100 Things You Never Knew About Resident Evil
61. The True Voice Of Fear
If you've never played a Resident Evil game before then your first potential scare might hit you before you leave the title screen. When you start the game, a booming voice growls out "RESIDENT EVIL" (or, indeed, "BIOHAZARD" if you're in Japan).
This man is Ward E. Sexton, an amateur who had a very interesting day in the Capcom recording booth. Despite the first Resident Evil being a total gamble, someone at the company had the tremendous foresight to have Ward record more than just "RESIDENT EVIL" and "BIOHAZARD", but also the numbers 1 through 10 in case they were needed for sequels.
And, of course, they were. Whilst Ward is uncredited the vast majority of the time, it's his voice you'll hear upon starting RE2, RE3, Code: Veronica and RE4.
Ward's calls were also used in Japanese a lot longer than in English, as he reads out the title for REmake and Zero, as well as the GameCube ports of RE2 and RE3. In English, he was replaced during this period by Joe Whyte (the voice of Chris Redfield... and also Richard Aiken, for what it's worth. Such versatility!).