Chris and Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, Leon Kennedy: those are the names any longtime fan’s mind will immediately recall whenever Resident Evil comes up in conversation, though as we all know, a hero’s only ever as good as their moral counterpart. Fortunately, Capcom has cooked up a number of fantastic villains for the series’ protagonists to face-off against over the years, with former S.T.A.R.S. member and bioterrorist Albert Wesker consistently ranked as one of gaming’s greatest.
Then there are the creature feature creations of Umbrella, many of which – Lickers, Hunters and the fearsome Nemesis, to name just a few – have proven to be just as memorable if not iconic to boot. Truly, it’s thanks just as much to Resident Evil‘s creative monster designs as its human cast that the franchise continues to dominate the realm of horror in gaming, but who will be the big bad in Resident Evil 8?
With Wesker permanently out of the picture and Resident Evil 7‘s essentially self-contained narrative started and concluded in a single installment, any sequel will need to introduce a compelling antagonist to rally against. Whether this individual will have ties to Umbrella or be a standalone villain à la Osmund Saddler remains to be seen, though if recent hints provided by AestheticGamer are any indication, there won’t just be one all-powerful threat to contend with this time around.
Asked by one fan if they knew who the main villain of Resident Evil 8 will be, the prolific whistleblower said:
There’s more than one villain, and the status of this is changing a bit. There’s one unconfirmed thing I heard I’ll throw at you involving a guy named Alan, I’m partially sharing that bit to stir the kettle some I admit though.
Whether that last remark is intended to be interpreted more as an effort at misdirection rather than the name of an actual character isn’t entirely clear, though the specific mention of multiple villains will certainly breed discussion. Saddler may have been the puppetmaster of Resident Evil 4‘s Los Illuminados, for example, but he certainly wasn’t alone in operating the cult. We could very well see something akin to that in the next mainline entry which, if previous leaks regarding the sequel’s setting hold true, would actually make a lot of sense. Watch this space for more.
Resident Evil 8 is rumored to release next year for next-gen consoles and PC.
