Claire Redfield: the College Student Who Came Looking for Her Brother

Claire Redfield is a college student who rode into Raccoon City looking for her missing brother, Chris Redfield, on the night the city was overrun, and escaped with a little girl she'd sworn to protect. Capcom's official CODE: Veronica profile gives her age in 1998 as 19. She later joined TerraSave, a group that helps victims of bioterrorism. She leads Resident Evil 2, CODE: Veronica and Resident Evil: Revelations 2. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); BIOHAZARD CODE: Veronica Kanzenban official site; Resident Evil: Degeneration; Resident Evil CODE: Veronica; Resident Evil: Revelations 2)

Raccoon City (1998)#

Chris had stopped answering her calls, so Claire rode her motorcycle into Raccoon City at the end of September 1998 to look for him. The city was full of zombies. She met Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie cop on his first day, and the two made for the police station, getting separated on the way. Inside, she found the station overrun and Chris long gone. (Resident Evil 2 (1998))

She found Sherry Birkin, the young daughter of Umbrella scientists William and Annette Birkin, alone in the city. William had injected himself with his own G-Virus and was mutating into a monster, and he infected Sherry with his offspring. Claire carried her down into Umbrella's underground lab, made a vaccine with Annette's help and cured her. Claire, Sherry and Leon escaped on a train as the lab blew up. (Resident Evil 2 (1998))

How the remake changes it. The 2019 remake keeps Claire's purpose, Sherry, but rebuilds her route. Police Chief Brian Irons kidnaps Sherry and takes her to an orphanage, and Annette's part in curing her changes too. Like the original, the remake's two campaigns for Leon and Claire don't fully agree on who did what. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 2 (2019))

Rockfort Island and Antarctica (1998)#

After the escape, Claire left Leon to look after Sherry and kept looking for Chris. In December she broke into Umbrella's Paris facility to find him and was captured and sent to a prison on Rockfort Island. When the island was attacked and the t-Virus got loose, she escaped with another prisoner, Steve Burnside, and contacted Leon to pass a message to Chris. Claire and Steve were taken to an Umbrella base in Antarctica, where Alexia Ashford, the heir to one of Umbrella's founding families, infected Steve and he died. Chris arrived, rescued her and killed Alexia, and they flew out together. (Resident Evil CODE: Veronica)

TerraSave and Harvardville (2005)#

By 2005 Claire was working for TerraSave. She was at Harvardville Airport when a zombie outbreak hit it and was trapped inside until Leon came in with a rescue team. The outbreak was tied to a drug company and to a man infected with the G-Virus, and the two of them helped stop him. (Resident Evil: Degeneration)

Penamstan (2006)#

While working with refugees in 2006, Claire saw a drawing by a boy from Penamstan that seemed to show soldiers turning into monsters. Following it up put her on the same trail as Leon, who was investigating an outbreak in the White House, and pointed to a military cover-up. (Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness)

The prison island (2011)#

In 2011 Claire and Moira Burton, the daughter of Barry Burton, were kidnapped from a TerraSave party and woke up in an abandoned prison on a remote island. They'd been fitted with bracelets that measured their fear, part of an experiment by Alex Wesker. Claire and Moira fought their way out together. Barry came looking for Moira six months later and finished what they'd started. (Resident Evil: Revelations 2)

Alcatraz (2015)#

In 2015 Claire was looking into an orca infected with a new virus strain off San Francisco. It led her, Chris and Jill Valentine to Alcatraz, where they met Leon and a plan by ex-soldier Dylan Blake to spread a new strain of the t-Virus by drone. Blake infected Claire, Chris and Leon with his drones, and Rebecca Chambers made the vaccine that saved them. (Resident Evil: Death Island)

Relationships#

• Chris Redfield. Her older brother. Their first search for each other covered half the world. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil CODE: Veronica)
• Sherry Birkin. The girl she saved in Raccoon City. (Resident Evil 2 (1998))
• Leon S. Kennedy. Her fellow survivor and a friend who keeps turning up when things go wrong. (Resident Evil: Degeneration; Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness)
• Steve Burnside. Her fellow prisoner on Rockfort Island, who died in Antarctica. (Resident Evil CODE: Veronica)
• Moira Burton. Her TerraSave colleague and fellow survivor of the island. (Resident Evil: Revelations 2)

In the films#

Ali Larter played Claire in three of Paul W. S. Anderson's live-action films: Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), where she leads a convoy of survivors through the desert, Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), where she's reunited with Chris, and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016). Kaya Scodelario played her in Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), which gives her a childhood in a Raccoon City orphanage. The CG works Degeneration, Infinite Darkness and Death Island are part of the game story and are covered above. See Welcome to Raccoon City explained and the CG films guide. (Resident Evil: Extinction; Resident Evil: Afterlife; Resident Evil: The Final Chapter; Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City)