Resident Evil 3 Remake, still fresh from release in April, has successfully continued to enrich theResident Eviluniverse by recreating past installments of the series. With a rumoredResident Evil 4 Remakein the works, and potentially new story elements that will link the plot to the Nemesis monster inResident Evil 3, there is still plenty inResident Evil’s past worth delving into with more insight.
To refresh, the originalResident Evil 4took place in Spain, where a terrorist group known as the Los Iluminados utilized parasites seemingly living in their natural habitat inside a Spanish cave. Members of Los Iluminados willingly infected themselves with these parasites, known as the Las Plagas, in order to mutate themselves into powerful monstrosities.
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Resident Evil as a Stand-Alone Story Originally
However, whileResident Evil 4has stood the test of time as a classicin horror games and among the best theResident Evilfranchise offers, none of this has not stoppedResident Evil 4from being viewed as the series more odd standout in terms of storyline. Not only didResident Evil 4completely change the game engine, controls, graphical style and turn it into a horror game that aligned closer to a third person action-horror game, but its disconnected storyline also helped makeResident Evil 4feel as if it reboot the series in a large way, at the time of its original release.
In the larger picture of the universe,Resident Evil’s Umbrella, its research, and its past creations of bio-weaponry have usually played as the backbone of the series lore, history and dark world, even long after Umbrella shutdown. For example, afterResident Evil 4, the next games,Resident Evil 5and6, and even7to a degree, made Umbrella’s dark past relevant to the current crisis' at hand in the games.
But Resident Evil 4 always stood seemingly as a stand-alone storyline with very little connectivity to theResident Eviluniverse and its backbone, specificallyResident Evil’s Umbrella and their T-Virus, which manifested most of the corporation’s monstrosities both in the past and after its shutdown following the years afterResident Evil 3.
To better conceptualize this,Resident Evil 4’s Las Plagas parasites, which comprised all the game’s enemies and the infected, as far as the original game was concerned, gave no hint that the parasites had any connection or history to Umbrella. Nor did the Los Iluminados terrorist group and its leadership have any link or mention in theResident Eviltimeline previously. Specifically, Los Iluminados had no connection to Umbrella.
For the most part,Resident Evil 4’s only connection to the rest of the main backbone of Resident Evil’s lore was in Albert Wesker’s small role in the game.Albert Wesker had a lot of long history with Umbrellaand is a longtime iconic villain of theResident Evilfranchise, both serving as an agent for them and turning his back on them later on.
InResident Evil 4, Albert Wesker dispatches both Ada Wong, andthe mostly forgettable Krauserto infiltrate the Los Iluminados, to gain a sample of a Dominant Las Plagas parasite. Overall, however,Resident Evil 4’s plot, main villains and its Las Plagas monstrosities remain a confusing detail to the story and overall universe, given their mysterious autonomy from the series, and unclear origins.
Resident Evil 3’s Nemesis Ties-In to Resident Evil 4
Fortunately, if aResident Evil 4 Remakeis in the works, it may be getting a richer storyline, or at least one that is more closely sewn to the overallResident Eviluniverse and timeline. PlayStation’s Tim Turi did aninterview withResident Evil 3’s development team, and the Nemesis monster was revealed to have a clear and direct link to the parasitic creatures inResident Evil 4.
Specifically, it was explained that the Nemesis gained the new ability to infect zombies with its parasites in theResident Evil 3 Remakebecause of its biological or engineered link to the Ganado monsters inResident Evil 4, which gives it the ability to do so. This revelation poses manyimplications forResident Evil 4 Remake’s plot, and especially the series as a whole.
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Given that the Las Plagas parasites have existed in their Spanish cave for at least centuries and were used by the older Los Iluminados cult of centuries earlier, it may be hard to make the case that Umbrella’s Nemesis monster helped create the Ganado (Los Iluminados members who are infected by the Las Plagas parasites). In all likelihood, it sounds more like the existence of the Las Plagas parasites helped Umbrella create the Nemesis parasite, and Umbrella’s Nemesis was modeled after the Las Plagas parasite.
By givingResident Evil 4’s Las Plagas parasites more relevance to the series' past, it also makes them all the more relevant in moving forward and creating rich storytelling forResident Evil’s future, moving ahead. If the Nemesis parasite was fully or partly modeled after theLas Plagas parasites, we can assume that Umbrella was aware of the existence of the Las Plagas, and could likely had some sort of organizational connection toResident Evil 4’s main villains.
This could include Ramon Salazar, the 8th Castellan, who was responsible for guarding the cave in his castle. It could also includeResident Evil’s mysterious Osmund Saddler, a mysterious bio-weaponry expert who traveled to Spain in order to convince Salazar for access to the cave and resurrecting the Los Iluminados cult. While these potential plot details may seem minuscule, this slight story revision sets a major new course and timeline by essentially redefining the backbone ofResident Evil’s lore. Essentially, its lore has always been comprised of the game’s monsters, or its virology, essentially.
Redefine Resident Evil’s Overarching History
This latest revelation redefines the backbone of Umbrella’s history of experiments by making the T-Virus, found in West Africa, and the Las Plagas parasite, found in Spain, a culminating factor. For example, theG-Virus, and everything that was created from its lineage, would not have been made possible without the Las Plagas virus, since it was partially created through an accidental fusion of the T-Virus and the Nemesis Parasite that was experimented on Umbrella’s test subject, Lisa Trevor.
Given that the G-Virus was discovered in 1988 in Lisa Trevor, this means that Umbrella must have known about Salazar’s castle and the Las Plagas parasites in the caves nearby for a long time. The link betweenthe Nemesis parasite and the Las Plagas parasitestiesResident Evil 4deeply into the timeline of the series' past, thereby making it all the more relevant and necessary in setting the trajectory forResident Evil 4’s timeline thereafter.
Resident Evil 4 Remakecould even help tie-in the storyline toResident Evil 5much better in moving the timeline forward, and in hopefully creating more relevance and history between the T-Virus and Las Plagas parasite, and much of what has transpired in theResident Evilplot since then.Resident Evil 5’s storyline also stood out as slightly odd in its own way, given that its plot focuses on the origins of the T-Virus, or Progenitor plant which it came from, in West Africa where it was originally discovered, but its inclusion in the game is minimal.
The majority of the enemies inResident Evil 5are infected with Las Plagas parasites, which came from Spain. Essentially, inResident Evil 5, the player is fighting against Las Plagas-infected monsters that happen to have spread on the territorial grounds where the T-Virus was discovered decades earlier, but without any inclusion of T-Virus zombies during the actual events ofResident Evil 5. And yet, previously, fans were simply supposed to believe the T-Virus and Las Plagas parasites have little or no historical connection in usage and research.
A more thickened plot for aResident Evil 4 Remake, which redefines the history of the Las Plagas parasites with more familiarity and relevance to the T-Virus origins and experimental history, would not only makeResident Evil 4 Remakefit into the timeline better, but it can also strengthen the plot-line thereafter.Resident Evil 4’s Las Plagas parasites have the potential to be the sister-counterpart to the T-Virus, with a history of usage and demand within the same corporation, agenda and lineage of experimental initiatives by Umbrella.
