The Top 5 'Resident Evil' Games

We’re just over two weeks out from the launch of Resident Evil Requiem, so let’s look back at Capcom’s long-running survival horror series and identify the top five games. I’ve played all of them, reveling in the highs and weathering the lows. Before selecting the best Resident Evil games to date, one piece of housekeeping—I will not be including multiple variations of the same game on the list, but instead selecting which version I think is the best (in other words, the remakes).

That being said, let’s get on with the list:

5) Resident Evil 5

OK, I admit it, this scarcely qualifies as survival horror. It took its predecessor’s shift toward action and went even further, dispatching Chris Redfield to a fictional African nation to take on more infected alongside partner Sheva Alomar, who hasn’t been seen since. Despite it not fitting that well in the RE universe, as a standalone experience, it’s really fun, particularly with a co-op partner. I’d wholeheartedly embrace another action-heavy spinoff of RE5.

4) Resident Evil Village

I am unapologetically in the third-person camp of survival horror, so the switch to first-person for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and ensuing slow movement and overall feeling of vulnerability weren’t my favorite. Things rebounded nicely in Village. The setting was good, the blend of action and atmosphere was more to my taste, and the villains were memorable. I’ll confess it took me a little while to get into Village, but once it clicked, I really enjoyed it.

3) Resident Evil 4 (2023)

There’s considerable separation between the top three games on this list and everything else in the series, and honestly if I were including multiple versions, the original RE4 would be on this list as well. After coming out of the gate strong, the franchise had stumbled a bit with Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, leading to a nearly six-year gap before RE4. It changed up the formula, moving away from the confined locations of the first three games and putting a stronger focus on action. It was great. The 2023 remake is better. It polished the gameplay, reworked some of the sillier elements that hadn’t aged well, and made Ashley Graham less of an albatross. There’s a valid case to be made that this is the franchise’s best game.

2) Resident Evil (2002)

Between the releases of RE3 and RE4, Capcom dropped an upgraded version of the inaugural Resident Evil on the Nintendo GameCube. It seemed an odd choice to put it on a family-friendly system, but it wound up being one of the best games in the GameCube’s history. It looked tremendous, added an incredibly creepy new area and boss, introduced the concept of zombie corpses reanimating if you didn’t burn them, and much more. Nearly 25 years later, it still holds up remarkably well.

1) Resident Evil 2 (2019)

Many Resident Evil fans consider RE2 to be the best in the series, because it took the things that worked in the original and did what any good sequel does: expand and improve. Two playable characters meant two different campaigns, and the police department setting was iconic. The 2019 remake blew it completely out of the water. Even ignoring the gorgeous visuals, the development team hit the mark on every single design choice, deftly knowing when to lean into nostalgia and when to innovate. The addition of Mr. X was a stroke of genius—he was a much scarier stalker than Nemesis ever was—and the redesigned Raccoon Police Department remains one of my favorite locations in any game. It’s survival horror perfection.