Leon and Barry boarding a sinking ship.
As the most popular horror video game franchise, Resident Evil's stories and characters span across countless games, movies and other media. One of the most iconic faces in its lineup of recognizable protagonists is Leon S. Kennedy, main protagonist of Resident Evil 2 (1998) and Resident Evil 4 (2005).
But unbeknownst to many, Leon's story was actually first continued in 2001, within an entry of the series that has largely been forgotten today.
A Potent Pathogen
The first Resident Evil, released on the PlayStation in 1996, is nowadays credited with popularizing the survival horror genre and taking video games into a more cinematic direction. This reputation would shape the series as a whole, starting with the 1998 sequel Resident Evil 2.
Here, the now-iconic duo of police officer Leon Kennedy and college student Claire Redfield has to escape from the town of Raccoon City, most citizens of which have been transformed into zombies by a biological weapon called the T-virus, which was developed by pharmaceutical company Umbrella Corporation. Leon vows to take down Umbrella at the end of the game.
However, instead of continuing his story, Resident Evil 3 (1999) follows one of the protagonists of the first game, Jill Valentine, who also got trapped in Raccoon City, but manages to escape with the help of weapon specialist Barry Burton. It would take until 2001 for players to experience Leon's next chapter, this time with Barry on his side.
Portable Incubation
After small British studio M4 presented Capcom with a demo for a Game Boy Color port of Dino Crisis (a series only recently rumored to be returning), the Japanese publisher was so impressed that they tasked the team with creating an entirely new title which would come to be known as Resident Evil Gaiden, cancelling a struggling Game Boy Color port of the original that was in development at the time.
Capcom employee Hiroki Katō, system planner for the first Resident Evil, wrote the story for Gaiden: While investigating a luxury cruiser which supposedly contains bio-organic weapon developed by Umbrella, Leon goes missing, prompting Barry to go looking for him. Together, the two get caught up in a web of double-crosses, explosions, zombies and mutations.
On their quest to stop Umbrella from obtaining a genetically-engineered parasite from a mysterious young girl named Lucia, the two protagonists have to explore their surroundings in a top-down perspective unique for the series, which shifts into first-person shooting segments only when encountering an enemy.
Falling Ill
Although containing one of the most surprising and shocking storylines of any game in the series, Resident Evil Gaiden suffers enormously from its hardware constraints: The gameplay is smartly adapted to the technical limitations of the Game Boy Color, but the simple 8-bit graphics and sound simply can't match the haunting atmosphere of the PlayStation predecessors.
Aside from the mixed critical reception, Gaiden was also hurt by its release timing, with the Game Boy Advance being released nine months before. M4 pleaded with the publisher to shift development to the newer hardware instead, but was rejected, meaning that it looked and sounded outdated even at launch.
Capcom may also be not very fond of the idea of rereleasing the Game Boy Color title due its non-canonicity in an already-confusing series narrative; containing a storyline with elements that would be contradicted in more popular titles like Resident Evil 4 later (a situation comparable to that of the also neglected & forgotten Metal Gear: Ghost Babel).
Finding A Cure
Nonetheless, if you want to experience Gaiden's plot – even though Capcom apparently thinks you're not ready to – fans have come up with options to help this sequel to Resident Evil 2 follow in its predecessor's footsteps.
One of the most impressive fan projects is an attempt to recreate the entirety of Gaiden in the engine of Resident Evil 2; a modding project by a four-person team announced in 2022. Named after the luxury cruiser the game takes place on, Resident Evil 2 – Project Starlight is still in development.
Yes, we are still alive! https://t.co/N8bnyXs4in
— Project Starlight (@BH_Starlight) January 19, 2024
If you'd like to see where the story of Gaiden went after its shocking cliffhanger, an unofficial sequel titled Resident Evil Gaiden II was announced to be in development by experienced Argentinian community modder Wonder Legacy in 2023. The fan game will be constructed in the game engine of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Despite Capcom currently being aboard the Resident Evil remake hype train, the company is definitely neither going to release a remake nor a sequel, but just making Gaiden finally available for purchase again would certainly be much appreciated.