Before Capcom revealed its reimagining for Resident Evil 3, it showcased Resident Evil: Resistance (Project Resistance at the time). The multiplayer title saw four survivors working together to escape Raccoon City while combating the schemes of an evil mastermind. Resistance is included along with Resident Evil 3, but as producers Peter Fabiano and Masao Kawada clarified earlier, they aren’t directly related.
Fabiano spoke to Official PlayStation Magazine (issue 171) about this in more detail, stating that Resident Evil: Resistance is “basically set in Raccoon City with scenarios that make it impossible to fit in the actual timeline.” That being said, you’ll still see “familiar enemies and characters like Mastermind.”
So then why not release it as a separate title from Resident Evil 3? Fabiano once again brought up both titles sharing the theme of escape. “You’ll remember that the Japanese subtitle for RE3 was Last Escape,” he said. “Both of these titles have characters that are trying to escape somewhere or something, so thematically it made sense. We also wanted to take up the challenge of building out an online game set in the RE universe.”
Interestingly, despite being completely separate, Resident Evil: Resistance will feature music from Resident Evil 3. That’s probably more due to the development team utilizing available tunes appropriate to certain situations than any explicit connection. Even with the disparity in timelines, the value of the two games being bundled together is still pretty great.
Resident Evil 3 is out on April 3rd for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.