During this year’s Summer Game Fest, they closed out the show with a humdinger of a reveal. Resident Evil: Requiem, or, simply put, Resident Evil 9 is getting prepped and ready for a 2026 release. Capcom hasn’t reveals that many details about the actual game. But it doesn’t matter because, even from that very brief glimpse we got from the trailer, there’s a lot to be excited for. Heck, fans are already hyped for it!

Although this is technically “Resident Evil 9”, this will actually be the eleventh canonical Resident Evil game! So, I think it’s time that I take a long look back at Capcom’s landmark survivor series and ranking them much like with what I did with Konami‘s Silent Hill saga. But there are some caveats for my rankings. For one, I will only be looking at the mainline games of the series. This means side stories like Resident Evil Survivor games and the Revelations duology are not going to be eligible. Heck, there are enough of those for them to get their own list and ranking!

Additionally, I will only be including the original versions of the games as I believe it would be kind of unfair to include any of the Remakes as they were made with the benefit of hindsight. Third, I will also have to rank the original games based on the time they were made and not through our current standards. It just seems more fair that way. Finally, my rankings are also going to be partially determined by my initial experience with them. First impressions last and all that.

Even with all of these exclusions, this is still going to be a massive list; there are ten of them! So, I’m going to be breaking this list up into two separate posts, with this one tackling the five weakest entries in order while, next will, I will be putting up the best Resident Evil games.

#10 Resident Evil 5

In Resident Evil 5, you’re put in the combat boots of Chris Redfield. Now part of a new group called the BSAA that check for bioterrorist threats, he is paired up with Sheva Alomar to a village in West Africa. They have received a tip that a bio weapons dealer is making a sale in the area. This is just the start, however, as this supposedly simple arrest mission will take them across the country and eventually have the duo cross paths with Albert Wesker, Chris Redfield’s former commanding officer, as well as a former close friend.

I had a difficult time picking this or the next entry as the worst mainstream Resident Evil game. In the end, I made my choice based on which one of them pissed me off more. Resident Evil 5 was a game that actually upset me.

While there were a lot of reasons, such as very dull looking graphics, unfun map layouts and repetitive enemy types, the biggest one would be the AI used for the second character. It seems like Capcom really wanted players to team up with someone online. That wasn’t me, though. So, my AI partner would get into a whole lot of trouble and burn through the better ammo and health. This made going through the already terrible maps much more of a slog than it needed to be.

#9 Resident Evil 6

On the eve when the President of the United States was going to reveal what really happened to Raccoon City, a new bioterrorist group calling themselves Neo-Umbrella, infects the venue with a new virus. This leads Leon Kennedy in a quest to track down the supposed leader of Neo-Umbrella, Ada Wong. Chris Redfield also is in the hunt for Ada Wong as Neo-Umbrella attacked and killed most of his squad. Meanwhile, Jake Muller, a rebel fighting for the Edonian Liberation Army, becomes embroiled in this mess as he strangely has an immunity to most bioweapon attacks.

While I like this slightly more than Resident Evil 6, that doesn’t mean Resident Evil 6 is a good game. Not by a longshot! It improves a lot of things from the previous game. The locations and map layouts feel better and less confusing. Partner AI is a lot better. The problem is the improvements are just a step above terrible, making them just bearable.

The thing that keeps Resident Evil 6 from being a total dumpster fire, in my opinion, is the fact there are multiple scenarios. There are four in total, with three being available from the outset and the fourth one hidden until you complete the others. The problem here is two out of the four are good and the other two are bad. Still, that’s much better than the one colossal awful scenario you got in Resident Evil 5!

#8 Resident Evil Zero

Set before the events of the first game, Resident Evil Zero is the story of how STARS medic Rebecca Chambers gets trapped in the Spencer mansion. After her squad is dispatched to investigate a series of strange murders, Rebecca comes across a recently wrecked train filled with zombies. Here, she partners with a prisoner named Billy Coen. The two will have to find a way to stay alive while also tracking down a man who may have the ability to control leeches that can turn people into zombies.

Resident Evil Zero is the only exception I had to pull from the “remakes are not allowed” rule as this is the only way I was able to play it. Thankfully, Zero is actually just a remaster, meaning that only the graphics got a glow up. Everything else, including the gameplay and level layouts, were left alone. Too bad the gameplay isn’t that hot and the level layouts are a pain to navigate! Still, this isn’t the game’s biggest issue. That would go to item management.

As Capcom decided to scrap the magical inventory boxes, the only way to pick up an item when your character’s inventory is full is to drop something else. This made backtracking much worse as you might have dropped something a ways back when picking up another item. Oh, and god help you if you forgot where you placed that item because that’ll mean you’re going to end up searching every room until you find it. Never happened to me, though. I have an excellent memory *cough, cough*.

#7 Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

This entry has you controlling Jill Valentine, a member of STARS and one of the survivors of the Spencer Mansion incident of the first game. A viral outbreak has hit Raccoon City and Jill tries to find a way to escape the city. However, Umbrella, the pharmaceutical company and bioweapons group behind the events of the first game, wants to silence all STARS members. So, they send Nemesis, their new bioweapon, to go hunt her down. Jill must try to find a way to leave the city while also evading the creature.

Now, Resident Evil 3, for its time, wasn’t a bad game. It is just unfortunate it had to come directly after one of the best games in the series. As such, you can’t help but compare it to its predecessor. Resident Evil 3 only has one single scenario compared to two in the previous game. The game doesn’t have as much replayability as a result as well.

Capcom did try to spice things up by giving the player a dodge mechanic. There are also points when the game will give you a choice on what to do. Unfortunately, these new things don’t really work all that well. The dodge mechanic is finicky, to say the least. The choices Jill is given also doesn’t really change the story, making whatever decision you made rather moot.

#6 Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

In this entry, you control Ethan Winters, an ordinary man who had just received a letter from his wife, Mia, who had been missing for three years at this point. The letter only had three words: come get me. Ethan drives all the way to Louisiana to the address noted on the letter. He arrives at a crumbling mansion and, inside, he will have to face all sorts of horrors he never thought possible.

Although I did preface this backend of this ranking to be the “worst” of the Resident Evil games, Biohazard definitely isn’t. This game heralded the franchise return to survival horror rather than the more action-y gameplay from the fifth and sixth entries. This was also the first game to use Capcom’s new RE Engine, a beast of a development tool that allowed them to create very detailed character models and textures in-game.

However, one of my criteria regarding this ranking is my reaction my first time playing the game. And Resident Evil 7 did not make a good first impression on me as I don’t really like first person shooters. As this was the first game in the series to use this point-of-view, it took me a long while to get accustomed to this new style of Resident Evil. It didn’t help that Ethan Winters moves very slow! In retrospect, that’s understandable as he is just an everyman and didn’t get any special training. Still, it did make moving around feel sluggish and made some of the combat feel unnecessarily difficult. I eventually got used to this new style and pacing but it did mean I wasn’t having all that much fun for something like the first third of the game, knocking the game down to the “worst half” of my persona Resident Evil list.

Well, these were the more lackluster games in the Resident Evil series. Next week, I’ll go tackle the best!

What are the worst Resident Evil games in your opinion? Let me know in the comments section below!