Resident Evil Nemesis EXPLAINED - Origins & Meaning

S.T.A.R.S!

By Ben-Roy Turner /

Capcom

Resident Evil is a franchise defined by its monsters, more than anything else.

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Sure, players will always remember the Spencer Mansion, Raccoon City Police Department - even the opening village from RE4 where you're chased by a man wielding a chainsaw and wearing a potato sack on his head. But when it comes to the defining creature of Resident Evil, we aren’t talking zombie dogs, Lickers or the standard infected.

No, the Tyrant-class bioweapon stands head and shoulders above the rest.

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Of course, the most recognisable Tyrant is Nemesis himself, a hulking behemoth that stands over 7 foot tall. This Bio Organic Weapon (B.O.W) does not stop once it has been given a mission by whoever is controlling it. In the case of Resident Evil 3, the sinister Umbrella Corporation has decided to play with some new toys as Raccoon City burns.

After all, what else do you do once you’ve condemned an entire city to zombie infestation other than make things worse for survivors?

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It should be noted that Nemesis wasn’t the first B.O.W of his kind, and to understand the genesis of one of gaming's most iconic monsters, we have to go back to when the Tyrant program began; to the very start, when Umbrella was first being founded.