Consoles have come and gone, hardware market leaders have become laughing stocks and whole game series have gone from groundbreaking innovation to tired old rehash. Yet one thing has always remained constant in modern gaming: Capcom will remake the original Resident Evil. However, today no reports have come from Capcom on any kind of planned remake causing some to speculate that there won’t be one for up to quite a while.

In 1996 Resident Evil was released on the Sony PlayStation to widespread acclaim and simultaneously gave birth to the survival horror genre (paradoxically, before the earlier released Alone In the Dark). The game then went from strength to strength: with a director’s cut for the PS and a port to the Saturn and the PC in 1997. The game then saw a remake on the Gamecube in 2002, which, at the time many gamers and industry top dogs saw as a risky move. Tampering with the game that had worked so well on a number of platforms in a completely unchanged state ran the risk or alienating Resident Evil fans and attracting a new generation of fans. Yet the game was a success.

Fans of Resident Evil were further appeased with a DS version of Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Deadly Silence, and a Resident Evil chapter in the light gun Wiimake of the Gamecube remake: Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles. The game also spawned some lesser sequels: Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5 and the prequel, Resident Evil Zero which, despite bringing some unwanted innovation to the series, saw virtually no success outside of Japan.

With no announcement today of another Resident Evil remake, employees at Capcom have been doing some serious soul searching. Our inside source at Capcom HQ had the following to say, ‘Daily there are rumours abound that we won’t be remaking Resident Evil soon. Some of the higher-ups are saying that this situation may persist for some time. This radical move has left many fearing for their jobs and the overall new direction the company may be taking. At Capcom we have some of the best remakers of Resident Evil in the world. We [in the Slightly Tweaking Monster Hunter department at Capcom] are relatively secure in our jobs but I can’t imagine how the guys in the Remaking Resident Evil department are feeling about the whole thing.’

Former child star of Resident Evil and Resident Evil Zero, Rebecca Chambers, had the following to add, ‘Some of us get lucky starring in prequels or utterly bizarre Game Boy spin-offs like Barry [Burton] but I feel for the other members of Alpha and Bravo team. They die in Resident Evil so it’s not as if they can appear in later sequels and we can’t prequalise a prequel or remake a prequel if the sequel isn’t being remade’.

The recent release of the awful CGI film Resident Evil Degeneration starring the lesser known characters from Resident Evil 2, and the announcement of the upcoming light gun wiimake of Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles, have led many internet posters to speculate that the day of Resident Evil remakes may be over. It is thought that Capcom may be trying to bring the lesser known Resident Evil 2 to a wider audience by remaking it instead of remaking Resident Evil.

Financial advisers to Capcom are claiming the move is ‘madness’ especially in the midst of an economic crisis. With no new announcement of a Resident Evil remake today and at least two current generation platforms without a Resident Evil remake some say the future of the company looks “grave”.

With no new remakes of Resident Evil announced, this website is inclined to agree that, after the potential 2009 Western release of the currently Japan-only Wiimake of the Gamecube remake of Resident Evil for the Wii, we may not see another Resident Evil remake until next next gen or even next next next gen.