One of many largest bulletins at Summer time Sport Fest 2026 was the reveal of Resident Evil Veronica, a remake of Capcom’s 2000 recreation, Resident Evil: Code Veronica.
One of many questions rising from the announcement is how Capcom plans to cope with sure story themes that we’d count on to be dealt with extra delicately in 2027, practically three many years after the unique got here out.
Warning! Spoilers for Resident Evil: Code Veronica observe.
The unique title’s villain is a person known as Alfred Ashford, the commander of Rockfort Island, the place Claire finds herself imprisoned for a big part of the sport. However Alfred hides a secret, and in consequence switches between two personalities: that of his personal and his sister, Alexia. This psychological instability is dealt with quite heavy-handedly, to the extent the place Ashford might be seen sporting the garments of his sibling as Claire shouts the notorious line: “Alfred, you cross-dressing freak!” Apparently, that is solely the case in the localisation of the script, changing the unique Japanese traces: “Alfred! That is your doing!”
In a Q&A session following the SGF reveal attended by IGN, Resident Evil Veronica producer, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, addressed how this reimagining will deal with the themes surrounding Alfred Ashford. “First off, I feel that is an important query,” Hirabayashi started. “So first off, as I mentioned, the staff is definitely in the method of constructing the sport at this very second. So what the ultimate type of the sport appears to be like like is actually not 100% determined but.”
“However after all, our intention and objective with the remake is to ship a horror expertise and in addition discover these characters deeper and look into much more dimensionality for them as properly,” he continued. “And in order we try this, the factors that we pay particular consideration to is who they’re as an individual, what’s driving them internally and externally? These are the factors that we think about when making an attempt to sort out these characters. Every Resident Evil title, after all, they’re all horror video games, however all of them even have their very own particular subgenre or a selected means of exploring a unique facet of horror. For us, we think about Code Veronica’s sure facet right here is that it additionally delves right into a darker or scarier aspect of the human thoughts and coronary heart.”
“We’re making an attempt to dive slightly bit deeper, and we’re analyzing the character on a barely deeper degree, making an attempt to ask ourselves, what are the explanations that is driving this character?” Hirabayashi added. “What’s their motivation? What’s driving their persona? So that is what we’re taking a look at, after which from there we determined how we are able to painting that? We’re making it so these portrayals aren’t finalized but. Going again to a number of the themes that Veronica offers with, there’s a variety of emotion. So love, expression, after which what occurs when perhaps love is taken too far. So these are core issues that we’re taking a look at, and that is the vital half to us, after which the following step is determining the best way to painting that.”
Based mostly on the event staff’s work on the Resident Evil 2 and three remakes, and on Hirabayashi’s feedback right here, it is in all probability protected to say that the “Alfred, you cross-dressing freak!” line will not make it into the sport.
We’ll see how the staff at Capcom has managed to navigate its story and themes when Resident Evil Veronica releases in 2027. Till then, we have affirmation that Resident Evil Veronica is a third-person recreation. And make sure to try IGN’s roundup of all the pieces introduced throughout Summer time Sport Fest 2026 to seek out out what else the online game business has in retailer.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can primarily be discovered skulking round open world video games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing on the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Observe him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.