To kick off RE week 2025, I made a post where I expressed my disappointment that Ethan Winters’ face remained hidden throughout the otherwise gripping conclusion of Resident Evil Village. You may have already read it. You may not have, but I won’t blame you (so long as you rectify this injustice immediately).

The crux of my argument hinged on the notion that the payoff to his death, not once but twice, was dampened by Capcom’s insistence on maintaining the running joke of his hidden mien. I’d like to unpack a little bit further why this bothered me so much, and it comes down to my belief that — strictly on a narrative front — the Ethan Winters games mattered more.

For the most part, Resident Evil has never been lauded for the strength of its narrative. By design, they are akin to schlocky, trashy horror films of yesteryear, and populated by witty heroes duking it out against nefarious megalomaniacs. It works, because that’s exactly what you want as a secondary accoutrement to the main appeal of fending off undead fiends.

It’s the classic good vs evil trope, and historically, diverting away from that can backfire quite spectacularly. Screenwriter Noboru Sugimura said as much when he opined on the state of Resident Evil 2 after he was brought on board to assist with the flagging project’s vision.

“It was all too realistic. The ominous atmosphere from the first game, as represented in things like the Spencer Mansion itself, the armor room, key items like the jewelry box and gemstones… all that had been removed. The Police Station, too, had been changed to a very modern building. As a result, everything felt too modern and strangely sterile.”

Noboru Sugimura via PlayStation Magazine, June 1998

Perhaps as a result of this lesson learnt so early on, subsequent RE games would follow a few guidelines, particularly in how it portrayed the world and its denizens. Nearly all of the protagonists have been skilled police officers, highly trained government agents, or capable mercenaries of some kind.

Stepping into the shoes of Leon Kennedy is always an invigorating experience, because you know he’s going to get up to all kinds of mayhem. There’s bound to be a lot of death-defying moments, and at least fifty different one-liners he can reel off at a moment’s notice. He is one of many video game protagonists that allow us a sense of escapism; the chance to be a polygonal superhero for a day.

The issue, then, is that very few of these people come across as believable or relatable. For many players, the conclusion of Chris Redfield’s campaign in Resident Evil 6 is one of the series’ emotional high points. Alongside his partner, Piers Nivans, Chris is attempting to escape from an underwater facility before it combusts. Piers has been infected with one of many strains of the alphabet virus, and is progressively transforming into some kind of gnarly creature.

In a final display of heroism, Piers shoves Chris into the escape pod by himself, staying behind so that he can protect his comrade from a rampaging monster’s final assault. It’s a solid bit of storytelling, and yet, not one that touched me even in the slightest.

I don’t mind Piers, who was a generic addition to the cast but a likeable one all the same. It could have been a disastrous risk, but part of me wishes they had swapped the fates of the two, killing off the legendary Chris Redfield so that his protege could carry on the torch.

But again, I was otherwise unfazed, because Piers was ultimately just a fictional soldier character doing fictional soldier things. He wasn’t given a chance to flourish or grow, and so he resides near the back of my RE consciousness, where he will likely remain forevermore.

The first time I actually felt something in Resident Evil wouldn’t be until 2015, when Resident Evil: Revelations 2 introduced the alternating campaigns of Claire Redfield and Barry Burton. In the former, Claire and Barry’s daughter Moira are attempting to survive on a prison island, and in the latter, Barry arrives several months later in a desperate bid to extract his daughter.

This narrative took my interest in a way that others before had failed to. Parental figures aren’t necessarily a frequent topic in this franchise, aside from Sherry’s estranged relationship with William and Annette, or Vincent’s infamous message from his mother. But Barry has always been a family man, to the point where his whole story arc in the original game revolves around his betrayal in order to protect his loved ones.

Now, those little girls are all grown up, and one of them is in danger. Their tense relationship stemming from a childhood firearm accident is intriguing, because unlike most other things in this universe, it felt real. When I reached the end of Claire’s final chapter, and was forced to leave Moira behind in the rubble of an exploding building, I thought for sure that she was really gone.

And that meant something to me, because it meant something to Barry.

Fast forward a couple of years, and we at long last arrive at the Winters era of Resident Evil. In Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Ethan isn’t a gung-ho hero on a mission to prevent global disaster, or even a survivor trying to secure an escape route. He’s an everyman. He’s the everyman, way in over his head and only there because his missing wife is possibly held hostage in this dilapidated estate.

When everything turns to shit and Mia lops his hand clean off, Ethan still works on curing her from her ailment. He won’t give up until she is safe and sound, and though you can take him off-course by injecting Zoe with the antidote instead (you two-timing slut), the canonical ending sees the husband and wife reunited at long last.

Resident Evil Village then takes that narrative thread and amplifies it. Mia isn’t exactly a sympathetic figure, considering that she was in on the bioweapon scheme right from the start, and only needed to be rescued once the whole thing blew up in her face. But Rose is an infant, completely innocent from the sins of her mother.

Beyond that, the plight of a man’s paternal instinct is surely more compelling than his spousal obligation. Ethan wanted to save Mia, but he needed to save Rose.

And he gave up everything he had, even coming back from the dead to defeat Miranda and destroy the Megamycete. Resident Evil finally had its tearjerker moment, an emotional response that it earned by bringing this wonderfully relatable character into the fore, and then ripping him away from us one game later. That last part is critical, of course, because if Ethan was a one-and-done like Piers, who knows how much it would have mattered?

Going a step further, this series of events elevated Chris Redfield exponentially. In RE6, he watched his men die again and again, reducing him to a traumatised, alcoholic mess. By the time Ethan fell, however, his reaction was muted. Almost cold. Watching him light up a cigarette before he set out to finish the job was easily in my top 10 series cutscenes, establishing him in my mind as the definitive RE protagonist. A workman-like attitude from a man who had been through more hell than anyone else.

We now stand on the precipice of the next chapter, and with it, the franchise’s greatest opportunity to deliver on the narrative promise that it has shown itself capable of. In Resident Evil Requiem, our central figure is the youthful FBI agent, Grace Ashcroft. From what we have seen of her, she has issues with anxiety, even prior to the traumatic night in which her mother Alyssa was taken from her.

How, exactly, this will be resolved by Requiem’s conclusion is not yet clear. But as I intimated in my discussion on Ethan’s obscured features, it has potential that is unhindered by a visual gag. Clearly, Capcom have got something good going by highlighting the importance of family — and I am very much looking forward to seeing the Ashcrofts become the next brood to represent this.