Resident Evil Complete Movie Timeline Explained
David Mccullough Paul W. S. Anderson's Resident Evil movies present an alternate timeline from the games with all sorts of details on Umbrella and Project Alice.
Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil franchise may be based off of the Capcom game series of the same name, but they break from the canon to create their own alternate timeline. Starting in 2002, Anderson's Resident Evil movies explored the evil Umbrella Corporation, the T-virus, and how people manage to survive and fight back through the catastrophic fallout.
The movies follow main character Alice (Milla Jovovich) as she discovers who she is and fights back against the Umbrella Corporation. While most of the Resident Evil movies follow a straightforward progression from one installment to the next, there are certain events that are left out and later revealed in flashbacks or through character dialogue.
Once all of the loose story ends were wrapped up in The Final Chapter, some fans were left confused as to what actually happened throughout the series. Additionally, the speed at which some pieces of plot are presented amidst the action, as well as the myriad experiments and research projects conducted by Umbrella throughout the films can be difficult to keep track of. Here's the full Resident Evil movie timeline, explained.
Before The First Resident Evil - The T-Virus Is Developed
While most well-known as a pharmaceutical and tech company, Umbrella receives most of their funds through covert military research and development. With the company’s resources, Dr. James Marcus started to research a cure for his daughter’s Progeria, which was revealed in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Ultimately, this led to the creation of the T-virus, a compound that is able to regenerate cells being destroyed by the disease.
Unfortunately, the T-virus has certain unforeseen side effects. It turns people into zombies if they aren't given the antivirus, though they can also be sustained with frequent injections of the antivirus, which was shown in Resident Evil: Apocalypse when Alice meets Dr. Ashford’s young daughter, Angela. Umbrella takes ownership of the virus, and begins experimentation with it in an effort to create a variety of different compounds from pharmaceuticals to bioweapons.
Before the First Resident Evil - Project Alice Begins
Prior to the first Resident Evil movie, Project Alice was begun. This was a mission to create clones of the young Alicia Marcus and modify her DNA to remove the progeria disease that was slowly taking her life, while also using the clones to perform essential Umbrella Corp duties.
After this, with no memory of her childhood but enough training and humanity to be entirely functional as a person, the adult Alice becomes the head of security at a secret, underground Umbrella facility in Raccoon City known as the Hive. She and Spence Parks, another Umbrella agent, are then both placed in a mansion undercover as a married couple and guard the Hive's secret entrance.
Before the First Resident Evil - Releasing the T-Virus
In her job as head of security at the Hive, Alice has higher clearance than most employees. As a result of her ability to see into the many projects being conducted by Umbrella researchers, she discovers the T-virus and the many illegal and immoral applications that Umbrella is planning to use it for.
When she’s approached by environmental activist and investigative journalist, Lisa, Alice sees her opportunity to bring Umbrella to justice. Lisa asks Alice to smuggle out a sample of the virus to her so she can prove that what Umbrella’s been doing is highly illegal, and Alice agrees on the condition that Lisa promises to bring Umbrella down. Unfortunately, during this conversation, Alice and Lisa are overheard by Spence, Alice’s partner.
Spence decides to take action ahead of Alice, and sets out to steal the virus himself, releasing it into the Hive and shutting down the entire facility. It’s at this point that the Red Queen AI shuts down all access to the Hive and releases gas into the mansion and connecting tram, knocking out both Alice and Spence, which gives them temporary memory loss.
Between Resident Evil & Apocalypse - The T-Virus Gets Out
At the end of Resident Evil, Alice is shown being captured by Umbrella personnel and then later escaping to find herself in an abandoned city. Resident Evil: Apocalypse picks back up at this point as the audience learns that between films—despite the Red Queen’s best efforts—the T-virus has made it out of the Hive and infected Raccoon City. In The Final Chapter, it's revealed that this is because the Umbrella Board of Directors manufactured the apocalypse to manually refresh the Earth, leaving them largely unaffected.
Umbrella sets out to evacuate its most important employees, as the government decides to take steps to seal off Raccoon City from the rest of the country in an attempt to stop the spread. Ultimately, at the end of Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the government decides that the city cannot be saved, and they blow up Raccoon City, killing any remaining survivors along with many of the zombies.
Between Resident Evil & Apocalypse - The Nemesis Project
At the end of Resident Evil, Alice and Matt are taken away by Umbrella scientists. Alice overhears one of them say that Matt is wanted for the “Nemesis Project”. In Resident Evil: Apocalypse, an enemy called Nemesis appears wielding a rocket launder and minigun. At the end of the film, Alice learns that this creature was once Matt, and has been so experimented on that he’s transformed into this Nemesis monster and has been programmed to be loyal to Umbrella.
Between the two films—like Alice—Matt was experimented on and entered into a project that would bond his DNA with the T-virus in such a way that a new entity would be formed. While Alice bonded perfectly with the T-virus and essentially gained superpowers, Matt had a much harsher reaction, swiftly mutating and changing, the virus taking over his mind and body.
Between Apocalypse & Extinction - Humanity Falls & Alice is Cloned
After the events of Apocalypse, despite Raccoon City’s destruction, the T-virus spread across the world and ravaged humanity. Fewer and fewer human survivors remain, as groups band together to try and make it through the epidemic. Meanwhile, Umbrella is taking the opportunity to continue their experiments, cloning Alice in an attempt to find another who has her unique powers.
Resident Evil: Afterlife - Alice Makes a Clone Army & Loses Her Powers
After finding the secret Umbrella facility in the middle of the desert at the end of Extinction, Alice also locates the hundreds of clones that researchers had been creating in an attempt to create a stronger, better Alice that they could control for themselves.
In the beginning of Afterlife, Alice has gathered these clones to create an army, which she uses to storm the Umbrella headquarters in Tokyo. Coming after Albert Wesker, she manages to take out the personnel in the entire facility, but Wesker escapes, initiating the base’s self-destruct sequence as he flies away. Fortunately, the original Alice is stowed away on Wesker’s helicopter and she attacks him. However, he’s ready for her and injects her with a serum that nullifies the T-virus in her system, effectively making her mortal once again and removing her powers.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter - Alice Saves the World
In Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, the Red Queen AI learns that Umbrella Corporation manufactured the apocalypse caused by the T-virus. At the same time, Umbrella had been developing an airborne form of the antidote for the T-virus. It would destroy all infected tissue and leave healthy tissue unaffected.
The Red Queen, changing her allegiance, tells Alice that in just a few hours the last human survivors will be defeated and Umbrella will have won - she has to return to Raccoon City, breach the Hive, and release the antidote to save the world. She’s also told that because she’s technically infected with the T-virus, she’ll die when the cure is released.
Ultimately, Alice is able to bring the antidote to the surface and release it, saving the world and surviving despite believing that she will die. The Red Queen explains that this is because the antidote only destroys infected tissue, leaving healthy tissue untouched—she simply told Alice that she would die, because she needed to prove that Alice was pure enough to complete the mission.
While there are a lot of plot threads presented throughout the series and The Final Chapter does its best to tie all of these up in a cohesive narrative, there’s a lot to keep track of between all of the films. As the movies present a timeline separate from that of the Resident Evil games, this timeline is far from all-encompassing the lore of the Resident Evil franchise as a whole.
