Uploaded April 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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Resident Evil is a survival horror video game developed and released by Capcom originally for the PlayStation in 1996, and is the first game in the Resident Evil series. The game's plot follows Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, members of an elite task force known as S.T.A.R.S., as they investigate the outskirts of Raccoon City following the disappearance of their team members. They soon become trapped in a mansion infested with zombies and other monsters. The player, having selected to play as Chris or Jill at the start of the game, must explore the mansion to uncover its secrets and find a way to escape.

First conceived by producer Tokuro Fujiwara as a remake of his earlier horror game Sweet Home (1989), the development of Resident Evil was led by Shinji Mikami. It went through several redesigns, initially a Super NES game in 1993, then a fully 3D first-person PlayStation game in 1994, and then finally a third-person game with pre-rendered backdrops. Gameplay consists largely of third-person action with added emphasis on inventory management, exploration, and puzzle solving. Resident Evil establishes many conventions seen later in the series, including the control scheme, inventory system, save system, and use of 3D models superimposed over pre-rendered backgrounds.

Resident Evil was very well received critically and commercially, and is often credited for defining the survival horror genre. It received praise for its graphics, gameplay, sound, and atmosphere, although it received some criticism for its voice acting. Beyond video games, Resident Evil has been credited with re-popularising zombies in mainstream popular culture from the late 1990s onwards (along with The House of the Dead), leading to a renewed interest in zombie films during the 2000s. Resident Evil has since been hailed as one of the most influential and greatest video games of all time. Its success has spawned a multimedia franchise including video games, films, comics, novels, and other merchandise. The game has received dedicated ports to the Sega Saturn, Windows, and Nintendo DS. In 2002, a remake of the same name was released for the GameCube featuring updated graphics, sound, and changes to the gameplay and story. A high-definition remaster of the GameCube game was released in 2015 for modern platforms. A sequel, Resident Evil 2, was released in 1998, and a prequel, Resident Evil Zero, in 2002.

Makoto Tomozawa (友澤 眞) is a former executive sound member and composer for Capcom best known as the main composer of the Mega Man Legends series.

He joined in 1993, where his first tracks were for Aladdin for the SNES, even though his first official work with the company was for The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey and Minnie (which is completely uncredited in-game). Whenever he was credited, however, it was usually with his alias, V-Tomozo.

During the '90s he mainly worked on the Mega Man, Resident Evil and Dino Crisis series, including the composition of Bass' (Forte in Japan) theme.

Tomozawa's music range is seemingly as variant as the types of games he's involved with: hard rock in Mega Man X, horror tones in Dino Crisis, classical music in Mega Man Legends, and standard Resident Evil fare in the series' first entry, though he tends to specialize in opening and ending themes. In light of this "range," however, the only instrument he is known to play is the guitar.

In the following decade, Tomozawa has arranged some of his older work for the Gamecube version of Resident Evil and created new music for the less-than-successful P.N.03. Immediately following the latter title's release Tomozawa left the company and joined Dimps Corporation, where he was involved with Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit. More recently, however, Dimps' newfound involvement with Capcom allowed Tomozawa to act as Sound Co-Director for Street Fighter IV (and sole director of its two "Super" revisions) and served as one of the eight returning composers for Mega Man 10 because of his work on Mega Man 7.

As a side note, it should be pointed out that his name is one of nine credited for Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (which has no in-game staff roll) according to the Canadian copyright record, thus implying that Tomozawa's work with the Capcom brand started with this game, and not Aladdin, even if he were a freelancer at the time.