Capcom has been producing quality titles for four decades. Despite an abundance of popular franchises that stretch back for years – Mega Man, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry – it’s their long-running survival horror franchise Resident Evil that just passed the 100 million sales mark, the first of Capcom’s series to do so. What is dead may never die.
When you count every Resident Evil ever released, which includes entries in the main series as well as numerous spin-offs, there are somewhere around three dozen entries into the franchise. The counting gets a little wonky when you consider the episodic content, but nobody can deny that this series is massive. It’s little surprise that it’s moved so many units. And with Resident Evil 8 on the way, that number is just going to keep growing.
Even the much agreed-upon worst entry in the franchise, Resident Evil 6, managed to sell over nine million copies to be the fifth best-selling game in the franchise. This is thanks largely to its predecessor, Resident Evil 5, being not only a well-received entry and the best-selling in the series but also a step in a new direction. Resident Evil 6 than proceeded to step in all sorts of directions that nobody liked.
The series came back with a vengeance, however, not only with the critically and commercially successful Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, which is the fourth bestselling title, but also the 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2, which sits as the sixth bestselling title. The original 1996 Resident Evil is the seventh bestselling title in the series. Think about that. A remake of the second title comes out 23 years after the game that started it all and manages to outsell it.
This is where someone clever would make a really good joke about the G-Virus reanimating something and making it even stronger than before.
The franchise’s dominance isn’t stopping. After Resident Evil 6 disappointed so many fans, it no doubt hurt Resident Evil 7‘s initial sales. Now that the latter has restored faith in the series, the upcoming Resident Evil 8 should sell straight through the roof.
And in the other, bizarre parallel timeline of remakes, Capcom is reportedly working on a Resident Evil 4 remake. That, too, should see high sales numbers. While it’s true that the Resident Evil 3 remake wasn’t received as warmly as its predecessor, Resident Evil 4 is held in pretty high regard, so that popularity could carry over to the remake.
Yeesh, there’s a lot going on with this franchise.
