Most interestingly of all beyond the ingame showcase is that Capcom has also moved the games release date up from November 20th to a new October 2nd date, almost six weeks earlier.

As you may have noticed, it has been quite some time since the news portion of the website has been updated. So what has happened in the almost two year time-span since the last post? On the surface, not much has changed. Maybe a few tweaks here and there, but other than that not much has been done on the outside. The inside is another story. The website is hosted on a new web server, new domain name server, new database servers, and finally there is an addition to the administration staff (this guy). While the old staff members (Roody and Rombie) still have access to post news articles, site updates, and retain their full forum access, I’m just here to carry on the torch and keep Resident Evil Fan: A New Blood alive. The site has been around for far too long to just die. Enough about us, time for the meat and potatoes of our website: Resident Evil!

Much has changed since late 2009 in the Resident Evil universe.

Since the last update, two downloadable content (DLC) packages were released for Resident Evil 5 in February and March of 2010 along with “Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition” (aka Biohazard 5: Alternate Edition).

The first DLC released was "Lost in Nightmares," where players controlled Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine as they infiltrated one of Spencer's mansions (again) in 2006.

The second DLC released was "Desperate Escape," where players controlled Josh Stone and Jill Valentine as they escaped the Majini’s clutches to assist Chris and Sheva take out Wesker and his radical scheme to infect the globe.

Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition included the "Lost in Nightmares" and "Desperate Escape" campaigns and also included the previously released "Versus" mode DLC, four new costumes, and an alternate Mercenaries mode called, "The Mercenaries Reunion." Mercenaries Reunion featured eight new playable characters as well as new item and time placement for the Mercenaries levels (in case you made a habit of remembering where everything was to make you a better player).

Later in the fall of 2010, the fourth installment to the movie franchise was released; Resident Evil: Afterlife. The film follows Alice searching and rescuing the survivors in Los Angeles after the events of the other movies had spread the T-virus on a global scale. Don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but it's a decent film but fails to explain many things, like how the Las Plagas parasite (both from Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5) makes it to the United States or why Chris Redfield seems to hate Albert Wesker so much (this may be obvious to the fans of the game franchise, but if you have only seen the movies, it's a big WTF moment since it's never explained). If you like action movies, it does its job and definitely worth a watch at least.

In June of 2011, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D was released for the Nintendo 3DS, it's new handheld gaming console. It's definitely a fun time killer and sort of a proof-of-concept show casing the 3DS' power and working out the kinks for Capcom’s future 3DS projects. Some of those that purchased this game had access to a demo of Capcom's newest 3DS game, Resident Evil: Revelations.

Resident Evil: Revelations was released in late January / early February of this year. The game is set in 2005, right in between the events of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5. It depicts the events shortly after the establishment of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) and all the zany adventures that took place on another ship (third ship in the series for those of you counting, first came the "SS Starlight" in Resident Evil: Gaiden [this doesn't really count, but whatever], then came the "SS Spencer Rain" in Resident Evil: Dead Aim, and now we have the "SS Queen Zenobia") and in addition to the new ship we also have a new strain of T-Virus to contend with: T-Abyss.

Lacking a Nintendo 3DS, a tool integral to playing this game, I haven't played this one yet, but it's on my to-do list. I’m really excited to get to play this since it’s almost a throw-back to the old-school survival horror days.

And this brings us to the present; sort of.

A few weeks have gone by since the release of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. It’s a little buggy at times, but what this game does have is good-ol’ zombie killing fun. You play as a member of the Umbrella Security Service (USS) Delta team, and are tasked with going into Raccoon City to procure the G-Virus from an underground laboratory where Dr. William Birkin is randomly injecting the G-Virus into things and watching what happens (this is conjecture so don’t quote me on it; to be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me though, seeing the photos in Resident Evil 2 as a basis for this belief).

So the USS team goes in, guns blazing, and Dr. Birkin doesn't even think about leaving his lab or escaping with the G-Virus. He’s just looking at his vials and grins sheepishly. Probably is wondering where that racket down the hall is coming from. Needless to say, you fail your mission and then everything spirals out of control and soon, you and your compatriots venture deeper into the zombie infested Raccoon City. Umbrella, being a dastardly evil corporation as well as being a relatively shitty Umbrella, makes it rain! Except instead raining water, it's raining B.O.W. (Hallelujah?). This is when the magic happens and things start to get fun!

There is one DLC campaign, “Spec-Ops”, on its way for this game, coming out on April 10, 2012 (in North America, release dates for other regions TBA). It is free, so that a definite plus. The mission will have players take on the role of a Spec Ops soldier as they’re thrust into the mouth of a zombiepocalypse.

Their mission, from what we've gathered is to figure out how this outbreak started, and who’s behind it. You'll run across the usual group of baddies, and perhaps the occasional U.B.C.S. or U.S.S. member. But wait, there's more! There are trailers available online which show off an encounter between Jill Valentine and Nemesis (which all in all is a pretty bad-ass encounter; your actual role in this fight is still undetermined though).

Coming Up...

The next installation of the Resident Evil movie franchise is going to hit theaters on September 14, 2012. Seemingly picking up right after the last movie ended. Don’t know what to expect from this, but I’ll be keeping an open mind when I watch it!

If you’re more of a canon appreciating type of Resident Evil Fan, then next installment of the CGI movies, Resident Evil: Damnation might be for you.

As sequel to Resident Evil: Degeneration, directed by Makoto Kamiya and produced by Hiroyuki Kobayashi, the story will revolve around B.O.W.'s utilized in a European warzone, and may or may not tie into Resident Evil 6's story line. Hopefully a more definite release date is announced as 2012 is a bit vague.

Speaking of Resident Evil 6, there are a few short months left until the release of Resident Evil 6 and there has been much buzz going on about it. This game has a planned release date of November 20, 2012. A playable demo of Resident Evil 6 is scheduled for release on the PlayStation Network and the Xbox Live Marketplace on September 5, 2012, however, a 60 day "early access" demo will also be available to those who purchase the Xbox 360 version of "Dragon's Dogma", this demo will be available as soon as July 3, 2012.

That’s about all I can fit into this thing, so I’ll cut it here. Hopefully I’ve caught up on news a bit and everything else can be posted as it arises. For those of you who are all, "LOL!! TL; DR", here's the condensed version:

A bunch of games and a movie came out during the span from 2009 till now, but watch out! A game and two other movies are coming your way! Oh yeah, ResidentEvilFan is back.

I've tried to avoid covering much about the next in the movie series from Paul W.S. Anderson, however I should at least acknowledge that it is coming. Resident Evil Afterlife arrives on September 10th in the States. The movie looks to be borrowing elements from the 5th Resident Evil game, including the Executor character with the axe, the majini face splitting effect, and Albert Wesker with his teleportation moves. Chris Redfield is also added to the main cast, played by Prison Break's Wentworth Miller. Additionally the movie continues the story of course of Alice and her clones from the previous film. The official trailer and more info, including release dates for your part of the world, can be found on the official website - http://www.residentevil-movie.com.

Currently other than these two projects, it's fairly quiet in the world of Resident Evil. RE5 Producer Jun Takeuchi has announced that he will have no role in RE6, and currently little is known other than there will be a sequel eventually. Capcom is focused zombie wise currently on the sequel to Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, which has just been pushed back a month to around late Sep/early October depending on where you are. Hopefully by the Tokyo Games Show we may have some announcement on where RE is focused next, but I suspect we'll get one more major title this generation.

However at this stage, currently beginning the 14th year since the release of the original game, we have no confirmed titles on the horizon. Capcom has announced at some point that a PSP Resident Evil title will be released, but at this stage they may have missed the boat on that one and nothing official has since been stated since the original announcement some time ago. Darkside Chronicles released to lower than expected sales, however with motion support being added to PS3 with their wand (the Move) and X-Box 360 (Project Natal) one wonders if Capcom will package Darkside and Umbrella Chronicles together for cheap and put them on release for those platforms in the future. E3 is approaching in a few months, and hopefully Capcom will announce what is in store for the future of the series.

In the mean time all of the extra content for Resident Evil 5 has been released in the past month or so, including the nostalgic trip that is Lost In Nightmares and the action-addition that is Desperate Escape. Additionally all the costume packs and characters for Mercs Reunion which includes fan favs Rebecca Chambers and Barry Burton. The package can be downloaded each separately, together as one special package called the 'Untold Stories' pack, or in stores as the Gold Edition (which is what they've called the Alternative Edition in the US and Europe). Keep in mind only the PS3 edition has the content on the disc however, the 360 version has a download code which just gives you access to the DLC off the net.

Finally series creator Shinji Mikami has been a busy man of late since leaving Capcom. Aside from producing two titles with Suda51 (one for EA, and one for Platinum Games), he's also directing a new game called Vanquish at Platinum Games as a freelancer as well as setting up his own studio which has this countdown clock running. The studio is called Tango, and currently has 13 staff including some from Grasshopper and the Capcom sub-studio Clover. Mikami has gone on record as well saying he would like to return to Horror gaming after Vanquish, and would like to produce a proper (potentially the first true) 3D title for gaming as well.

Back to Vanquish however, currently a few details have been released however the title is a fast action shooter, born in somewhat of what Mikami did not complete/achieve when he made P.N.03 for Capcom several years ago. The games scenes are done with real actors and footage by Logan, CG modified. The game has also struck a bit of controversy online when Mikami announced it would not be multiplayer and made a comment about not adding it because it weakens your main game focus. This comment sounded like a slight dig at the team behind RE5 (who took his work on RE4 and did basically just that with online/offline co-op).

In the mean time Capcom has just released The Darkside Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii, following the exploits of Leon Kennedy prior to RE4, and recovering the events not included in Umbrella Chronicles of Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica. The game is getting mixed comments and reviews across the board - from really good to not so good, so I suggest trying it yourself to see what you think.

Additionally Capcom has announced the additional content for Resident Evil 5, due Feb 2010 as DLC and March 2010 as a purchasable disc complete with the original game and new content. There are 2 additional scenarios, extra costumes, and modes.

Finally, for some odd reason this has taken longer than both sites ever should have, but we've proudly added Biohaze to out affiliates list. Please check them out if you haven't before. The site has just also been redeveloped and is looking fantastic.

An announcement has come of "Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles" which looks to tell the story of Resident Evil 2 (yet again) in a light gun format - however, much like Umbrella Chronicles, expectations are for additional chapters as well.

However, Capcom appears to have listened to issues surrounding Umbrella Chronicles and is looking to change the style of the game, including dodge abilities, having your partner on screen (ala. Time Crisis), and improving on the graphics and cutscenes.

An official website for the Japanese version, complete with trailer but little else at this stage, has been put online. You can view that at http://www.capcom.co.jp/bio_dc/

Additional to this, Capcom has announced plans to release the previous Japan only ports of Resident Evil and Resident Evil Zero to the Wii with their added Wii-mote support at a lower price point. Unlike RE4 Wii, these games didn't highly benefit from the Wii-mote upgrade, however if you never owned the GameCube editions these titles will be a good chance to pick the games up.

In preparation for the guides release along with the game this Friday, Prima have put up a feature page where you can check out a preview of the guide and buy it, and other Resident Evil guides, online. This link is:

http://www.primagames.com/features/resident-evil/.

RESIDENT EVIL DEGENERATION launches on N-Gage

The most famous survival horror series of all time, Resident Evil, is returning to handheld on N-Gage. Join series heroes Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield in RESIDENT EVIL DEGENERATION (based on the Sony Pictures CGI film) and battle to contain an outbreak of the infamous T-virus at a major US airport.

Developed on N-Gage, the game features multiple play modes and missions, bringing the full terror of the console series to mobile. Play separate missions for money in Mercenary mode or challenge yourself to play with less bullets and harder enemies as a Professional. How do you measure up? Compare your scores with other Resident Evil fans on the N-Gage Arena forums and leader boards.

N-Gage will be premiering RESIDENT EVIL DEGENERATION – play it here first.