Resident Evil Characters: Every Major Character in the Series

Resident Evil's cast has grown over 30 years from a handful of police officers in the Spencer Mansion to a sprawl of agents, scientists, cult leaders and bioterrorists. Most of them circle the Umbrella Corporation and the viruses it made, then the groups that picked over its remains. This guide covers 40 of the characters people look up most, grouped by where they come from, with links to the full pages where we have them. Full spoilers. For the plot in order, see Resident Evil story explained. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil Requiem)

S.T.A.R.S. and the BSAA#

S.T.A.R.S. was the Raccoon City Police Department's special tactics unit, and its survivors went on to fight bioterrorism for the rest of their lives. Chris Redfield helped found the BSAA, the anti-bioterror force that most of the later soldiers in this section belong to. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 5)

Chris Redfield#

Chris Redfield was the Alpha Team point man who survived the Spencer Mansion in July 1998 and spent the next decade chasing Umbrella and Wesker. He killed Wesker in Africa in 2009, lost his squad and his memory in Eastern Europe at the end of 2012, and by Resident Evil Village was leading the BSAA's Hound Wolf Squad against Mother Miranda. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil 6; Resident Evil Village; Resident Evil Requiem)

Jill Valentine#

Jill Valentine was the Alpha Team's rear security and lockpicking expert, and survived the mansion beside Chris. Weeks later she escaped Raccoon City while the Nemesis hunted her through the streets. Wesker later captured her and controlled her with a drug-filled device on her chest, until Chris and Sheva Alomar freed her in 2009. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil 5)

Barry Burton#

Barry Burton was the Alpha Team's weapons expert and an old friend of Chris. Wesker blackmailed him during the mansion incident by threatening his wife and daughters, and Barry nearly let Jill die before turning on Wesker. In 2011 he went to a prison island to find his daughter Moira and took in a strange girl called Natalia Korda. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil: Revelations 2)

Rebecca Chambers#

Rebecca Chambers was the rookie field medic on S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team. The night before the mansion she survived a train and a training facility full of leeches with the convict Billy Coen, then met Chris in the mansion itself. Years later she became a researcher and was working on a cure for the A-virus in 2014. (Resident Evil Zero; Resident Evil; Resident Evil: Vendetta)

Billy Coen#

Billy Coen was a former Marine lieutenant being driven to his execution when the transport crashed in the Arklay Mountains. He fought through the outbreak alongside Rebecca and told her he had been framed for a massacre during a mission abroad. She let him walk free and reported him dead. (Resident Evil Zero)

Sheva Alomar#

Sheva Alomar was a BSAA agent from the West African branch who partnered with Chris in Kijuju in 2009. She had lost her parents to an Umbrella bioweapon incident as a child. Together they stopped Wesker's plan to spread the Uroboros virus around the world. (Resident Evil 5)

Piers Nivans#

Piers Nivans was a BSAA sniper and the second-in-command of Chris's Alpha Team in 2013. He pulled Chris out of an alcoholic, amnesiac exile and fought beside him from Edonia to China. Badly hurt in an undersea facility, he injected himself with the C-virus to save Chris and died covering his escape. (Resident Evil 6)

Moira Burton#

Moira Burton is Barry's daughter, who worked for the NGO TerraSave alongside Claire Redfield. In 2011 the two were abducted to Sein Island, a prison run by Alex Wesker. Moira had refused to touch a gun since a childhood accident involving her sister, and the island forced her to face that. (Resident Evil: Revelations 2)

Raccoon City survivors#

The second wave of the story starts in September 1998, when the T-virus overran Raccoon City. The people who got out became the series' backbone. (Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

Leon S. Kennedy#

Leon S. Kennedy arrived for his first day at the Raccoon City Police Department to find the city already lost. He escaped with Claire and Sherry, was recruited by the US government, rescued the President's daughter from a Spanish cult in 2004 and fought the C-virus in 2013. In Requiem he is a Division of Security Operations agent dying of Raccoon City Syndrome, the late effect of the infection he picked up in 1998. (Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil 4; Resident Evil 6; Resident Evil Requiem)

Claire Redfield#

Claire Redfield is Chris's younger sister, a college student who rode into Raccoon City looking for him. She escaped with Leon and Sherry, then was caught raiding an Umbrella facility in Paris and shipped to Rockfort Island, where she fought the Ashford twins in Code: Veronica. She later joined TerraSave and survived Alex Wesker's island with Moira Burton. (Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil Code: Veronica; Resident Evil: Revelations 2)

Ada Wong#

Ada Wong is a spy who was in Raccoon City to steal a sample of the G-virus and posed as a woman looking for her boyfriend. She kept crossing paths with Leon, in Spain in 2004 and in China in 2013, always working for someone she wouldn't name. In Resident Evil 6 a scientist called Carla Radames turned out to have been remade in her image with the C-virus. (Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil 4; Resident Evil 6)

Sherry Birkin#

Sherry Birkin was the young daughter of William and Annette Birkin, and was implanted with a G-embryo by her own mutated father. Claire and Leon got her out, and the government took her in. As an adult agent she protected Jake Muller in 2013, and in Requiem she is Leon's support in the field. (Resident Evil 2; Resident Evil 6; Resident Evil Requiem)

Carlos Oliveira#

Carlos Oliveira was a young corporal in Umbrella's private army, the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service, sent into Raccoon City believing he was there to rescue civilians. He worked out that his commanders saw the unit as test fodder and helped Jill escape the city before it was destroyed. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

HUNK#

HUNK led the Umbrella Security Service team that shot William Birkin for the G-virus, starting the chain that ended the city. Every other member of his team died, and HUNK walked out of the sewers alone with the sample, which earned him the nickname "Mr. Death". (Resident Evil 2)

Other allies#

These are the partners and civilians from the later games who matter most to the main story. (Resident Evil 4; Resident Evil 6)

Ashley Graham#

Ashley Graham is the daughter of the US President, kidnapped by the cult Los Iluminados in 2004 and infected with a Las Plagas parasite. Leon tracked her to a Spanish village, a castle and an island and got them both out after removing the parasites. (Resident Evil 4)

Helena Harper#

Helena Harper was a Secret Service agent who helped Derek Simmons stage the 2013 attack on the President because Simmons held her sister hostage. She confessed to Leon in Tall Oaks and fought beside him to China to make it right. (Resident Evil 6)

Jake Muller#

Jake Muller is Albert Wesker's son, a mercenary in Edonia who carried antibodies to the C-virus. Sherry Birkin was sent to bring him in, and the two were chased across Europe and China by the Ustanak. He gave up most of the reward he was owed and went back to work in the war zones. (Resident Evil 6)

Umbrella and the villains#

Umbrella was founded by Oswell E. Spencer to chase human evolution through the Progenitor virus, and almost every villain either worked for it or fed off what was left. (Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil Zero)

Albert Wesker#

Albert Wesker was the S.T.A.R.S. captain, secretly an Umbrella researcher, who led his team into the mansion as test subjects for the Tyrant. He came back from apparent death with superhuman abilities, killed Spencer and planned to infect the whole world with Uroboros. Chris and Sheva killed him in a volcano in 2009. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 5)

Oswell E. Spencer#

Oswell E. Spencer was Umbrella's founder, an aristocrat who wanted to make himself a god. He built the Spencer Mansion over the Arklay laboratory and raised Wesker as part of a breeding programme. Wesker killed him in his European estate in 2006, though Requiem reveals he left one last project, Elpis, behind. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil Requiem)

William Birkin#

William Birkin was Umbrella's brilliant and arrogant lead scientist, the creator of the G-virus. When Umbrella's soldiers shot him to steal it, he injected himself and mutated into the creature called G, and the T-virus got into the sewers as the soldiers fell. He kept hunting his own daughter until Leon and Claire destroyed him. (Resident Evil 2)

Annette Birkin#

Annette Birkin was William's wife and fellow researcher. She tried to protect the G-virus and her daughter at the same time, and in the end gave Leon and Claire what they needed to cure Sherry. She died beneath the city in the Umbrella lab called NEST. (Resident Evil 2)

James Marcus#

James Marcus co-founded Umbrella with Spencer and created the T-virus by combining the Progenitor virus with leech DNA. Spencer had Wesker and Birkin kill him in 1988. Ten years later a leech colony carrying his memories took his form and attacked the training facility where Rebecca and Billy were trapped. (Resident Evil Zero; Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles)

Alexia Ashford#

Alexia Ashford was a child prodigy from one of Umbrella's founding families, who created the T-Veronica virus. She put herself into cryogenic sleep to let the virus bond with her body and woke 15 years later in Antarctica, where Chris killed her. (Resident Evil Code: Veronica)

Osmund Saddler#

Osmund Saddler was the leader of Los Iluminados, a cult in rural Spain that revived the ancient Plagas parasites. He kidnapped Ashley Graham to infect her and send her back to the White House. Leon killed him on the cult's island. (Resident Evil 4)

Jack Krauser#

Jack Krauser was a former special forces soldier who trained with Leon before turning against the US government. He faked his death and, like Ada, ended up working for Wesker, taking a Plaga to gain strength. Leon beat him on Saddler's island, and Separate Ways shows Ada finishing him off. (Resident Evil 4)

Excella Gionne#

Excella Gionne was a TRICELL executive who backed Wesker's Uroboros project, believing she would rule beside him. Wesker injected her with Uroboros when she was no longer useful, and the virus consumed her. (Resident Evil 5)

Derek C. Simmons#

Derek C. Simmons was the US National Security Advisor and the head of a secret network called The Family. He arranged the C-virus attack on Tall Oaks in 2013 to silence President Adam Benford, who wanted to reveal the truth about Raccoon City. Infected himself, he mutated again and again until Leon and Helena killed him. (Resident Evil 6)

The Winters saga#

The seventh and eighth main games follow the Winters family and the Mold, a fungus with its own collective mind. (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard; Resident Evil Village)

Ethan Winters#

Ethan Winters was an ordinary civilian who went to a Louisiana plantation in 2017 after his missing wife Mia sent him a message. He survived the Baker family and destroyed Eveline. Three years later his daughter Rose was kidnapped, and he learned he had died in the Baker house and been kept alive by the Mold. He died for good destroying the Megamycete so Rose could get away. (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard; Resident Evil Village)

Mia Winters#

Mia Winters was Ethan's wife, secretly an agent for a shadow organisation called The Connections who was escorting Eveline when the ship carrying them crashed. Eveline infected her and the Bakers. Ethan saved her, and in Village she was taken alongside Rose. (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard; Resident Evil Village)

Rose Winters#

Rose Winters is Ethan and Mia's daughter, born after both had been infected by the Mold, which gave her powers over it. Mother Miranda wanted her body for her own dead daughter. Sixteen years after Village, Rose went into the Megamycete's memories to find a cure and was guided out by her father's echo. (Resident Evil Village; Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose)

Eveline#

Eveline was a bioweapon built by The Connections from the Mold, a girl who could control anyone infected with her spores and wanted a family. She aged far faster than normal and was dying by the time Ethan reached her. He killed her in her mutated form. (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard)

Jack Baker#

Jack Baker was the patriarch of the Baker family and was infected by Eveline. The Mold let him regenerate from almost anything, and he chased Ethan through the house. Before Eveline arrived he had been a decent father, and the family's own notes show how much the infection changed him. (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard)

Mother Miranda#

Mother Miranda was the priestess behind the European village, a scientist who had lived for a century after finding the Megamycete. She mentored the young Spencer, which links the Mold to Umbrella's origins. She had spent decades trying to bring back her daughter Eva and chose Rose as the vessel. Ethan and Chris stopped her in 2021. (Resident Evil Village)

Lady Dimitrescu#

Lady Dimitrescu is the very tall lady of a castle above the village, one of Miranda's four lords. Her Cadou parasite left her cells breaking down, and she held that back by drinking human blood. Ethan killed her and her three daughters. (Resident Evil Village)

Karl Heisenberg#

Karl Heisenberg was the lord of the village's factory, who could control metal with his mind. He hated Miranda and tried to recruit Ethan, and Rose's power, to fight her. When Ethan refused, Heisenberg tried to kill him with a machine made from scrap and was destroyed. (Resident Evil Village)

Resident Evil Requiem#

Requiem is set in 2026, 28 years after Raccoon City, and pulls a new cast into the city's ruins. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Grace Ashcroft#

Grace Ashcroft is an FBI intelligence analyst sent to investigate a string of deaths at the Wrenwood Hotel, where her mother was murdered in 2018. She is Alyssa Ashcroft's daughter, a foundling Spencer took in as a baby and entrusted to Alyssa, who raised her. Victor Gideon believes she is the key to opening Elpis, Spencer's last project. In the ending where Elpis is released, she goes home to look after a girl she saved. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Alyssa Ashcroft#

Alyssa Ashcroft was a journalist who survived the Raccoon City outbreak in 1998. Spencer entrusted the baby Grace to her, and she raised her as her daughter. She was killed by a hooded man in the Wrenwood Hotel in 2018, and Requiem's story grows from her notes. (Resident Evil Outbreak; Resident Evil Requiem)

Victor Gideon#

Victor Gideon was a former Umbrella scientist who worshipped Spencer and ran the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, where he experimented on patients while hunting for a way to open Elpis. In the ending where Grace releases Elpis, he kills Zeno, mutates and becomes the final enemy Leon fights. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Zeno#

Zeno is a figure from The Connections who worked with Gideon because he wanted Elpis for himself. In the ending where Elpis is released, Gideon kills him. In the ending where it's destroyed, Zeno kills Leon. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Emily#

Emily is a blind girl kept in a glass cell at Rhodes Hill. Grace protects her through the outbreak until Emily mutates and Leon shoots her. In the ending where Elpis is released, Emily turns out to be alive, and Grace takes her in. (Resident Evil Requiem)