The thing that makes me always come back to the Resident Evil series, aside from the masterful level design and crazy plot lines, is that, fundamentally, I am a massive coward. I’m scared of pretty much everything in life. I love the horror genre because it makes me feel connected to my vulnerabilities, and stories like Silent Hill, Rule of Rose, Pathologic, Hello Charlotte, Shining, Night of the Living Dead, Possession, Kwaidan, Annihilation, etc somehow give me comfort and reason to explore myself about it. Even as an adult, I always struggle at the beginning of horror games because, when done good, it seems like nothing can be done, there is no hope, nothing to achieve, the world is just cruel and difficult to navigate and the next room will unavoidably kill me.

And then there’s Resident Evil. At the beginning, it is the bloody worst, always short on ammo, always killed by swarm of zombies, or lycans, or monsters, and encouraging as much as possible to run away from every danger. But also, it will always come the one moment where you are tested, with no escape or safe place to run back to, asked to prove if you really want to go on or just give up. Gun in hand and gathered your wits, the first boss crumbling to dust, you realize okay, I can actually do this.

Resident Evil is empowering just like that. It is not deep, nor cohesive, and very, very silly, lovingly so, but most of all it is a series of games about the moment you realize that it is possible to go on, you do have the strength, the mental fortitude to resist, you are getting out of here alive and the sun is going to rise over this brutal night. Nothing can ever defeat the human will to live.

It’s the best feeling ever.