For the first time since this daft little website was founded in 2022, Resident Evil week at EZIYODA lands on a fascinating juncture for Capcom’s long-running franchise: positioned right before a new entry launches only a few short months away.

There is no end to the fan speculation for Requiem, focused on such things as whether Grace will be able to wield a range of guns (the answer is obviously yes), and the identity of its horrifying stalker monster (the answer is obviously Excella Gionne).

However, due to the bold move to return to Raccoon City for the first time since its in-universe destruction in 1998, one of the major points of contention is whether any of the legendary characters from yesteryear will step back into the limelight.

I’m not above clickbait fun, exploratory articles myself, so I wanted to throw my beret into the ring while I offered my own opinion on what characters I would love to see return for Resident Evil Requiem. And yes, I’ll even try to be kind of serious about it.

Carlos Oliveira

In 2020’s reimagining of Resident Evil 3, Carlos Oliveira famously assured us that he wouldn’t leave us in a “cold, cruel, Carlos-less world”. Five years later, he has done exactly that, with nary a peep from this charismatic Umbrella grunt and his fabulous head of hair.

You can count me amongst the many who were wooed by this dashing co-star after treating him with indifference or derision for so long. He had about as significant a glow-up as anyone in gaming, and it’s high time for him to lace up the boots once more.

There’s plenty of meat left on the bone with what you can do with Carlos, considering his extended absence in the timeline. Is he still a soldier? Has he kept in contact with Jill? Is he still unfathomably fucking hot? These are important questions, and I demand sexy answers.

He can even serve as a stand-in for the position Chris Redfield had in the Ethan Winters era, as a stern, nigh-unstoppable role model. Yes, I’m aware that Leon Kennedy is the most likely candidate for this (and no, I’m not including that loud mouthed himbo as his return is almost assured by this point), but it just makes sense for it to be someone voiced by Jeff Schine. Let Jeffy cook, Capcom.

Nikolai Zinoviev

привет, baby! Whether or not Carlos makes a return, how sweet would it be for his former colleague to also come back with a vengeance. Nikolai’s fate in RE3 remake is distinctly ambiguous, leaving him wounded on the roof of the Umbrella facility while the escape chopper whisks Jill and Carlos away from the impact zone.

Sure, he probably carked it then and there, and was only kept breathing a little longer so that Jill could utter one last badass line before taking her leave. But I just can’t shake the notion that his unquenchable thirst for life somehow allowed him to take shelter at the last moment. Where, exactly, he managed to do this, I can’t really say with certainty. Shit was blowing up downstairs, shit was blowing up upstairs, the likelihood that Nikolai happened upon a cosy little nook that wasn’t blowing up is impractical to the point of being silly.

But need I remind you, that Resident Evil has a knack for silliness that is nearly unrivalled by this point. If Palpatine can float through the vacuum of space for 30+ years, Nikolai can be roaming the dilapidated streets of Raccoon City for 27. Somehow, Zinoviev returned.

As there is no clear answer on who or what the overarching villains of Requiem are just yet, he slots in rather nicely as an existing threat with a yucky face after being exposed to biohazardous materials for so long. It doesn’t make a lick of sense, but heck it dude, it makes for a bit of fun, and that’s what we’re here for at the end of the day.

Claire Redfield

My instinct here is to close out the RE3 triumvirate by now listing Jill Valentine, who is both long overdue and closely tied to Raccoon City.

But that would be egregiously lazy work, and I am only sizeably lazy. As aforementioned, Leon is too obvious a frontrunner for Requiem, so I opted to instead pay homage to his less ballyhooed co-star, Claire Redfield.

Claire exists in perhaps the weirdest liminal space of the franchise; ostensibly one of the “big four”, she has been shoved to the wayside for the most part, shoehorned into an unlikely role as the resident buzzkill. As facetious as this claim may sound, it’s actually not too farfetched when you consider her interpretation in the RE films.

Where she was once a fresh faced college student with a heart of gold, she has shifted to become an overtly serious environmentalist; someone whose greater purpose is to further the narrative for other, more interesting characters. I can scarcely remember anything she did or said in Death Island, to the point where I nearly claimed that her last canonical appearance was in 2021’s Infinite Darkness.

Though the damage is likely too far done to rein in her grumpy personality traits — the seeds of which were first planted in Revelations 2 — Capcom have shown a clear capability to rehabilitate some dubious characterisation in the modern era (see: Oliveira, Carlos).

I want to like Claire again, and though I understand that her long-standing years of dreadful trauma wouldn’t allow her to resemble her plucky Resident Evil 2 demeanour, I just yearn for something a little spicier than what we’ve presently got.

Barry Burton

Big daddy Barry is one of the more unique cases of an OG RE hero. Although he debuted right in the very beginning as an NPC ally/turncoat, he has only been used sporadically in the intervening years since. Off the top of my head, he’s had a cameo in one of the RE3 endings (since retconned), a couple of cameos in various mercenary modes, and a starring turn in Revelations 2.

That last one was the peak for our boy Bazza, and if you’re willing to believe it, that was a decade ago now. Unlike the other peripheral S.T.A.R.S. member Rebecca, he doesn’t even get to enjoy a robust role in the cinematic universe. My only theory is that Capcom aren’t particularly fond of older daddies, and that’s not just their loss… it’s the world’s, dammit.

Lore enthusiasts will no doubt recognise that by now, Mr. Burton is in his early 70s, and surely enjoying a well-earned retirement where he spends his days playing shuffleboard or bingo in rural Spain.

So how many more times can we trot him out? In my opinion, once more. And specifically to kill him off.

That’s right, I’m pulling the trigger on our beloved elder statesmen by offering his life in exchange for entertainment. Historically, this series is hesitant to kill off its legacy cast members, instead electing to have newbies like Piers Nivans or Ethan Winters do the job. Despite her relative obscurity, Alyssa Ashcroft may now be the most noteworthy person to die.

But Barry hits different, man. We’ve grown with Barry, we’ve laughed with Barry, we’ve maybe even cried with Barry. If he went down, it would amplify the drama exponentially, reminding us that nobody is truly safe in a world where sharks grow to be 16 feet long and leeches take on many forms (including that of an operatic bishonen).

Billy Coen

Up to this point, all of the preceding characters have been fairly predictable. To shake things up, I’m closing things out with someone who we’re most likely never hearing from ever again — short of, maybe, the mobile title Survival Unit.

Billy Coen is the most one-and-done character you can imagine; a guy who was retroactively added to the narrative for the prequel entry, Resident Evil 0, who has potentially been roaming the forest ever since. Seriously, I can easily picture him walking around wearing nothing but a leaf frond and a smile.

I’m not necessarily attached to the character by any means (aside from my admitted affinity for the game he hails from), but it would at least be more shocking than any of the prior suggestions I put out there. He’s also rather expendable, so if icing Barry is too much for your little hearts to handle, perhaps you’ll settle on Billy biting the dust instead.

There’s no shortage of partner characters that make more sense here, whether it’s Parker from Revelations or Sheva from RE5. Selfishly however, I would stash them for a little while longer until Capcom decide to tie up the BSAA narrative thread hinted at within the final minutes of Village. They’re super good at following up with loose ends, after all.