TheResident Evil franchise, which lets you fulfill your dream of seeing highly trained, specialized teams fighting against deadly viruses and providing effective vaccine administration, is about to get a whole new chapter. Individual titles in the 25-year-old video game franchise may not have a deep or complex story, but together, Resident Evil has a long and at times complicated mythology spanning decades, multiple deadly viruses that turn people into monsters, and one villain that simply refuses to die.

WithResident Evil: Villagenow out, we've compiled the definitive timeline that tells the main story of Resident Evil, from the discovery of the Progenitor Virus, to the tragedy of the Winters family. Granted, there are many, many spin-off material and side-games, so we're focusing on the major releases in the franchise.

With that out of the way, grab your rocket launcher and get ready to see some S.T.A.R.S.

BEFORE THE GAMES

Unknown Date

• The Four Houses settle on the mountainous region of Eastern Europe where the titularVillageis located. These houses, Berengario, Cesare, Guglielmo and Nichola, oversee the area with a feudal system. There is also a very familiar-looking Cross-like (or, dare we say, Umbrella-like) symbol all over the town's more ancient structures.

1919

• Mother Miranda's daughter, Eva, dies during the Spanish flu pandemic.
• Grief-stricken, Miranda wanders off her small European village and into a cave in an attempt to commit suicide. Inside the cave, however, Miranda finds the"Megamycete" (or Mold), a fungal root that breaks down and absorbs the consciousness of those who have perished.
• After touching the Megamycete, Miranda is granted incredible knowledge, as well as immortality for some reason.
• After returning to the Village, Miranda poses as a priestess of a Black God, managing to turn the villagers to a cult devoted to her and allowing her to implant them with mold from the Megamycete. Miranda experimenting on the villagers and controlled them for a century in order to find the perfect vessel on which to implant Eva's memories. One of those vessels ends up being the defect Eveline fromBiohazard.
• Miranda's early experiments with the Mold mostly result in the death of her test subjects, until she introduced the Mold to a parasitic nematode she called the Cadou. After implanting villagers to the mold, many died or became Lycans, vârcolaci, and vampiric moroaice and samce. Four subjects, however, survived the bonding with the Cadou and developed special abilities similar to Miranda herself, becoming the new Four Lords: Lady Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Salvatore Moreau, and Karl Heisenberg.

1950s

• Miranda meets a young British nobleman and soon-to-be doctor, Oswell E. Spencer, who Miranda saves from dying of exposure in a hiking trip and takes on as an apprentice.
• At some point, Spencer grows disillusioned with Miranda's goal of using the Mold only to resurrect her daughter, as he wants to achieve his own vision "for the next step in human evolution."

1960s

• Spencer parts ways with Miranda, but not before taking on the symbol from the caves in the village and using it as the logo for his new company, which he will call Umbrella.

1966

• Virologists Edward Ashford, James Marcus, Oswell E. Spencer, and head researcher Brandon Baily discover the Progenitor Virus inside the rare West Africa flower called "Stairway to the Sun." The virus has the ability to recombine the genes of other organisms.
• Marcus and Bailey bring the flower, and the virus, back to America for cultivation.

1967

• Architect George Trevor finishes construction of the Spencer Mansion in the Arklay Mountains near Raccoon City.
• November 10: Trevor's wife and daughter, Jessica and Lisa, arrive at the finished mansion and are kidnapped by Spencer's security guards and injected with strains of the Progenitor Virus. Though Jessica would succumb to the virus, Lisa would mutate over the next two decades. Trevor tries to escape the mansion, but gets lost in its many unfinished and secret passages, dying of thirst and starvation.

1968

• Spencer, Marcus and Ashford found Umbrella Pharmaceuticals, a front company for their experiments with the Progenitor Virus.
• Edward Ashford is infected with the Progenitor Virus and dies. His son Alexander becomes the new head of the family.
• The Umbrella Training Facility is established in the Arklay Mountains, and Marcus is reluctantly appointed as director. During this time Marcus starts believing Spencer is trying to steal his research, and plans to overthrow him as head of the Umbrella Corporation.

1969

• Alexander commissions the construction of a base in Antarctica, with a secret laboratory underneath to research the project "CODE: Veronica." The goal of the project was to create a human prodigy that would become the "true" successor to the Ashford dynasty by embedding genes from the family's founder, Veronica, and to prevent Oswell Spencer from taking control of the corporation if Alexander died.

1971

• Project CODE: Veronica is successful, and the Ashford twins Alfred and Alexia are born.

1977

• Oswell Spencer sends prodigy scientist Dr. William Birkin and Dr. Albert Wesker to work with Marcus, ensuring he would steal Marcus' research date.

1978

• January 13: Dr. Marcus's team fulfills the ultimate goal of the Umbrella Corporation and develops the "T-Virus" by combining the Progenitor virus with leech DNA. When combining that with the Ebola RNA, the T-Virus can be used on humans to create zombies.
• The Training Facility is closed, and Spencer moves Birkin, Wesker, and the T-Virus research to the laboratory in Arklay, effectively cutting Marcus off from his own research, though he would continue independently.

1981

• Alexia graduates from a renowned university at 10 years old, becomes senior researcher at the Umbrella Antarctic laboratory.

1982

• February: Alfred and Alexia discover the truth of their existence as clones, and become resentful of their "father," Alexander Ashford.

• March: Alexia develops a new strain of the Progenitor Virus she dubs "T-Veronica Virus" that would allow the subject to retain full intelligence. She then infects Alexander with the virus, which turns him into an insane monster known as Nosferatu.

1983

• Alexia administers the T-Veronica virus on herself and enters a 15-year cryogenic sleep.
• Around this time, research on the T-Virus stalled as Umbrella discovered 10% of the population was immune to the virus.
• To solve this problem, Birkin develops Bio-Organic Weapons (B.O.W.) by splicing reptilian DNA with a fertilized human egg infused with the T-Virus, creating the Hunter.

1988

• Birkin continues research of the T-Virus, trying to solve the problem with the Bio-Organic Weapon's lack of intelligence. His research culminates with the development of the Tyrant.
• Wesker assassinates Marcus under Spencer's orders, steals his research, and dumps his experiments with virus-infected leeches into the nearby river.

1991

• Birkin discovers the G-Virus strain while experimenting on Lisa Trevor's body. The virus mutated with her body, giving her tentacles. Seeing the eugenics potential of the virus and believing it could mutate humans into becoming a superior new lifeform, Spencer approves funding to further develop the virus.
• The G-Virus program is moved to the new giant Raccoon City Underground Laboratory, or NEST. At this time, Umbrella starts funding major parts of the city's infrastructure and bribing chief members of the community in exchange for silence.

1996

• The Raccoon City Police Department establishes the special tactics unit S.T.A.R.S. and, through Umbrella's influence, appoints Wesker as its captain.

1998 - EVENTS OF 'RESIDENT EVIL 0', 'RESIDENT EVIL', 'RESIDENT EVIL 3: NEMESIS', 'RESIDENT EVIL 2', AND 'CODE: VERONICA'

• May: Raccoon City citizens demand answers over various reports of murders going around the city — in truth, they are the work of Cerberus dogs infected with the T-Virus. A massive viral leak occurs at the Arklay laboratory underneath the Spencer Mansion.

• July 23: The events of Resident Evil 0 take place. As the murders pile up around the Arklay mountains, S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team is sent to investigate. Meanwhile, Umbrella sends two of their own teams to the Training Facility to reclaim it, but one of the teams is wiped out by the B.O.W.s within. Wesker is given orders to sacrifice S.T.A.R.S. to the B.O.W.s to provide combat data and leave no witnesses, before destroying the Arklay laboratory to wipe out any trace of the virus.

EVENTS OF 'RESIDENT EVIL 0'

• On their way to investigate,S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team officer Rebecca Chambers and her team's helicopter crash-lands outside Raccoon City, thanks to Wesker sabotaging it.
• Bravo Team discovers the wreckage of a military convoy with everyone dead but accused murderer Billy Coen. Chambers also discovers the abandoned Umbrella-owned train The Ecliptic Express, where all the passengers are infected.
• Turns out, Marcus' leeches slowly ate away his body and absorbed his personality, and, being hellbent on revenge, they attacked the train.

• After putting the train back on track, Coen and Chambers reach the abandoned Umbrella Training Facility. After killing their way through the facility, they find the new and mutated Marcus, and kill it right before the facility is blown to pieces by Wesker. Rebecca gives Billy his freedom after realizing he was innocent all along, and heads towards the familiar-looking mansion to find Alpha Team.

EVENTS OF 'RESIDENT EVIL'

• July 24: Alpha Team is dispatched to search for Bravo Team, and, after fighting a pack of mutant dogs, reach the Spencer Mansion. Inside, the team is separated, and Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Albert Wesker, and Barry Burton fight their way through hordes of zombified Umbrella staff, B.O.W.s, and other scary mutations while exploring the impossibly labyrinthian halls of the mansion.

• Meanwhile, Wesker sets up sick traps for the S.T.A.R.S. members in order to continue his research.

• Eventually, the protagonist (Jill or Chris) meets up with Rebecca Chambers, and learns of Wesker's sudden but inevitable betrayal. In turn, Wesker unleashes the monstrosity of the Tyrant project upon the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members, but not before injecting himself with a little of that sweet T-Virus.
• The Tyrant is destroyed with the help of the heroic return of the helicopter pilot, Brad, who shoots the creature with a rocket launcher. They all escape before the mansion self-destructs.

• While the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members escape, Wesker is confronted by Lisa Trevor, who is killed during the explosion just as Wesker makes his own escape.

START OF 'RESIDENT EVIL 3: NEMESIS'

• August: S.T.A.R.S. is disbanded after Chris, Jill, and Rebecca start demanding investigations into Umbrella for their horrible crimes, which no one believes. They decide to go rogue and do the investigation themselves — with the help of Barry. Chris leaves for Europe while Jill remains in Raccoon City.
• September 28: The virus leaks from the immense underground laboratory beneath Raccoon City, carried by rats, and it quickly spreads throughout the city, causing chaos. The mayor abandons the city and the police department is overwhelmed. Just as Jill is preparing to flee the city, she discovers Umbrella has deployed a new B.O.W., the Nemesis T-Type, to hunt down former S.T.A.R.S. members. At the same time, Umbrella also deployed its mass-produced Tyrants all across the city and also the U.B.C.S. (Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service) to evacuate non-zombified citizens (see, they're notall bad).
• Jill meets with rookie cop Leon Kennedy, and, during a fight with Nemesis, Jill gets infected with the virus.

EVENTS OF 'RESIDENT EVIL 2'

• We go back in time to the beginning of the outbreak, and while Jill is out trying to survive Nemesis, rookie cop Leon Kennedy just happens to arrive in Raccoon City at the worst possible moment. (Is it surprising to also know this was going to be Leon's first day on the job? Only a rookie and he's already too old for this shit.) He meets Chris' younger sister Claire at a gas station just outside of town and the two decide to go into the lion's den and head downtown.
• After being separated during a car crash, they split up. Claire runs into and rescues Sherry, the young daughter of Umbrella's leading scientist, William Birkin, who was abandoned by her cowardly dad.
• Meanwhile, Leon comes across FBI agent Ada Wong, who is looking for evidence of Umbrella's corruption. The two go into the sewers and find William Birkin's wife Annette (this man just leaves his family spread out across town!)
• Leon foolishly decides to head into the massive underground lab to grab a sample of the G-Virus, but is betrayed by Ada, who turns out to be a mercenary wanting to sell the G-Virus to the highest bidder. Annette manages to shoot Ada, who falls to her death and drops the sample.
• It is revealed that William actually planned to sell his G-Virus virus to the U.S. military, something Umbrella wasn't too keen on, so they gunned him down. Right before his death, Birkin injected himself with the virus and turned into a mutated monster, then accidentally dumped a whole lot of virus samples into the city's water system, kickstarting the outbreak. If that wasn't enough, William also unknowingly chased and infected his own daughter.
• Claire takes the virus sample Ada dropped and uses it to cure her daughter but is killed by her husband.
• The facility activates its obligatory self-destruct command. Claire and Sherry escape just in time to meet with Leon as Birkin is caught in the explosion.
• Having escaped the nightmare, they all decide to fight back against Umbrella.

'RESIDENT EVIL: NEMESIS' CONTINUES

• October 1: Jill is cured of the infection by U.B.C.S. member Carlos Oliveira, and they find out that the U.S. government is going to wipe out Raccoon City with a nuke strike. They head into yet another underground facility, and encounter Nemesis. Jill then takes out the biggest of guns and kills Nemesis once and for all. Jill and Carlos are saved by a returning Barry Burton and a helicopter, and leave the cursed city with a vaccine sample just as it is nuked to ashes.
• In the wake of the outbreak, the U.S. government shuts down Umbrella's business activities. In turn, Umbrella sues the government.

EVENTS OF 'CODE: VERONICA'

• December 27: Claire is captured by Umbrella while looking for her brother, Chris, and is sent to Rockfort Island, which is commanded by Alfred Ashford. Turns out, in the 15 years since his twin sister went into cryo-sleep, Alfred developed a bit of a split personality disorder and often acts as if he was Alexia. There's a mandatory virus outbreak at the island, and Claire escapes on a plane after realizing her brother was not on the island.
• Alfred sabotages the plane and it crashes into the Antarctica facility. Then the Ashford heir gets to the facility as well, and when he's fatally wounded, his final act is to free his sister Alexia.
• In the meantime, Chris just happened to show up on Rockford Island looking for Claire, but not quickly enough to catch her before leaving. While there, he does reunite with good-old Wesker, who is not only alive but is super strong, and desperately looking for a T-Veronica sample.
• Everyone ends up at the Antarctica facility, where a very mutated and angry Alexia tries to kill everyone. Thankfully, Chris and Claire manage to bring her down. The two then flee the base just as it — you guessed it — self-destructs.
• Wesker, yet again, manages to escape the destruction because at this point he's basically immortal. Also, he manages to get a sample of the virus with him.

2003

• Wesker sneaks into an Umbrella facility in Russia, steals a bunch of corporate secrets, and makes them public. This results in a guilty verdict for Umbrella, an end to their long-lasting legal battle against the government, and the corporation filing for bankruptcy.

2004 - EVENTS OF 'RESIDENT EVIL 4'

• The U.S. President's daughter, Ashley, gets abducted by a cult in Spain, and the only agent capable of rescuing her is Leon Kennedy. He discovers that the members of the cult, dubbed Los Iluminados, are infected with a newly-discovered mind-controlling parasite called Las Plagas (no connection to any of the previous viruses, for some reason), and are lead by a man named Osmund Saddler.
• Saddler's plan was to infect Ashley so she would assassinate the President, but Leon disrupts the plan by saving her.
• Leon also gets reacquainted with Ada Wong, who is attempting to get her hands on a sample of the parasite for her boss, Wesker himself. Together, they kill Saddler.
• Of course, Ada once again betrays Leon, takes the Las Plagas sample, and escapes, but not before she activates the true star of this crazy franchise — the self-destruct mechanism!
• Thankfully, Leon and Ashley manage to Jet Ski their way home before the facility self-destructs.

2006 - EVENTS OF 'RESIDENT EVIL 5: LOST IN NIGHTMARES' DLC

• August: Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine are dispatched to detain the last remaining Umbrella co-founder, Oswell Spencer at his residential manor. But before they get there, Wesker himself arrives at the scene, gets revenge on Spencer by punching him through the chest, and attacks Jill and Chris.
• Jill saves Chris and sacrifices herself by throwing herself off a cliff together with Wesker.
• Wesker returns to his headquarters. That's right! Wesker cannot die, so he once againinexplicablyescapes certain death off-screen, and this time he captures and cryogenically freezes Jill for some evil experimentation.

2009 - EVENTS OF 'RESIDENT EVIL 5'

• Chris and his new partner, Sheva Alomar, are assigned to capture Ricardo Irving, a mercenary selling B.O.W.s in a small town in the fictional African country Kijuju, where the population is infected with the Uroboros virus, which shares a lot of similarities with Las Plagas.
• After killing a mutated Irving, Chris and Sheva find themselves in the cave that started the whole franchise off, the same one where the Stairway to the Sun flower carrying the Progenitor Virus is found. They also discover that the company that assigned them to find Irving is in cahoots with Wesker, who is doing experiments on Jill.
• Chris and Sheva are attacked by a mind-controlled Jill, led by Wesker, who wants to spread the Uroboros virus by firing missiles carrying the virus all across the world.
• After freeing Jill, Chris and Sheva chase after Wesker and corner him in an active volcano — finally a place that can't self-destruct… oh no.
• Wesker mutates once again, but the true hero of the franchise arrives oncemore to save the day and shoot Wesker in the face — a rocket launcher.
• Wesker blows up into pieces and is finally out of the franchise for good!

2012-2013 - EVENTS OF 'RESIDENT EVIL 6'

2012

• December: Federal agent Sherry Birkin, now grown-up, is sent on a mission to rescue a man named Jake Muller from the war-torn eastern European country of Edonia because his blood can create a vaccine for the new C-Virus created by the terrorist organization Neo Umbrella. Turns out, Jake's blood carries antibodies because he's the never-before-seen son of Albert Wesker (!)

2013

• June: The U.S. President gets wise and decides that it's about time the people found about about the existence of zombies and the destruction of Raccoon City (because they figured out hiring Tom Hanks and borrowing his credibility to make an ad selling the "New Grand Canyon" wouldn't work forever). Of course, no one really wants that, so there's a bioweapon attack in the White House and the President becomes a zombie that gets taken down by Leon Kennedy.
• Suspected of murdering the President, Leon flees to China, where he is also pursuing Derek Simmons, the National Security Advisor behind the bioweapon attack and who is also working for Neo Umbrella.
• At the same time, a PTSD-ridden Chris Redfield heads to China looking for Ada, who is actually a clone created by Simmons.
• Everyone meets in China, where Chris and Jake become buddies, Simmons is killed, the true Ada comes back and blows up the facility where her clone was created, and everyone goes their merry way.
• Many mutated creatures are slain along the way, and a rocket launcher saves the day as usual. Oh, and the C-Virus outbreak is stopped via a vaccine made from Jake's blood that gets administered with actual efficiency (wonder what that looks like).

2014

• An organization known as The Connections convinces Miranda to let them experiment with the Mold, promising to assist her in bringing Eva back. The experiment fails and a defect is created, which they name Eveline.

• October 5: While transporting the E-001 B.O.W., codenamed Eveline, along the Louisiana Gulf, she loses control, infects everyone on board — including a researcher named Mia — and causes the ship to drift into the bayou. It shipwrecks near the Baker ranch Dulvey, Louisiana.

• The Bakers start taking care of what appears to be a normal 10-year-old girl, and Mia, but Eveline begins to infect the Bakers, making them violent and more like the family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

2015

• January: The Connections provide Lucas Baker with a serum, and make him their inside man.

2017 - EVENTS OF 'RESIDENT EVIL 7': BIOHAZARD & NOT A HERO DLC

• July 19: Newcomer to the franchise, Ethan Winters, is looking for his missing wife, Mia. He arrives at the Baker ranch, is attacked by the infected family, and barely manages to escape.
• In reality, Ethan is killed by Jack Baker, but the Mold in the Baker house revived and mutated him, giving Ethan the same regenerative abilities Mia, the Bakers, and even Mother Miranda have.
• With the help of the Baker's daughter Zoe, Ethan escapes the residence, defeats most of the infected, finds his wife who is wrestling control over her mind with Eveline, and eventually discovers the truth about Eveline. Oh yeah, and Ethan finds out that Eveline did all of this because she wanted a family — adorable.
• Eveline pulls a classic Resident Evil stunt, mutates into a giant blob, attacks Ethan, and is finally killed with a little help from Chris Redfield himself and — wait, is that Umbrella?
• Turns out, Chris has been working with a company calling itself Blue Umbrella, which is working to clean up the mess of the original corporation. Ethan and Mia safely escape on a helicopter, thanks to Chris.
• Chris and his team then find and kill a mutated Lucas, who basically looks like Swamp Thing, and cure a briefly-infected Zoe.

2020s - 'RESIDENT EVIL: VILLAGE'

2020

• August 2:Ethan and Mia's daughter, Rose, is born. Due to the unique physiology of her parents, Rose's body is actually Mold replicating human DNA.

2021

• February 9: A few years after the events of Biohazard, Ethan sees an older and gruffer Chris Redfield shoot and kill his wife, Mia.
• Controlling Ethan Winters, you defeat the Four Lords of the Village — Lady Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Salvatore Moreau, and Karl Heisenberg — before a final showdown with Mother Miranda.
• In reality, Chris shot Mother Miranda, who has shape-shifting abilities, in an attempt to save Rose from a dark ritual that would turn her into a vessel for Miranda's daughter, Eva.
• Ethan, having discovered the truth of his ability to cure any wound and reattach any limb with only rubbing alcohol, kills Mother Miranda and sacrifices himself by detonating an explosive that destroys the entire village.
• Before the village blows up, Chris and his Hound Wolf Squad recover a B.S.A.A. soldiers ' body, and discover it's actually a B.O.W. They head towards the organization's European headquarters to get answers.

2030s

• During an epilogue, we meet a teenage Rose visiting her father's grave. We discover she possesses powers stronger than even Eveline, and is working for Chris Redfield, who keeps her on a short leash and has snipers targeting her at all times.