sequences or boss fights. Several critics concluded that he was underused and that much of his potential went to waste.

  Critics generally agreed that the game lacks the depth of its predecessor, since it favors moment-to-moment action over exploration and puzzles. Some noted it is far less action-heavy than Resident Evil 6 and keeps the item juggling of early entries. GamesRadar+ compared the hospital to the police station of the Resident Evil 2 remake, because both must be gradually unraveled. The dodge was welcome, but reviewers said its timing window was inconsistent. Some also found the shooting less satisfying than before.

  Length was the most frequent complaint, along with limited replay value. GameSpot argued that cutting places like the clock tower and the park made the brevity even more obvious. GameRevolution thought the game reworks and expands other areas, and called it more a reimagining than a true remake. Edge disagreed that length mattered, estimating a first playthrough at six to eight hours, similar to the original. It added that unlockable items needed for speedruns encourage repeat plays much as the original's multiple endings did, and called the remake faithful in spirit rather than content.

  At The Game Awards 2020, the game was nominated for Best Audio Design but lost to The Last of Us Part II. At the IGN Game of the Year Awards 2020, it was nominated for Best Action-Adventure Game and Best Remake/Remaster, losing to The Last of Us Part II and Final Fantasy VII Remake. In 2021 it was among the recipients of the Award for Excellence at the Japan Game Awards.

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• 8. Counting the Copies

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  More than two million copies shipped in the first five days, and Capcom said nearly half of those sales were digital. In Japan, the PlayStation 4 version sold more than 189,000 copies in its first week. That made it the second best-selling retail game of the week, behind Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

  By May 2020 the total stood at 2.5 million, and by the 30th of June 2020 it had reached 2.7 million. The Resident Evil 2 remake had sold 4.2 million in a similar span, so the new game trailed it. Capcom still called the sales solid and in line with expectations. In January 2021 the company reported 3.6 million copies, and in October 2021 it reported 3.9 million, describing the game as a hit. Capcom's 2021 Integrated Report put sales at 4.6 million by November 2021, with a large share digital.

  The climb continued for years. By January 2023 the game had sold 6.4 million copies, and by June 2023 the figure was 7.6 million. At the end of 2023 it reached 8.4 million. Ten million arrived by April 2025, and the total was 10.2 million by September 2025. Capcom's figure for January 2026 was 10.994 million, and by May 2026 it stood at 13.36 million copies.

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