Zach Cregger’s RESIDENT EVIL Movie Creates a Weird Video Game Timeline Problem

Trying to figure out exactly whereZach Cregger’s Resident Evilmovie fits into the video game timeline gets messy pretty quickly.

Cregger has said the story takes place alongside the events of Resident Evil 2, with his characters dealing with their own nightmare elsewhere in Raccoon City. The thing is, Resident Evil 2 is firmly set in 1998, while Cregger’s movie clearly takes place in the modern day.

It’s the kind of continuity wrinkle that Resident Evil fans can spend hours picking apart, and I know some that are, but it also reveals something important about Cregger’s approach.

He isn’t trying to recreate one of the games or squeeze his movie perfectly into Capcom’s established canon. He’s telling an original story that uses Raccoon City, the outbreak, and the survival horror experience of the games as its foundation.

So where exactly does the movie fit? The answer is a little complicated, and probably matters a lot less than hardcore timeline detectives might want it to.

Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten made things easier on themselves by focusing on new characters and an original story. Instead of dropping Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, or another established character into the spotlight, the movie follows a one regular guy caught up in the horrors unfolding around Raccoon City.

That means audiences don't need an encyclopedic knowledge of Resident Evil lore to understand what's happening. There isn't a pile of cross-media homework required to follow the story. At the same time, Cregger still wanted his movie to feel like it could exist somewhere inside the world of the games.

The film leans into the elements that make Resident Evil such a great survival horror experience, including limited inventory space, finding new weapons as the danger increases, exploring creepy locations, and walking into dark rooms while expecting something horrible to jump out.

Cregger previously explained exactly how he approached the connection, saying: "My rule for this movie was to try and make a movie that felt like my experience of playing the games, and that could live in the world of 'Resident Evil.'

“I feel like this movie takes place alongside the events of 'Resident Evil 2.' I like to think that everything that's going on in the police station could be happening in this world. This is just another dude on another mission on the other side of town."

He added: "So yeah, it's not canon in that I'm using the [same] characters, but it's canon in that it lives in the actual day of reckoning in Raccoon City."

That's a fun concept. While all this nightmarish hell is breaking loose at the Raccoon City Police Department during Resident Evil 2, Cregger imagines another nightmare unfolding somewhere else in town.

The timeline is where that idea gets tricky. Again, Resident Evil 2 takes place in 1998, and Cregger's Resident Evil clearly doesn't look or behave like a movie set in the late '90s. The presence of modern cell phones makes the contemporary setting pretty obvious. This clearly isn't 1998 Raccoon City.

That creates an obvious contradiction if you take Cregger's comments literally. The film depicts the fall of Raccoon City, which is tied to the events surrounding Resident Evil 2, while moving that disaster into a modern setting.

If you're trying to slot the movie neatly into the established Resident Evil video game timeline, you're probably not going to make all the pieces fit.

The easiest solution is also the most sensible one, don't worry about it! Cregger's comments work better as a description of the movie's relationship with the games than as a strict declaration of canon.

The idea is that we're experiencing another story during Raccoon City's worst day, not that every date, event, character, and piece of technology needs to line up perfectly with Capcom's continuity.

Sure, it would've been cool if Cregger and Hatten found some clever way to make everything match. For fans who love digging through Resident Evil lore, that would've provided another fun connection to obsess over.

It also isn't necessary for the story they're telling. Cregger's priority was capturing the experience of playing Resident Evil, and that's ultimately more important than making sure somebody is carrying a Nokia instead of a smartphone.

Besides, anyone determined to completely untangle Resident Evil canon has already chosen a dangerous hobby. The games have spent decades building an increasingly complicated mythology filled with sequels, prequels, overlapping events, expanded stories, and plenty of continuity wrinkles of their own.

Another bizarre twist in the Resident Evil timeline? Honestly, it tracks. Cregger's Resident Evil doesn't need to fit perfectly between existing games to capture what fans love about the franchise.

If it delivers the dread of exploring a dark building with barely enough ammunition, the relief of finding a new weapon, and the horrible realization that you're going to have to open that suspicious-looking door eventually, then it's speaking the right language.

Everything else is just something for Resident Evil fans to argue about after they leave the theater.