Nemesis (Resident Evil): the Nemesis-T Type That Hunted S.T.A.R.S.

Nemesis, full name Nemesis-T Type, is a bio-weapon built by the Umbrella Corporation and sent into Raccoon City in September 1998 to kill the surviving members of S.T.A.R.S.. It is a Tyrant body with a controlling parasite inside, and it spends Resident Evil 3 chasing Jill Valentine from one end of the city to the other. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil 3 (2020))

What is Nemesis and how was it made?#

Nemesis is what happened when Umbrella combined two lines of research. One was the Tyrant Project, which produced powerful human bio-weapons but struggled to keep them smart. The other was the Nemesis Project in Europe, which bred a parasite designed to take over the brain of whatever it lived in. Umbrella's notes on the creature say the parasite was implanted into a cloned T-103 Tyrant, and that the parasite's control made the host far more intelligent than a normal Tyrant. (Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles)

That intelligence shows. Nemesis can be briefed on targets, it can recognise faces, and it uses weapons. It carries a rocket launcher in both versions of Resident Evil 3 and a flamethrower as well in the remake. It is also very hard to keep down. When it is badly hurt, the parasite pushes its body to mutate, so each time Jill beats it, it comes back in a worse form. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil 3 (2020))

Its Japanese name, Tsuisekisha, means "the Pursuer", which sums up the way it plays: it turns up without warning, follows the player between areas and kicks through doors. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

Why Nemesis hunts S.T.A.R.S.#

In July 1998, S.T.A.R.S. survived the outbreak at Umbrella's lab under the Spencer Mansion and destroyed it, along with the T-002 Tyrant. The survivors knew what Umbrella had been doing and kept trying to expose it. When the t-Virus outbreak swept Raccoon City in late September, Umbrella used it as cover to send Nemesis in with orders to kill them. The outbreak also gave the company a chance to see how its new weapon did against trained people in the field. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles)

By then only a few S.T.A.R.S. members were left in the city. In the 1999 game, Nemesis caught up with pilot Brad Vickers outside the Raccoon City Police Department and killed him with a tentacle through the head in front of Jill, then turned to her. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

What happens in Resident Evil 3 (1999)#

In the original game, Nemesis ambushes Jill again and again across the city: at the police station, in the streets and in the offices of the city's newspaper. The game gives the player choices during some encounters, such as fighting or running, which change the next scene. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

It attacks the tram Jill and the U.B.C.S. mercenaries are using to escape, and Mikhail Viktor blows himself up to stop it. It survives, shoots down the rescue helicopter at the clock tower and infects Jill with the t-Virus. She beats it before collapsing, and Carlos Oliveira carries her to safety. Mutated by the damage, it loses its coat and much of its human shape. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

The final fight is at a disposal plant on the edge of the city. Corrosive chemicals in a treatment room melt the Tyrant body, but the parasite crawls out as a huge, shapeless mass. Jill kills it with a powerful railgun built into the facility, with the option of shooting it a few more times with a magnum to make sure. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

How the remake changes Nemesis#

The 2020 remake keeps the mission and most of the beats, and changes almost everything about how Nemesis looks and fights. (Resident Evil 3 (2020))

• It bursts into Jill's apartment at the very start of the game instead of meeting her at the police station. (Resident Evil 3 (2020))
• It has a flamethrower as well as a rocket launcher, and it wears a heavy black bodysuit instead of a coat. (Resident Evil 3 (2020))
• Its first big mutation turns it into a four-legged, dog-like creature that fights Jill at the clock tower. (Resident Evil 3 (2020))
• The final fight moves to NEST 2, a lab under Spencer Memorial Hospital, where Nemesis has grown into a massive immobile shape and Jill finishes it with Umbrella's prototype railgun. (Resident Evil 3 (2020))
• Brad Vickers no longer dies to Nemesis. He is bitten by a zombie while helping Jill escape, and turns up later as a zombie at the police station. The clock tower infection and Mikhail's sacrifice both stay. (Resident Evil 3 (2020))

Resident Evil: Resistance, the multiplayer game released alongside the remake, later added Nemesis as a creature one of its masterminds can control. (Resident Evil: Resistance)

Nemesis outside the games#

In the films, Nemesis appears in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004). There, Umbrella mutates Matt Addison, one of the survivors of the first film, into the creature. He fights Alice and then turns on Umbrella. The film versions follow their own continuity, covered in the Resident Evil films in order. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

The idea did not die with the creature in the games either. In Resident Evil Requiem, set in 2026, the villain Victor Gideon, a former Umbrella man working with the crime syndicate The Connections, carries a Nemesis-type parasite of his own, which tells you how much value Umbrella's successors still see in the design. (Resident Evil Requiem)