The Long Con – How I Got My Wife into Resident Evil

By Lee Madden

October 2020 – 6.03am – one Saturday morning

I had woken up early and crept quietly down to our lounge with one plan in mind – play Resident Evil 2 remake for an hour or so while my wife Sarah slept upstairs. 2020 was a strange year as I am sure everyone will know, but one upside was that I had been able to find a bit of time to play through RE2 remake fairly regularly – that hour or so on a Saturday morning before Sarah woke up.

RE2 remake pushed my buttons in a way that few games did – it was both a thrilling re-imagining of my favourite game in the series and a genuine survival horror experience with limited saving, limited inventory, limited resources and unlimited tension. I LOVED it – every decision felt like a knife edge one and the gore, graphics and characters were amazing. There was only one problem – I couldn’t play it when Sarah was in the room – or awake for that matter – as it was too loud, too gory, too horrifying and… well, just too horrible.

Sarah was adamant that she HATED it and had no interest in seeing any character be eaten alive by zombies. She didn’t even really play video games so, in part, probably thought it was all very silly of me, despite my regular protestations.

January 2023

The conversation went along the following lines:

“What is this rubbish?” Sarah asked.
“Oh – this is one of the greatest games of all time – and easily one of my favourites” I replied.

The game was Resident Evil 1 – remake. I had been playing it for weeks off and on. Again, finding the time to play it was a challenge, but I loved revisiting this classic retelling of the original. There is something uniquely special about how incredible the game looked and played, even after over 20 years. It told a simple story in a really complete way and with the HD Remaster, it was even better than I remembered it.

“Why are you pushing boxes around?
Why are you constantly looking at a map?
What rubbish are they speaking about?
Plants with arms?” Sarah asked.

“It’s brilliant – I love all the busy work”. I replied.
“It’s stoopid. Turn it off”

Something had to be done – I had married Sarah and neither she, nor Resident Evil were going anywhere.

October 2023 – 630pm – one Saturday night

The conversation went along the following lines:

“What shall we do this evening dear?” Sarah asked
“Why don’t we play a game together – here, I’ve got a nice co-op game that we can play together?”

I didn’t even like Resident Evil 6 but I had hatched a plan. Sarah had gradually begun to enjoy video games. She had played Ghost of Tsushima with me and enjoyed it. We’d made it a sharedendeavour, playing it almost as a co-op game where I would do some bits and she others. This had introduced her to the joy of videogames and Ghost of Tsushima had been a roaring success.

I suggested we play an actual co-op game and I had picked up RE6 HD Remaster for this purpose. The game was still pretty bad in my view BUT it was an easy way in to some of the dafter moments the series had to offer and it was far less “horror esque” than any other game in the series.

We played it over a couple of weekends and Sarah appeared to conclude that it was quite fun, Ada Wong was brilliant, Chris Redfield was a meathead and the zombies – most importantly – weren’t that scary after all.

Fantastic, I thought. I hadn’t quite planned it all out but had got over the first two hurdles – Ghost of Tsushima was the gateway to games and RE6 was the gateway to Resident Evil.

November 2023 – probably some Sunday lunchtime

The conversation went like this:

“Oh! Who is he? He’s handsome!” Sarah said.

“That’s Leon, he’s one of the best characters in the series”

“Oh right…. Is he… like a hero?”
“Wait until you see this!”

I remember charging Leon – in all his remake 4 glory – into the village at the start of the game and remembering why I loved the original RE4 all over again. The voice acting, the relentless tension and the reimagining of the opening portion of the game was incredible. I loved it – and I was looking forward to playing the game all the way through on Hardcore. I always played games on Hard at the start – especially RE games.

“It looks very difficult, you keep dying” Sarah commented.
“Oh – that’s just because I play it on hard, and I am not very good. There is an easy mode”.
Sarah looked thoughtful.

“Shall I maybe have a go?” she said.

This was uncharted territory for both of us. Other than co-op playing through the Leon campaign in RE6 – without really connecting it in a meaningful way to this Leon – Sarah hadn’t really gone in for any other game like Resident Evil.

“Sure thing – it’s just like Ghost of Tsushima. You’ll get better weapons and have an interesting map to explore”.

She looked a little sceptical, but tentatively took the controller and started a new game on easy (or “assisted” as I think it is) and began to play.

Our favourites characters – wonderfully drawn by JenVonLee

What happened next…

It soon became apparent that the main barrier to me actually playing my copy of RE4 Remake wasn’t because it was “too scary” to have it on when Sarah was at home.

The barrier had now become me getting time to actually use my PS4 because it had been commandeered by Sarah for her exclusive use. And use it she did – she had completed RE4 Remake twice before I managed to complete it once.

Of course, I didn’t really mind – and had been enjoying a full running commentary on Sarah’s views on the utter ridiculousness and brilliance of the series. Comments became frequent – and funny:

“Oh he is so OBVIOUSLY a bad guy – just listen to his stupid voice!” about Wesker

“When will they just GET IT ON???” about Leon and Ada’s knife fight re- introduction

“I AM INVINCIBLE. I AM LEON F******G KENNEDY ZOMBIE!” Said in the same way that Boris in Goldeneye says it, right after she vaporised a bunch of ganados with the infinite rocket launcher.

So, Sarah completed RE4 remake, apparently fancied Leon Kennedy, loved Ada and then asked:

“What’s next?”

At this point, I explained, pretty much the full history of the series – how loved and influential the originals were on the PS1 (especially RE2), how game changing RE4 was when it came out, the incredible remake of RE1, the change of direction that RE5 and 6 and then, lastly, the re-invention of the series with RE7 and Village and the remakes of 3, 4 and 2. I didn’t spoil any of the plot, but did emphasise that the earlier games were very different in style.

“Well, I better play them all” she said.

I still can’t believe RE6 was the gateway, and you know what, I’ll always love it for that, even if it is a terrible game!

“How much would it cost to build a life size working replica of the Spencer Mansion?” Sarah asked me one evening, when looking at the map.

The journey….

So, off she went – generally playing in my recommended order – through the series, starting with RE2 remake, then RE3 remake. Although RE2 Remake was almost too scary for her, she persevered with it – mainly out of affection for Leon and Ada. And again, loved the gameplay, loved the story and loved downright silliness of it all. She was a bit bitter about there being an unkillable Mr X (or “Thumper” as she refers to him, for some reason).

Then came an interesting moment – I suggested that she had a choice – rather than going on and playing 7 or 8, she could explore some of the older titles. Sarah agreed and, next up was RE1 Remake and Zero – both of which she gamely gave a go to.

Before starting RE1 remake, I suggested she think about it like a virtual escape room – its as much a puzzle game as a survival one (especially as she plays the games on easy). One particular highlight was the utter shock that came with the first Crimson Head appearance. The fact that this game still had the capacity to scare and shock made my day (even if I was told off for laughing). Whilst I think Sarah enjoyed them for different reasons, she was particularly amused by how batshit crazy RE Zero’s plot was and now fully understood how the games are filled with “busywork”. She was not at all impressed with Zero’s item system though.

I was a little surprised when Sarah then decided to play the original RE1 via the PSN version. And – you know what – she played it using ink ribbons, no save states and refusing to rewind when she died. I think some sort of weird “reverse nostalgia” had taken hold where she genuinely wanted to see the true genesis of the series and, when playing through – and completing both Chris and Jill scenarios – she would frequently comment along the lines of

“oh so that’s how they re-imagined this in the remake!”.

The only point that would perhaps be of disappointment to the original creators was that she found RE1 to be “cute”. Yep, cute – that was her one word review of the game that had so scared me as a kid.

Honestly – I loved all of this and I cannot emphasise enough just how much of a running commentary I would get. The games would be frequently paused for Sarah to ask me questions (that I wasn’t meant to answer), her observations on the plot and puzzles, or to complain about how useless Chris Redfield is when compared to Leon. That was a common one.

Where we are today – in 2026

So, Sarah truly embraced – and now loves – the series which is great. She completed RE4 original, RE5 RE7 and RE8 – again, giving me the full running commentary on each – while I attempted to read in the evening.

Her views on RE7 (“too ‘orrible and scary”) and RE8 (“I AM ETHAN HUNT – EAT THIS”) were interesting and she definitely got A LOT more mileage out of the action heavy RE8.

We’ve taken a look at some of the other titles in the series, but generally stuck to the mainline ones and recently started playing Requiem together. This marks the first time that it is actually “her game” (a birthday present for her) and she’s much farther in its plot than I am, which, again, is new territory for us.

We’ve also got some lovely RE items at home too and when we were in Japan visited the (somewhat disappointing) Capcom store (I bought an umbrella pen that has now run out). We both share enjoyment of the RE series and happily chat about it and play the games together. I still occasionally find some bits of paper in our house which have hand drawn maps she started drawing of the locations, until I pointed out that you do have an in game map.

I still can’t believe RE6 was the gateway, and you know what, I’ll always love it for that, even if it is a terrible game. And of course, we had to have a statue of Ada from that game on our mantelpiece as a reminder.

Quite the lady…

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