Every Resident Evil Monster and B.O.W., Explained

Resident Evil's monsters are almost all made, not born. Each comes from a virus, a parasite or a fungus that someone found, altered or sold, and the family a creature belongs to tells you how it behaves. The Umbrella Corporation started it with the Progenitor virus and its offspring, and after Umbrella fell, cults, corporations and arms dealers carried the work on. This guide groups the major creatures by that family, from the 1998 outbreaks to Requiem. Spoilers throughout. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil Requiem)

T-virus creatures#

The T-virus was made by Umbrella co-founder James Marcus, who combined the Progenitor virus with leech DNA. It kills most hosts and brings them back as zombies, and Umbrella used it as the base for most of its bioweapons. It escaped in the Arklay laboratory under the Spencer Mansion in 1998 and then wiped out Raccoon City. (Resident Evil Zero; Resident Evil; Resident Evil 2)

Zombie#

A T-virus zombie is a dead human brought back with almost no brain function and a constant hunger for flesh. The virus slows their thinking to almost nothing but keeps the body moving, and a bite or scratch spreads the infection. They appear in nearly every game set in 1998, from the mansion to the streets of Raccoon City. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

Crimson Head#

A Crimson Head is a zombie that gets back up. In the Spencer Mansion, a zombie put down but not burned or beheaded could revive with red skin, long claws and far more speed. They appear in the 2002 remake of the first game. (Resident Evil)

Cerberus#

Cerberus is the name for Umbrella's T-virus dogs, made from Dobermans and used to guard its facilities. Infected dogs hunt in packs and move much faster than human zombies. They are in the mansion, Raccoon City and most of the early games, and Requiem's Garmr was bred from their design. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil Requiem)

Licker#

A Licker is a zombie that went through a second mutation after eating a large amount of flesh. It loses its skin and eyes and grows an exposed brain, long claws and a tongue that can lash out several metres, and it hunts by sound. Lickers first appeared in Raccoon City in Resident Evil 2 and returned in later games and films. (Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

Hunter#

The Hunter was one of Umbrella's first successful bioweapons. It was made by grafting reptile DNA onto a human embryo, with the T-virus binding the two, and it was built to follow simple orders and kill fast. Hunters guard the mansion's grounds, and later models like the Hunter Beta and the frog-like Hunter Gamma turned up in Raccoon City and on Rockfort Island. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil Code: Veronica)

Chimera#

A Chimera is a hybrid of a human and a fly, made with the T-virus in the Arklay laboratory. It crawls along ceilings and drops on its prey. It appears in the laboratory beneath the mansion. (Resident Evil)

Yawn#

Yawn is a giant venomous snake that grew huge after escaping into the mansion from a T-virus experiment. Its bite carries a poison that needs a serum to treat. It is one of the first game's bosses. (Resident Evil)

Plant 42#

Plant 42 is a plant that mutated after its roots took in T-virus-tainted water in the mansion's guardhouse area. It feeds through vines and tendrils and kills anyone who gets close. It is the mansion's best-known plant boss, and its relative Plant 43 grew in Raccoon City's underground. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 2)

Queen Leech#

The Queen Leech was a mass of leeches carrying the T-virus and the memories of James Marcus, who had been murdered ten years earlier. It took Marcus's younger form, and attacked an Umbrella training facility in the Arklay Mountains; the game hints that it was behind the leak that started the mansion outbreak. Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen destroyed it. (Resident Evil Zero)

Tyrant#

The Tyrant is Umbrella's line of super-soldiers, made by infecting rare humans whose bodies could take the T-virus without losing all control. The T-002 prototype was kept in the mansion's laboratory, and Wesker set it on S.T.A.R.S. Umbrella mass-produced the T-103 model, the trench-coated "Mr. X" who stalks the police station in Resident Evil 2, and its coat holds back a far worse mutation. The line runs all the way to Requiem's T-501. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil Requiem)

Nemesis#

The Nemesis is a T-103 Tyrant with an NE-α parasite implanted in its body, made by Umbrella's European branch. The parasite gave it the intelligence to use weapons and follow complex orders. It was sent into Raccoon City to kill the surviving members of S.T.A.R.S. and hunted Jill Valentine across the city. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

G-virus creatures#

The G-virus was William Birkin's work, a strain that mutates its host without end instead of simply reviving it. It also breeds: a G creature can plant an embryo in a compatible relative. (Resident Evil 2)

Lisa Trevor#

Lisa Trevor was the daughter of the man who designed the Spencer Mansion, and was held in the Arklay laboratory and dosed with Progenitor virus strains from 1967. Decades of experiments left her deformed, near indestructible and wearing faces cut from her victims. Birkin's study of her body led to the G-virus. She appears in the 2002 remake of the first game. (Resident Evil)

G (William Birkin)#

G is what William Birkin became after injecting himself with the G-virus when Umbrella's soldiers shot him. He mutated again and again, each form bigger and less human, with a giant eye growing on his arm. He hunted through Raccoon City's police station, sewers and underground lab until his final form was destroyed. (Resident Evil 2)

G-embryo and G-adult#

A G-embryo is the larva that G implants in a host to breed. If the host is a close relative, it can take, which is why Birkin went after his daughter, Sherry. In the wrong host, the embryo grows into a G-adult that bursts out and kills. (Resident Evil 2)

T-Veronica creatures#

T-Veronica was made by Alexia Ashford, combining the Progenitor virus with an ancient virus found in queen ants. In the right host it keeps the mind intact while giving huge physical power, but it needed 15 years of cryogenic sleep to bond safely. (Resident Evil Code: Veronica)

Alexia Ashford#

Alexia was the virus's creator and its intended host. She woke in the Antarctic base in 1998 with control over fire made from her own blood and later grew into a giant insect-like form. Chris Redfield killed her. (Resident Evil Code: Veronica)

Nosferatu#

Nosferatu is Alexander Ashford, Alexia's father, used as a test subject for T-Veronica. Without the long sleep, the virus destroyed his mind and left him a chained, poison-spewing monster in the Antarctic base. (Resident Evil Code: Veronica)

Steve Burnside's mutation#

Steve Burnside was a young prisoner on Rockfort Island who escaped with Claire. Alexia injected him with T-Veronica, and he turned into a huge axe-wielding monster. He came back to himself long enough to save Claire, and Alexia killed him. (Resident Evil Code: Veronica)

Las Plagas#

Las Plagas are parasites from a remote part of Spain, revived by the cult Los Iluminados. A Plaga attaches to the host's nervous system and lets someone with a dominant Plaga control them, but unlike the T-virus it leaves them alive and able to think. The parasites later spread on the black market, including into the Eastern Slav Republic. (Resident Evil 4; Resident Evil: Damnation)

Ganado#

Ganados are villagers infected with Plagas. They talk, use tools and weapons, work together and even keep their daily routines. When a Ganado's head is destroyed, the Plaga can burst out and keep fighting. (Resident Evil 4)

Regenerador#

A Regenerador is a lab-made Ganado with several Plagas inside its body, which let it regrow lost limbs. Only killing every parasite stops it. They live in the lab on Saddler's island. (Resident Evil 4)

El Gigante#

El Gigante is a giant humanoid with a Plaga on its back, used by the cult as a weapon. It tears up trees and buildings, and exposing the Plaga is the only way to kill it. (Resident Evil 4)

Novistador#

Novistadors are insect-like creatures in the castle's sewers and halls. They can turn almost invisible, and some species fly. (Resident Evil 4)

Verdugo#

The Verdugo was Ramon Salazar's bodyguard, an insect-like assassin with a scorpion tail. It is hard to hurt unless frozen first. (Resident Evil 4)

Majini#

Majini are the people of Kijuju infected with a Type 2 Plaga developed by TRICELL, which matures as soon as it is swallowed. Like Ganados, they stay conscious and organised. (Resident Evil 5)

Uroboros and the C-virus#

After Umbrella, the two biggest new bioweapons were Albert Wesker's Uroboros virus and The Family's C-virus. (Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil 6)

Uroboros mutant#

Uroboros is a Progenitor-based virus that Wesker and TRICELL planned to spread around the world. It either bonds with a host it judges worthy or devours them in a mass of black tentacles. Most hosts fail and become Uroboros mutants. (Resident Evil 5)

Excella Gionne's mutation#

Excella Gionne, Wesker's partner in TRICELL, was injected with Uroboros when Wesker no longer needed her. The virus consumed her and grew into a huge mass of tentacles. (Resident Evil 5)

C-virus zombie#

The C-virus was made for The Family, combining T-Veronica and G-virus research. Spread as a gas over Tall Oaks in 2013, it turned crowds into zombies faster than the T-virus. (Resident Evil 6)

J'avo#

J'avo are soldiers injected with the C-virus who keep their minds and speak in their own language. When hurt, they mutate the damaged body part, growing wings, extra limbs or insect jaws. Some wrap themselves in a cocoon and come out as something else. (Resident Evil 6)

Ustanak#

The Ustanak is a C-virus bioweapon sent to capture Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin. It is huge and has a mechanical arm that swaps weapons. (Resident Evil 6)

Haos#

Haos is a giant C-virus creature grown in an undersea facility and meant to infect the world. Chris Redfield and Piers Nivans destroyed it. (Resident Evil 6)

The Mold#

The Mold is a fungus from a mountain range in Eastern Europe. It holds memories and can control whatever it infects, and its source is a huge mass called the Megamycete. (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard; Resident Evil Village)

Megamycete#

The Megamycete is the giant root mass of the Mold, buried under the village. Mother Miranda found it in 1919 and used it to build her own powers. (Resident Evil Village)

Eveline#

Eveline is a bioweapon codenamed E-001, grown by The Connections from the Mold. She can control anyone infected with her spores. After the ship carrying her ran aground in Louisiana, she ended up at the Baker estate and made its owners into her "family". (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard)

Molded#

The Molded are humanoid creatures made of black fungus that grow wherever Eveline's Mold spreads. They have no mind of their own. (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard)

The Baker family#

Jack, Marguerite and Lucas Baker were infected by Eveline. Jack and Marguerite could regenerate and mutate under her control, while Lucas kept his own will and secretly worked for The Connections. (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard)

Lycan#

Lycans are villagers whose bodies took Miranda's Cadou parasite badly. They became wolf-like creatures that hunt in packs. (Resident Evil Village)

Soldat#

Soldats are corpses with Cadou parasites, turned into cyborgs by Karl Heisenberg with drills and metal plates. He built them as an army. (Resident Evil Village)

Resident Evil Requiem#

Requiem brings back the T-virus. Its new strain lies dormant in Raccoon City survivors for decades, as Raccoon City Syndrome, and Victor Gideon spread the infection at the Rhodes Hill care centre. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Rhodes Hill zombies#

The zombies of Rhodes Hill are infected staff and patients who keep scraps of their personalities. They talk, repeat old habits and some still use tools. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Blister Head#

A Blister Head is a dead zombie that comes back stronger, with a swollen tumour on its head. If the tumour bursts, the fluid turns nearby zombies into Blister Heads. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Blister Borne#

A Blister Borne is a Blister Head whose tumours have spread across its whole body. It is slower but much tougher, and its cysts release a gas that changes nearby zombies. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Chunk#

The Chunks are two mutated brothers with appetites that can't be satisfied, turned into huge, bloated zombies at the care centre. (Resident Evil Requiem)

The Girl#

The Girl is Marie, a child held at Rhodes Hill who escaped her cell and mutated. Light hurts her, so she lives in the basement and hunts Grace Ashcroft through the dark. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Garmr#

Garmr are bigger, heavier versions of Umbrella's Cerberus dogs, and Leon meets packs of them in Raccoon City. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Titan Spinner#

The Titan Spinner is a giant spider in the ruins of Raccoon City that stalks Leon S. Kennedy through a building, vanishing into the walls and coming out elsewhere. Leon kills it. (Resident Evil Requiem)

T-501#

The T-501 is a newer Tyrant modelled on Umbrella's T-103, the trench-coated Mr. X, and behaves much like it. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Victor Gideon's Nemesis form#

In the ending where Elpis is released, Victor Gideon grows tentacle arms and fights Leon in ARK, the lab beneath Raccoon City. When he's beaten he reveals his final form: he had been carrying a Nemesis inside him all along. Leon kills him. (Resident Evil Requiem)