100 Things You Never Knew About Resident Evil

The original box-art for Resident Evil outside of Japan is weird. Like, really weird. Like, "this is how a 30 year franchise started?" kind of weird.

Ignoring the composited monsters around him and the nonsensical mishmash of gun shapes in his arms, the identity of the central figure has always been a question mark. Most assume that this man - who appears to be pulling two totally different facial expressions at once - is Chris Redfield and, since he's the male playable character, why wouldn't it be?

Interestingly there's a case to be made that the character is however S.T.A.R.S.' Richard Aiken, who starred as the protagonist of the one-off Marvel Resident Evil comic that used this cover-art before the game. At the time the game was using similar but different artwork, after all (seen below).

What's most interesting is that the man bares a striking resemblance to Sylvester Stallone in Judge Dredd... and that the alpha cover is a pretty obvious riff on it.

So there you go: it's not Chris, it might be Richard, and it's definitely Judge Dredd. Clear?