Hypochondriacs you should probably step out (and I should probably stop writing because my skin is beginning to crawl)! When you think zombies and video games chances are you’re going to think of the Resident Evil series from Capcom. The company not only put their mark on the genre, they revolutionised it in 1996 with their first title Resident Evil released for the Sony PlayStation.
So in a series splattered with an army of twisted shambling corpses, monstrous goliaths and mutated creatures, what force in a sea of rotting flesh and snarling teeth could possibly stand above the rest! It’s simple really and altogether terrifying…
The T-Virus
It’s difficult to describe a virus, it’s not a person, it’s not a villain spouting rhetoric or an entity with a diabolical plan, there are no character flaws or personality traits to pick apart. That said, it’s a virus, it infects, mutates and spreads violently and the T-Virus does all of that and more with terrifying and flawless execution.
To know the virus, we have to look at the origins, ancestors and history of it – the T-Virus is derived from the Progenitor Virus which was first discovered in 1966 by Lord Oswell E. Spencer and James Marcus. Marcus would go on to found the Umbrella Corporation, a name that would become synonymous with the development of the virus and the destruction it would unleash upon the world however it wasn’t until 1978 when leeches were infected with a strain of the Progenitor virus would the concept of the T-Virus first be realised. Enter a young virologist by the name of William Birkin.
Both Spencer and Marcus succumbed to the power of the virus, while neither were physically infected they had become obsessed with the power it held and the power it could bring to the one who would develop and mutate the stronger strain – Spencer would be the first to fall, murdered before he could ever finish his own work and projects.
By now those working the upper circles of the Umbrella corporation considered Birkin to be the true creator of the T-Virus and the power washed over him, subjecting test subjects to horrific experiments all with the aim of developing biological weapons.
Up to this point the virus and its mutations were mostly contained but in 1998 several incidents in the forest surrounding Raccoon city attracted the attention of STARS and history was made!
Now the veil on the virus has been lifted and we are witness to it and it’s power in all of it’s monstrous glory! The virus not only kills but it reanimates it’s victims turning those infected into near-unstoppable killing machines with only one urge – kill. Whether you take on the role of Chris or Jill you will experience the nightmare that is the virus. In the forest the team of highly trained operatives are hunted by ravenous dogs and the glowing lights of the Spencer Mansion, lights that hid a twisted secret.
Once inside the stunning home, it would become clear that all was not well and the mansion was the source of the virus and home to the mutations it had created and not all of them human…
The abominations birthed by the T-Virus might have been defeated in the mansion that night and there may have been survivors but the Virus lived on and was not hindered by the events, in fact Umbrella Corporation and associates like Albert Wesker were spurred on by what took place, excited by the death and devastation.
As I said at the start it’s difficult to look at a virus and talk about it’s personality, it doesn’t have one but if we personify the virus we can see clearly just how it manipulates and mutates all life around it. Yes the monsters that come about through experimentation are scary and we’re meant to look away from them but the effect it has on humans is perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the virus and I’m not talking about the zombies. Spencer, Birkin and Wesker are all changed by the virus well before it ever began to mutate inside them (not too sure about Spencer on that one though). The virus took their humanity, twisted these men into something no longer human, devoid of emotions and consumed by their lust for power and washed in anarchy.
As the games developed so too did the virus and it’s children, whether you were ducking rockets fired by the mangled goliath that is Nemesis or the new strains that were split on it, the G-Virus but the legacy it left is felt not just by the characters in the game and the survivors but us the players.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to take some vitamins, scour my body with some bleach and purchase a hazmat suit for all future excursions into the real world.
Editor-in-Chief, part-time super villain and hoarder of cats. If you can’t find me writing, I’m probably in the kitchen!
