Resident Evil has been in the international video-gaming market for more than twenty years, and throughout its whole history, the game has never lost its popularity. On the contrary, with each new release, Resident Evil was getting more and more fans from all over the world.
Capcom, the company, which developed Resident Evil, was initially planning to call the new game “Biohazard”. But in 1996 on the American market the game with the same name already existed, so Capcom had to abruptly come up with some other name for the American market, and settled on Resident Evil, remembering their 1989 game Sweet Home. It’s also a horror game about a house of horrors, and one of the characters advises the other one – you must escape this house of residing evil. Meaning the very same mansion where the action of the game takes place. So it turns out that the name was changed to Resident Evil.
In terms of the plot, it is a pretty interesting horror survivor. It is set in the late 1990s in the fictional city of Raccoon City, where the zombie virus first appears as a threat to humanity. It all began when the local Raccoon City newspaper, The Raccoon Times, published an article on July 9, 1998, about the increasing number of disappearances. More and more bodies were being discovered that had been mutilated. But the killers could not be found, so a special S.T.A.R.S. team was brought in.
The Resident Evil releases in chronological order:
Apart from the original games, there are also several remakes and anime projects, created under the same franchise.
What is Resident Evil?
Resident Evil is the name of an iconic survivor horror video game, which was released by Capcom in 1996, and by 2023 has already released several remakes. The popular shooter today is available for various gaming platforms, including Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, Android, and iOS.
In terms of visual identity, the logo of the iconic video game Resident Evil was refined with each new release. Some of them featured the same style and concept, while others look completely different.
The very first Resident Evil logo was designed in 1996, and stayed untouched for two years, being a basis for several consecutive badges. It was a bright red uppercase inscription in a narrowed geometric sans-serif typeface with flat distinctive characters boasting clean black shadows. This logo is still used by the franchise as the primary one.
For the release of the second version of the game, the original Resident Evil logo was slightly refined. There was just one change — the digit “2” was added on the right of the logotype. It was set in the same style and color but featured a slightly more extended shape.
For the Nemesis version of the Resident Evil game, the logo was introduced in 1999. The main logotype got a bit darker, and the “2” was replaced by the “3”. The new element on the badge was the heavy and stylized “Nemesis” written in all capitals under the red wordmark, in voluminous square letters with a gray texture and thin black shadow.
Another redesign of the Resident Evil logo happened in 2005, with the release of the newer version of the game. It was a completely different concept, with the lowercase lettering set on the right from the enlarged stylized “4”, with sharp ends of the lines, and torn contours, which add a dramatic touch to the logo. This feeling is enhanced by the new, black-and-white, color palette of the badge.
In 2009 the logo was completely remade again. The three-dimensional badge has a background with a flame ornament on it and the voluminous red and orange lettering in the uppercase of an elegant serif typeface. The flame part of the logo is placed in the center of a cold white-to-gray element, making up the “fire and ice” concept. The digit “5” can be seen in the middle of the flame.
The redesign of 2012 has introduced a sleek and futuristic version of the Resident Evil visual identity, with a stylized voluminous “6” placed above the elegant serif lettering in gradient purple. The digit has a purple surface glossy and resembles a lacquer or plastic.
For the Biohazard version of the Resident Evil game, the new logo was created in 2017. It was a stylized uppercase lettering in black and orange, with the typeface resembling the one from the original versions, with no shadow, and with the contours slightly softened and erased in some parts. The logotype was placed above the lowercase “Biohazard”, written in plain black letters of a smaller size.
With the release of Resident Evil: Village, the new logo was introduced in 2021. Here the concept got slightly changed, with the “Village” part of the name set in stylized capitals above the small “Resident Evil” in modern sans-serif. The upper line of the badge is executed in a black and sand-beige shade.
The primary Resident Evil wordmark is set in a stylized sans-serif typeface with bold and narrowed characters. The closest fonts to the one, used in this insignia, are, probably, Plak Pro Black Extra Condensed, or Cooperative Dirty Bold, with some minor modifications.
As for the color palette of the Resident Evil visual identity, there are several options — from the very dramatic and spooky red-and-black, traditional and brutal black-and-white, and stylish and unusual beige-and-black. All three look confident and distinctive.