Resident Evil's Best Locations

With Capcom soon to unleash a new era in the Resident Evil series with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, we take the time to fondly remember some of its best locations.

You can't have a tense and adrenaline-pumped run or stagger from zombies, lickers, dogs, or super-soldier behemoths without a good backdrop. The series began back in 1996 so there's been just over 20 years of terrorising gamers with nearly 30 releases.

The Mansion

• Resident Evil (1996)

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This is where it all started with the series beginning in March 1996 for PC and PlayStation, as well as SEGA Saturn - remember that one?

It's quite the iconic set piece and few who have every played Resident Evil wouldn't recognise its significance. It was a foreboding monster of a mansion full of creepy surprises, statue puzzles and doors needing keys engraved with symbols. It was also full of window-breaking dogs, giant spiders, a huge snake and our introduction to the sinister Umbrella Corporation's bio-weapons research program.

Play your cards right and all the frustration of trying to work out the maze-like mansion can be expressed justly in blowing it all to hell as you ride away in a helicopter like the S.T.A.R.S. Team badass you are.

Raccoon City

• Resident Evil  2 (1998) / Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999)

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The infamous Raccoon City is definitely one of Resident Evil's best locations as we get to explore the ruinous aftermath of the bio-weapon outbreak. The Mansion is in fact located just outside Raccoon City and it's where the S.T.A.R.S. team is based. It's first seen in Resident Evil  2 but also comes back for the follow-up Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. It's hardly some sprawling metropolis but rather an infested and decaying ruin with almost everyone infected by the T-Virus.

Streets are blocked off by debris, cars, buses or inconveniently placed walls and fences (the city council have a lot to answer for). The first stop in Raccoon City is the gunshop before heading off to another one of Resident Evil's best locations.

RPD

• Resident Evil  2 (1998)

While this is still in Raccoon City technically, the Raccoon Police Department is so iconic a location it deserves its own mention. It's basically a bridge between the first and second game as the RPD is a mansion of sorts, giving fans something familiar. This large mansion-like building is also home to the very first licker enemy you meet, and probably run away from. You'll also want to get here fast to that type-writer to save.

The Village

• Resident Evil  4 (2005)

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For a non-descript rural settlement out in the sticks of Spain, the 'Village' is where Resident Evil has arguably enjoyed its greatest success with Resident Evil 4. Leon S. Kennedy is back and on the trail of the U.S. President's daughter, who has been kidnapped by a mysterious cult.

The reason this location is one of the series best isn't because of the village itself but because it happened to introduce a whole new way to play the horror series. The game went with a third-person perspective with the camera over the shoulder of Leon allowing us to get closer, but also let us actually start aiming weapons accurately. The village is also occupied not by zombies but more deadly infected humans that retain more of their mental faculties, and chainsaws.

Queen Zenobia

• Resident Evil: Revelations (2012)

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What could possibly go wrong aboard a cruise ship that was operated by one of Umbrella Corporations' subsidiaries - Paraguas Line Company? Things take a rather different turn for the Queen Zenobia as she's not delighting tourists but terrorists and then is home to a floating bio-weapons research facility.

Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine board the ship to discover what dark deeds are going on and soon learn things are pretty bad with a new threat called the t-Abysss Virus. A certain someone was looking to manufacture a man-man pandemic, got caught and now wanted to erase the evidence. The Zenobia's interiors were fashioned after the 1930s style of high-class liners meaning it had a very elegant style - akin to a mansion one might say...

Revelations allowed movement with shooting but Capcom was careful to keep 'survival, evasion, and exploration' over any running-and-gunning, which meant Zenobia became one of the most tense locations to get our hearts thumping.

Ecliptic Express

• Resident Evil 0 (2002)

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Do somebody say tight corridors? Well the Ecliptic Express being a train pretty much guarantees a tight experience. Poor S.T.A.R.S. officer Rebecca Chambers and criminal rogue Billy Coen end up on an Umbrella-owned train full of zombies and leeches. Things naturally went rather bad for all aboard the Express.

This time you get to switch between two characters in Resident Evil 0 while the AI controls the other for you. Working together is a must and considering you're up against a shape-shifting Queen Leech hellbent on revenge against one of Umbrella Corporations's co-founders... you need all the help you can get.

Now that Capcom is taking a little break from the norm with Resident Evil 7 - introducing all-new characters with only a threadbare connection it seems to the wider series - will we have another location to add among some of the most memorable in Resident Evil's history?

What we do know is that it takes place in the fictional city of Dulvey, Louisiana in the south of the United States. Newcomer Ethan Winters is off in search of his missing wife, Mia, where he comes across the Baker family at a derelict plantation mansion - Capcom's go-to survival horror card to play.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard releases on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 January 24th, 2017.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Menace and isolation seethe through the rotting walls of an abandoned southern farmhouse. "7" marks a new beginning f...
Release Dates
16 Dec 2022-Switch
24 Jan 2017-PC
13 Jun 2022-Xbox Series X
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