First of all, I'd like to start off by saying that this is no belated April Fool's joke. This news may come as a shock to some, may come as sad, or even joyful to others. I am here to announce that I am going to be closing down Resident Evil Fan. The site will remain open until completion of the Ideal Cast Tournament, then we will be shutting our doors forever.

Why am I shutting down you ask? There's many reasons, but most importantly is that I am simply burnt out. If you are a regular visitor, you may have noticed that there haven't been too many updates to the site in the past 2 months. That's partially due to the fact that Resident Evil news is slow, but also due to the fact that I lack the time and motivation to do the updates. I feel as the site has been running "half-assed", and I just cant be happy with that. But the only way to fix that is to put more time into it. Time which I just don't have anymore. I simply have too many other things I want to pursue in my life. I've thought this over for a very long time, but this time around I guess I couldn't talk myself out of it like I had numerous times before.

It's been a great ride. I've met many great people through this site. I have to admit I never thought it would get as big as it's gotten, nor that it would get as many visitors as it gets on a steady basis. For the past year or so, RE Fan has been averaging over 12,000 unique visitors, and 500,000 + hits per day. Much different than when I first began the site. Our forums grew from 10 members to over 5,000 memebrs, but are now in the 3500 range after a recent purge of inactive accounts. All numbers to be proud of, and everyone shares in that success.

I would like to take the time to thank a bunch of people who had a part in the storyline and success of this website. These are in no particular order. If I forget someone, it's not intentional.

WjKillay - the man responsible for the hosting of this website. Without him there would be no streaming media, no storage, no RE Fan.

Liquid from new-blood.com: You were largely responsible for getting RE Fan off the ground and helping it to get noticed by getting us listed on RE Sitez. And always there to answer the tough Resident Evil related questions.

IceDDZ from THIA, Rammy from Biohazard Extreme, DaMa from Resident Evil Horror, Marco from Totally RE and Flomble from Umbrella-Inc: It's been a pleasure knowing you guys and affiliating with you as well.

Jaksimous - You've known me longer than anyone. Thanks for being there and helping out when you could buddy

The moderators: Mad C, Jade, Flesheater, Leon, Tomo, Yawn, Obishawn, Shadow5, CarlosFan, Tatsu, SeizeTheDonut, Dark Stars, 4th Conspirator, and S.T.A.R.S.: Thanks for all your help, and thanks for putting up with what was the insane world we called "RE Fan Forums". Without you guys, this place would have shut down long ago. :cheers: :)

Hellraiser - The man with the content. Thanks for all your help with the videos and other various contributions to the site. And good luck with Shenmue Dojo!

The forums members: Thanks for the memories. There's too many of you to list so I wont try. Thanks for making us the largest RE forums community on the internet. That is no small feat.

And last but not least, the site visitors. You guys are what keep Resident Evil alive and well. Hopefully the zombie fest will live on for many years to come, but a lot of that depends on the fans. I thank every one of you who visited the site, and especially the many who sent in news items, pictures, videos, compliments, etc. You guys were responsible for a lot of the content that went on this site. Couldn't have done it without ya.

So when will the site officially shut down? Probably on April 30th. The Ideal Cast tournament will end on the 24th. I wanted to see that through at the very least before calling it quits. Though advertisers may dictate the close date, if so, the latest would probably be May 7th. I'll post more news when I know for sure.

So what's next for me? Vacation... Need a mental break. I also have some freelance jobs coming up that I need to concentrate on. And maybe after I refresh, I might embark on a new web project. Haven't decided for sure what that will be. Maybe an all out gaming site? Who knows?

Thanks for reading. Long live Resident Evil! Itchy tasty, Jill Sandwich, and all that good stuff.