It all starts with Umbrella, the pharmaceutical company Oswell E. Spencer founded in 1968 to hide his real business: biological weapons. From a virus found in Africa, the Progenitor, its scientists make the t-Virus, which turns people into zombies and animals into monsters, and then the G-Virus and worse.
In 1998 the t-Virus escapes from its labs near Raccoon City, a town in the United States. First the mansion in the Arklay Mountains falls; in September, the whole city. On 1 October the government wipes it off the map with a missile.
That year gives the saga its heroes: Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine of the S.T.A.R.S. unit; Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie cop on his first day; Claire Redfield and the young Sherry Birkin. Against them stands Albert Wesker, the S.T.A.R.S. captain, a traitor working for Umbrella who survives with superhuman powers. Umbrella goes down in court in 2003–2004, but its viruses are already on the black market.
In 2004 Leon rescues the US President’s daughter from a Spanish cult that controls people with a parasite, Las Plagas (Resident Evil 4). The samples reach Wesker, who in 2009 turns a region of Africa into his testing ground (Resident Evil 5). In 2012 and 2013 the C-Virus hits Eastern Europe, the United States and China (Resident Evil 6): the era of bioterrorism, when the threat is no longer a company but a market.
Then the threat changes shape: a fungus, the Mold. A syndicate called The Connections uses it to build a girl-weapon, Eveline, who destroys the Baker family in Louisiana; in 2017 Ethan Winters, looking for his wife, is trapped in their house (Resident Evil 7). In 2021 the trail leads to an Eastern European village ruled by Mother Miranda, the woman who was Spencer’s teacher, and Ethan has to get his daughter Rose back from there (Resident Evil Village).
In 2026 the story returns to the ruins of Raccoon City. Grace Ashcroft, an FBI analyst, and an ailing Leon find that Spencer left a secret lab under the city and one last project, Elpis, which The Connections have been hunting for years (Resident Evil Requiem, and in depth in Requiem). For the whole story, era by era, go on to the main thread. The live-action films, Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil (2026) included, are a separate continuity: they are in films and series.