It reveals that Lucas Baker is still alive, and trying to escape through the mines, and that the Corps. The answer seems to come in a radio broadcast that Ethan can intercept just before the salt mine section of the game, which relates a conversation between Redfield and an Umbrella Corps.
Personally, I come down in the latter camp, but if it is Chris, and he is a good guy (and not, say, an evil clone, imposter, or some such other traditionally RE trope), then why did he wait until Evie went full boss-monster before intervening? We know from a photograph found earlier in the game that the Umbrella Corps’ helicopter has been observing the Baker estate for some time. It’s also notable that Redfield’s Japanese voice actor is the same person who’s played him in several previous games. Others claim that he is, arguing that the possible new purpose for the Umbrella Corps and the series’ repeat redesigns of characters – notably Chris’ transformation into a bicep-busting muscle man in Resident Evil 5 – make those arguments moot.
Some claim that he isn’t the real Chris Redfield – long-time hero of the series - citing his affiliation with an Umbrella-branded entity, new voice actor, and new physical appearance. The identity of ‘Redfield’, the character who appears at the end of Resident Evil 7, is currently a matter of fan debate.
More evidence that the Corps are working with ex-Umbrella resources? Entirely probable.Īnd a second Wesker allusion in one game? He couldn't possibly have survived that Volcano in RE5, could he? Okay, but is that *really* Chris Redfield? Compare the detail in the handle and barrel, and it’s clear. Again, it all comes down to the logo on the helicopter.īecause the Albert-01 - the handcannon pistol you receive from the Corps at the end of the game - is actually Wesker’s gun, from back when he was still masquerading as a good guy, working alongside Chris in the first game. Only this time, I think that we’re looking at a rebooted Umbrella Corps rather than the original company, the mercenary group’s resources combined with its growing accumulation of Umbrella knowledge and material to form a new, good-guy clean-up operation. So it’s not a great leap to suspect that said huge pile of global tech, research, knowledge, and biological material might have been gathered together again to reboot Umbrella’s resources once more. There’s a lot of Umbrella still out there. In fact, a great many of Umbrella’s remaining facilities and resources were later rebranded under the Tricell name as Wesker enacted his last hurrah in Africa in Resident Evil 5.
He kept hold of some of it himself, sold some of it on to curry the favour of other biotech companies – including Tricell, who he would later work with to secure a Las Plagas parasite in Resident Evil 4 – and otherwise continued its research and development on his own, using the funding and facilities afforded by his various deals. Wesker copied everything from its computers (Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles). So it’s entirely possible that HCF’s involvement with whichever company created Evie was completely driven by another, previously unheard-of, Wesker initiative.Īnother important point to note about Umbrella: Although the company, along with all of its residual operations, was finally put down in 2003 - thanks in no small part to Wesker leaking some of his stolen research files to the court prosecuting the company – all of its R&D knowledge is still out there. Between the end of the original Resident Evil and his death, Wesker acted as an independent contractor/biotech freelancer/burgeoning Bond villain, accruing and selling a great many secrets to multiple Umbrella rivals (some of which he ostensibly worked for, for a time) to further his own ultimate goal of funding and creating a new company. And such behaviour would be entirely typical of him. That leaves plenty of time for his involvement with the NEXBAS project.
His first documented appearance after Code Veronica in 1998 was in 2002, to do a T-virus deal with South American drug cartel boss Javier Hidalgo (Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles).
That was only two years after Code Veronica, and coincidentally enough, fits in with a dark patch in Wesker’s history. Now, the NEXBAS (Next-generation experimental battlefield superiority) project that eventually let to Evie and the Molded started in 2000.