William Birkin: the Umbrella Scientist Who Became G
William Birkin was Umbrella's star virologist, the creator of the G-Virus and, by accident, the man who started the Raccoon City outbreak. Shot by Umbrella's own soldiers, he injected himself with G and became the monster that hunts Resident Evil 2. Here is his story.
William Birkin is the Umbrella scientist who created the G-Virus, and the monster known as G that hunts Leon and Claire through Resident Evil 2. His own employer shot him to take his work. He used the last sample on himself, and the struggle that followed spilled the t-Virus into Raccoon City's sewers. (Resident Evil 2)
Who is William Birkin?#
Birkin was a child prodigy who joined Umbrella in 1977. The company sent him to its executive training school in the Arklay Mountains, run by James Marcus, where his classmate and rival was Albert Wesker. When Umbrella closed the school in 1978, the two were moved to the Arklay Laboratory under the Spencer Mansion as senior researchers. (Wesker's Report II; Resident Evil 0)
At Arklay he took the t-Virus, which killed too fast to be a useful weapon, and made strains that left victims alive as aggressive, brain-damaged zombies. He also created the Hunter by splicing reptile DNA into human embryos. He married a fellow researcher, Annette, and they had a daughter, Sherry. (Wesker's Report II)
In 1988 Umbrella's founder Oswell E. Spencer had Marcus murdered. Birkin and Wesker were there, and took Marcus's research for themselves. (Resident Evil 0)
Lisa Trevor and the G-Virus#
Lisa Trevor had been a test subject at Arklay since 1967. Around the end of the 1980s Birkin implanted her with a parasite that had killed every other host. Her body absorbed it. Studying what was happening inside her, he found a new mutation that could rebuild a living body, and named it Golgotha: the G-Virus. (Resident Evil; Wesker's Report II)
Umbrella built a new lab under Raccoon City, finished in 1991, and put Birkin in charge of the G project with Annette. Police Chief Brian Irons took bribes to keep investigators away. Birkin wanted a seat among Umbrella's top executives and came to believe the company would never give him one. (Resident Evil 2)
Betrayal and death (Resident Evil 2, 1998)#
After the Arklay lab was lost in July 1998, Wesker left Umbrella. Birkin stayed, but he opened talks with the US military to hand over G in return for protection for himself and his family. Umbrella found out and sent a team from its Umbrella Security Service, led by HUNK, to take the virus. (Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles; Resident Evil 2)
On 22 September 1998 they cornered him in his lab. He reached for a gun and one of the soldiers shot him. They took his case of G and t samples and left. Birkin, bleeding out, injected himself with the one sample he had left. (Resident Evil 2)
G went after the team in the sewers and killed everyone except HUNK, and t-Virus samples were smashed in the fight. Rats fed on the spill and carried the virus into the city's water. Within a week Raccoon City was overrun. (Resident Evil 2)
As G#
G kept mutating each time it was badly hurt, and kept one instinct from the man: find a blood relative to carry its embryos. Strangers it implanted died as the embryos burst out. Sherry was the one host that could survive it, so G hunted her. (Resident Evil 2)
Leon and Claire fought it in the police station, the sewers and the lab. Annette, who'd hidden in the lab all week, tried to kill her husband herself and was mortally wounded. G implanted Sherry, Claire cured her with the DEVIL vaccine, and the three survivors boarded Umbrella's escape train. G followed them in its final form, a mass of flesh with mouths and limbs, and died when the train or the lab blew up around it. (Resident Evil 2)
How the remake changes William's story#
The 2019 remake keeps the shooting, the self-injection and the sewer massacre, shown on recovered video. The changes are around Sherry: William implants Chief Irons at the Raccoon City Orphanage and later implants Sherry while attacking her and Claire on the orphanage lift. Annette tries to stop him herself and is fatally injured. His end on the train is the same, give or take who strikes the last blow. (Resident Evil 2)
In the films#
William appears in Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), played by Neal McDonough, as the Umbrella scientist whose work sits behind the outbreak. Late in the film he injects himself with the G-Virus and mutates, and Leon kills the creature with a rocket launcher. The film mixes the first two games' stories and is its own continuity. (Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City)
Frequently asked questions
- Who is William Birkin?
- William Birkin is the Umbrella scientist who created the G-Virus. When Umbrella's soldiers shot him to steal it in September 1998, he injected himself with it and became G, the mutating monster of Resident Evil 2, and the spill from that attack started the Raccoon City outbreak.
- Why did William Birkin inject himself with the G-Virus?
- He was dying. Umbrella's U.S.S. team had shot him and taken his samples, and the G-Virus was the only thing left that could keep him alive. It did, but it destroyed his mind.
- How many forms does William Birkin have?
- Five in both the 1998 game and the 2019 remake. He starts as a man with a swollen arm and an eye on his shoulder and ends as a mass of flesh, mouths and limbs on the escape train.
- Did William Birkin create the t-Virus?
- No. James Marcus created it. Birkin developed it further at Umbrella's Arklay laboratory, and he and Albert Wesker took Marcus's research after Umbrella had Marcus killed.
- Was William Birkin friends with Wesker?
- They trained together as teenagers at Umbrella's executive school under Marcus and were rivals and colleagues at the Arklay lab. Wesker left Umbrella in 1998, while Birkin stayed to finish the G-Virus.
Sources
- GameResident Evil, Capcom, 1996; remade 2002
- GameResident Evil 0, Capcom, 2002
- GameResident Evil 2, Capcom, 1998; remade 2019
- VideoWesker's Report II, Capcom, 2002
- GameResident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Capcom, 2007
- VideoResident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, Film, written and directed by Johannes Roberts, 2021
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
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