Resident Evil's controversial shift toward action is often traced to Resident Evil 4 or the criticized Resident Evil 5. But Miguel Corti, a former Capcom executive who joined the company in 2007, says the turning point came earlier: Resident Evil: Code Veronica. In a series of Bluesky posts that have since been deleted and were shared by GamesRadar, Corti argued that the 2000 Dreamcast title has a direct link to Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6. He said Code Veronica is where the series went off track by trying to fit too many locations and plotlines onto a single Dreamcast disc.
Released in 2000 on Dreamcast, Code Veronica marked a major technical leap for the franchise. For the first time, the series moved away from pre-rendered 2D backgrounds and used fully modeled 3D real-time environments. That allowed a dynamic camera and traveling shots following protagonists Claire and Chris Redfield. But Corti's argument is that the technology shift also changed the narrative scale. The accumulation of locations, complex plots and over-the-top events began to push the series away from claustrophobic horror toward a more cinematic and dispersed pace, anticipating the fragmented structure of later blockbusters.
The game's opening sets a different tone: Claire Redfield dodges helicopter gunfire, drops her weapon mid-jump and catches it in the air, and explodes fuel barrels. Corti described it as a pure pastiche of Die Hard and John Woo with no horror touch. He added that, without wanting to offend Code Veronica fans, he is biased given what he sees as the game's direct negative impact on the franchise. The title also introduced more energetic gameplay elements, such as firing two submachine guns at once. For Corti, Code Veronica instilled in development teams a vision where action took precedence over horror tension, laying narrative and structural foundations for Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6.
The debate returns as Resident Evil Veronica, a remake of the title, was officially announced at Summer Game Fest 2026. It is planned for 2027 on PS5, Xbox Series, PC and Nintendo Switch 2. The remake will have to modernize a game design that can feel punitive while potentially rebalancing the balance between horror tension and Hollywood spectacle.
Sources: Jeuxvideo.com.