General Are the Remakes canon?
- Thread starter Tyrant
- Start date
Well, the producer Peter Fabiano claimed they were all supposed to be canon, but I wouldn't even take his wordings with a grain of salt.
In my opinion, only the first remake is canonical, as Lisa Trevor has been subsequently mentioned or included in other games. For example, as Wesker was trying to get out of the mansion, he was confronted by Lisa, and had to face her and kill her in order to proceed to the exit.
Of course, the Chronicles shooting games do get a lot pretty wrong in terms of the storyline and how it is played out, with Claire accompanying Ada in the sewers. But that's probably just to condense it. The general premise remains intact, although some scenes like the lipstick, James Bond type weapon Ada uses on Super Tyrant can feel like a parody.
But yeah. I think the only canon remake is of course RE1 from 2002. Only the story side games like 'Separate Ways' and 'The 4th Survivor' from the original RE2 and 4 are canon, and of course the extra modes in RE5 and all that, which are the ones that aren't gauntlet based games.
In my opinion, only the first remake is canonical, as Lisa Trevor has been subsequently mentioned or included in other games. For example, as Wesker was trying to get out of the mansion, he was confronted by Lisa, and had to face her and kill her in order to proceed to the exit.
Of course, the Chronicles shooting games do get a lot pretty wrong in terms of the storyline and how it is played out, with Claire accompanying Ada in the sewers. But that's probably just to condense it. The general premise remains intact, although some scenes like the lipstick, James Bond type weapon Ada uses on Super Tyrant can feel like a parody.
But yeah. I think the only canon remake is of course RE1 from 2002. Only the story side games like 'Separate Ways' and 'The 4th Survivor' from the original RE2 and 4 are canon, and of course the extra modes in RE5 and all that, which are the ones that aren't gauntlet based games.
I would put them in separate timelines to help differentiate and avoid confusion. At the moment, they really should do an RE:1 to help the reimaginings flow together in their own timeline. When it comes to canon, it really is left to interpretation, as even the most dedicated lore enthusiasts have thrown in the towel at this point in making all the pieces fit together.
Capcom won’t give a definitive answer because they would either upset a good portion of the fans or make the reimaginings look bad and potentially hurt sales, so they are playing dumb. Pete Fabiano is not even at Capcom anymore so his words meant nothing.
Capcom won’t give a definitive answer because they would either upset a good portion of the fans or make the reimaginings look bad and potentially hurt sales, so they are playing dumb. Pete Fabiano is not even at Capcom anymore so his words meant nothing.
I only count the new scenarios in the Chronicles games as being canon. The rest are just poor reimaginings.
Even so, I think the RE2 parts were more faithful than the 2019 remake. At least to a degree. I know there's a lot they still messed up, like seeing Kendo dead on the floor of his gun shop when you were supposed to be there as the zombies got through the glass. But because it's an on rails shooter with co-op, the changes were necessary.
Even so, I think the RE2 parts were more faithful than the 2019 remake. At least to a degree. I know there's a lot they still messed up, like seeing Kendo dead on the floor of his gun shop when you were supposed to be there as the zombies got through the glass. But because it's an on rails shooter with co-op, the changes were necessary.
Fortunately for us, there is a definitive answer.
Before Biohazard RE:4 was released, Famitsu posted an interview in which it was confirmed that the remakes are a new timeline.
We also have a recent clarification from Hirabayashi that "Operation Javier" is a fact within the Biohazard universe, and although both The Darkside Chronicles and RE:4 recite this event in different ways, the new version is more relevant to the current story.
So the original games and remakes are both canon, like Fabiano said before. The reason why this statement gives a headache to many fans is that they are trying to frame the franchise into the Western idea of the canon, where a new product sometimes excludes the previous one, but Japan is a different "world" that doesn't live by the rules of foreign fandoms.
Capcom's idea of canon has always been consistent and has never changed since. For example, even the very first BIO in 1996 likewise showed us two irreconcilable worlds (Chris's and Jill's) where events could play out in different ways, but no result led to Rebecca and Barry surviving at the same time. This design taught us that game scenarios are interpretations of an incident that shouldn't be taken completely at face value, but for some reason we didn't learn this lesson.
The remake of Bio Hazard recited the same incident, but its lore is substantially distinct. Fans usually ignore the contradictions or are unaware of them, but they exist in the game because it essentially spawned a new continuity that Zero and the Chronicles series eventually developed. This continuity didn't replace the PS1 games, but overlapped them.
As did the new remakes.
I feel like if they wanted to do a new timeline they should have just started at the beginning and did a reboot. Lore heads will want to kill me, but it would have been cleaner.
These games are definitely not meant to be a separate series or reboot by any means. They just add a layer to this "choose your own adventure" narrative design that the series has had since its very foundation in 1996.
The new remakes are not the first timeline of interpretations either. We were shown different distinct worlds through scenario systems, but the remake of the first game made substantial changes to the continuity and, in essence, spawned a new timeline. Among such changes, for example, is Nemesis, which was now being worked on since the 1980s, although in the original setting the name of the parasite was given with the idea of avenging the Tyrant from the mansion in mind. Or, for example, the Samurai Edge pistols were made by Kendo after the Mansion Incident, but in the remake they are the standard weapons of the characters.
As a result, Zero became a prequel of the remake. It doesn't work well with the original game because there is no such thing as the Clay Virus, the characterization of Rebecca doesn't make much sense, Edward didn't lose his arm, etc.
Of course, you also know about The Umbrella Chronicles that continued this worldview by utilizing Lisa Trevor and other elements of Zero and remake's lore, but at the same time also doing its own spin, like PS1 games did with "what if" scenarios.
Nevertheless, these games haven't replaced the classic ones, and stories like Death Island are truly the points where all the threads come together. For instance, the lore of the A1 gun that Jill uses in this movie states that she used her Samurai Edge pistol throughout the Mansion Incident and the Raccoon City Incident, after which she gave it to Quint for him to create the A1 model. The only interpretation that is compatible with this lore is a retelling from The Umbrella Chronicles, because, like I mentioned earlier, in the original game, Jill's Samurai Edge pistol was made after the Mansion Incident, and in the remake she left it in the town, so she couldn't give it to Quint. But at the same time, Jill wasn't infected in The Umbrella Chronicles' story, which is a key element of her slow aging and BIO5's plot, so this whole situation is an overlap of sources.
If the series needs a metaphor, then, in my opinion, the spiral is the perfect option. A spiral is not a loop, because it's a curved line that has a beginning and an end. Nonetheless, the spiral looks like a loop with its similar but distinct revolvings, just like the BIO series sometimes revisits and recites old stories in order to move forward.
Or we can choose a more relatable example: we sometimes recall events we have experienced, but we remember them differently, because our memories are not recorded footages, but a form of imagination. I think you've heard about the Mandela effect, for example.
I hope my explanation wasn't very confusing. The whole situation doesn't seem intuitive, but it makes sense when you dive into it. After all, different Japanese franchises have always had their own takes on the canon, unlike Western ones, which usually prefer a binary system when you include and exclude whole products. Capcom and Jun Takeuchi particularly want to keep all the games relevant and worth experiencing.