Video Game / Resident Evil Veronica

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Resident Evil Veronica (Biohazard RE: Veronica in Japan) is an upcoming remake of the survival horror classic Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, developed by Capcom for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC for sometime in 2027. Kazunori Kadoi and Yasuhiro Anpo, the creative leads on both the Resident Evil 2 and 4 remakes, return to lead development on this game.

Three months on from the Raccoon City incident, Claire Redfield (Stephanie Panisello) is still searching far and wide for her brother Chris, arriving in Paris after receiving a tip to his whereabouts. However, she is instead met by Umbrella's special forces, who kidnap her and transport her to the prison of Rockfort Island, where a new nightmare awaits her.

Previews: Announcement Trailer

Resident Evil Veronica contains examples of:

• Adaptational Modesty: The official site shows Claire's new outfit has a long sleeved open jacket and black t-shirt, resembling her more modest look from Resident Evil 2 (Remake). Although she still wears a crop top, it covers more flesh than the one she wore in the original Code: Veronica, which showed some cleavage and a more exposed belly.
• Adaptation Deviation: The original Code: Veronica opened with Claire going full Action Hero by storming Umbrella Paris Laboratory by herself, then getting imprisoned on Rockfort Island after a heavy gunfight with the facility's security. As shown in the reveal trailer, this remake opts for a more grounded approach by starting the story with Claire on her search for Chris in Paris, where she gets ambushed and kidnapped by the USS.
• Antagonist Title: As a remake of Code: Veronica, the game is titled after Veronica Ashford, the long dead matriarch of the Ashford family whose legacy and viral strain serve as the overarching source of the threat the Redfields must face.
• Art Evolution: This game truly showcases how far the RE Engine has come even from the already impressive standards from Claire's prior outing in 2019. From the very earliest announcement, comparing the character models for Claire between appearances, there's so much that has improved, most of which can be seen through the last shot of her as the Umbrella agent captures her. Her skin is visibly textured with clear pores around her face, and her lips have much more visible and natural-looking lines and ridges. Claire's hair is much thicker with more strands in comparison to how her hair often had visible gaps (most notable in the bangs framing her face), comparable to Grace Ashcroft in Requiem. But the biggest one is her eyes which have much cleaner and clearer eyebrows and eyelashes with individually rendered strands, visible texture and veins on her sclera, and irises with much more visible and clear ridges and patterns.
• Ascended Meme: When introducing Claire to Chris' room in the announcement trailer, the old lady calls it a mess and remarks it looks like a boulder rolled through there, referencing Chris' infamous boulder feat. Also counts as a Call-Forward.
• Bilingual Bonus: The first shot of the announcement trailer shows a cafe in Paris named "Café du Parapluie", which means "Umbrella Café" in French.
• Call-Back:
  • One of the files that could be found in the STARS office in the second game's remake is a letter that almost offhandedly remarks that Chris is somewhere in Europe and Claire comments that the note doesn't sound like him. The letter was a Call-Forward to Code: Veronica and was Spy Speak for Chris investigating Umbrella in Europe under the guise of a vacation as Marvin relays in Claire's A Scenario. Here, Claire is from the first trailer shown to have found him residing somewhere in Paris and is trying to find him.
  • As the announcement shows, Chris is alone in a disheveled apartment by the time Claire finds where he's staying. Jill was in the same situation in the third game's remake.
• Call-Forward:
  • Besides the Ascended Meme of Chris's boulder-punching, Claire's situation in the announcement, a first-person displayed exploration of someone trying to find a missing loved one and getting dragged into unexpected danger, calls ahead to Ethan Winters experiencing the same thing years later in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Doubles as a Call-Back to how this was exactly what she was doing in her last canonical appearance in the remakes minus the first-person perspective.
  • Similarly, an ashtray full of cigars and cigarettes can be seen on the table of Chris' apartment in the same trailer, referencing both Chris's smoking habit in the original Resident Evil and the Cigarette of Anxiety he smokes in Resident Evil Village.
  • Notice that there's a pair of dumbbells with an impressive amount of weight on them (specific number is not visible but speculated to be between 80-100 lbs). Throughout the games before 5, Chris was depicted as physically fit but lean, then bulked up to his hyper muscular redesign in said game which carried into future installments save for 7. These dumbbells call ahead to that, hinting that he's either already achieved that shape or is on the way there.
• Color Motif: The announcement trailer has an emphasis on red, especially once the Umbrella agent takes hold of Claire. The title card splash especially takes on a vibrant red hue, and there is a noticeable red light overlaying the final shot of Claire and the agent.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To the previous remake protagonist (and one of two from the latest installment), Leon. As explained by game producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi in this article, this game only takes place three months after the events of Raccoon City. Thus, while Leon transitioned into an Action Hero government agent with extensive training in the fourth remake, this time period's Claire hasn't received any such training yet and is still close to the same person she was at the end of the second game's remake.
• Double-Meaning Title: The title of the game on the main splash card for the announcement is REV, which could easily be misread as Resident Evil V. It symbolically matches as this is the fifth remake of a Resident Evil game though not the numerical fifth game in the series. It even matches with the stylized numeral motif of the latest three games in the franchise, as "V" is the Roman numeral for five: RESIDENT EVIL VERONICA. Game producer Hirabayashi even said as much, stating that this game is just as critical to the overall series as the numbered entries, and the title change was done to make it reminiscent of Village and Requiem. He also mentioned that REV also is emblematic of the game's title, being the first three letters of Veronica backwards.
• Gratuitous French: The old landlady who greets Claire in the trailer speaks a mix of French and English while lamenting the state of Chris's apartment. Justified as the establishing shots show that Claire is in Paris, and the landlady is just switching between her native language and English.
• Interquel: This game is set between the second/third and fourth remakes, occurring three months after Raccoon City's destruction. It's a notable contrast to the original game, as that game was released before 4 but this remake is released after the remake of 4.
• Kidnapped by the Call: Compared to the original game's opening, Claire is simply searching for Chris in Paris instead of raiding an Umbrella HQ. Whether they tailed her to Chris's apartment or it was a trap to begin with, Umbrella come to her this time around to drag her to Rockfort Island, meaning the Redfields are priority targets that the MegaCorp is hunting for personally.
• Officially Shortened Title: This remake transitions Code: Veronica to simply Veronica. Which actually was the internal working title for the original game during development, meaning it came full circle and became the official title for the remake.