Now, we all know the general set-up for the Resident Evil series (and several of its best imitators). Our heroes are pursued by all manner of lumpen, mutated nasties on their way to whichever objective they happen to have this time around. The series is most famous for its bog-standard zombies, but the horrific experimentations of Umbrella gave birth to a whole range of ghastly enemy types and bosses besides.
However grotesque these experiments may have been, there’s no denying that some of them took some serious science to develop. Let’s meet some of the most brilliant minds in the Resident Evil series.
10 Leon S. Kennedy
When it comes to brilliant minds, Leon Kennedy may not be the first member of the Resident Evil universe you’d think of. Like all the games’ protagonists, he’s made some super serious and downright hilarious errors in judgment in his time.
Who hasn’t, though? A top-tier scientist he certainly isn’t, but Leon’s resourcefulness and cunning can’t be underestimated. Throughout the much-beloved Resident Evil 4, he pulls off a series of brilliant, impossible escapes from certain death that lesser men couldn’t dream of managing. In the optional Ada’s Report content, Ada Wong herself describes our hero as “practically a genius.” Not a bad starting point for our list.
9 Ada Wong
Speaking of Ada, here’s another character whose cunning, guile and resourcefulness know no bounds. A brilliant, enigmatic agent, she’s an accomplished assassin who has mastered a range of techniques and weapons.
A recurring character in the franchise, she has tangled with and outwitted some of the major players, both protagonists and antagonists alike. She served as a double agent and manipulated powerful corporations to achieve her own ends. Nobody knows which side this fan-favorite character is truly on, which is the key to her brilliance. As with Leon, though, she isn’t a renowned scientific mind like some of the characters we’ll meet later.
8 Rebecca Chambers
Rebecca Chambers is a woman who could be easily underestimated. Her diminutive stature and lack of experience in the field (her most prominent playable appearance is in prequel Resident Evil Zero) makes her a little forgettable among the upper echelons of S.T.A.R.S. agents. In Rebecca’s case, though, brains are far more valuable than brawn.
As a child, she proved to have a fantastic intellect. So much so, in fact, that she began university super early and earned a degree in chemistry at the tender age of 18. Many organizations wanted her on board, but she opted to take the position as a S.T.A.R.S. medic. While inexperienced on the battlefield, she has proven herself to be capable and resourceful in combat. In this series, the fact that she’s still alive speaks volumes.
7 Osmund Saddler
Well, let’s be honest. It wasn’t going to be long before an evil mastermind reared their head on this list, was it? Resident Evil 4’s Osmund Saddler may have ended his life as a shriveled, burned-up husk of a hideous spider-mutant, but it was only through Leon and Ada’s efforts that his evil plan didn’t come to fruition.
Saddler was an expert in biological weapons, whos plan was to infect Ashley Graham (the U.S. President’s daughter) with the Las Plagas parasite, collect a bounty for her return and then send her home, gaining control over the country once the parasite took control. He had some amazing scientific clout behind him (what the heck even were those machines Leon and Ashley used to remove the parasites? Saddler was living in the year 4000). He didn’t quite achieve as much as some of the characters coming up, though.
6 Dr. William Birkin
For Resident Evil fans, Dr. William Birkin is one of the major behind-the-scenes players. Instrumental in Umbrella’s experiments and everything they achieved, he had a huge role to play in the development of the t-Virus, as well as the Golgotha Virus and Umbrella’s other mutateapalooza innovations.
He becomes a doctor before his twenties, a testament to his great intellect. The issue with Birkin is that he squandered his potential, feeling bitter about missing out on a promotion he felt he deserved. He met a grisly end as the hideous “G,” having infected himself with Golgotha.
5 Carla Radames
By Resident Evil 6, some fans had become more than a little wary of the franchise and its turn away from the survival horror style of yore. This installment wasn't the best-regarded in the series, but it showed that Capcom could still create an intriguing, enigmatic supervillain of a scientist.
She may have been a subordinate of Derek Simmons, but her brilliance speaks for itself. Before her sixteenth birthday, she was the proud owner of a doctorate, a geneticist with almost unlimited potential. She would go on to found Neo-Umbrella and develop the c-Virus. Had she truly been her own person rather than Simmons’ ‘Ada puppet,’ she may have achieved even more.
4 James Marcus
Another of the major players in Umbrella’s inhumane research, Dr. James Marcus was a founder of the company and mastermind behind the grisly direction it took. Alongside Dr. William Birkin and the infamous Dr. Albert Wesker, he developed the t-Virus and… well, we all know how things went from there.
Marcus and Oswell E. Spencer’s relationship deteriorated until the latter ordered his partner’s killing. Thanks to Queen Leech, this was not the true end of Marcus, but it cut the potential of his research short nonetheless.
3 Alex Wesker
All of the ‘children’ born of the Wesker Project were brilliant, of course. That was the crux of the whole thing, after all. You don’t want to usher in an advanced new society with people who can’t do math in their heads or remember their grocery lists, do you? Alex Wesker was one of the greatest of them all, though.
A star Umbrella scientist, she became utterly single-minded in her ambitions after the company fell apart and Albert Wesker was killed. Her efforts to develop a strain that would render her immortal went so far that she was worshipped as a goddess by the residents of one of the islands where she conducted her research. Before “ascending,” as was her ultimate plan, she was killed in the same fashion as Albert: by good ol’ fashioned rocket-propelled justice.
2 Albert Wesker
Speaking of, it was also an inevitability that dear old Albert was going to make an appearance in our run-down. Since his treachery was first revealed way back in the original game (along with his ability to survive things he really, really shouldn’t have), it was clear that Albert Wesker was going to be one of those brilliant villains who pops up again and again. And again.
Wesker has brains and brawn in equal measure. A formidable enemy in battle, he also boasts the cunning and resourcefulness to get out at the right time, forge and betray alliances to best suit himself and playoff powerful forces against each other. It's also assumed he achieved his degree at a very young age, and his later experimentation only enhanced his potential. There’s still one Resident Evil character that beats him out when it comes to raw brilliance, though.
1 Alexia Ashford
Renowned scientists like Dr. William Birkin and S.T.A.R.S. agent Rebecca Chambers proved their raw intellect, achieving degrees and doctorates very young. In that regard, Alexia Ashford has everyone in the Resident Evil franchise beaten: she was just ten years old when she got her job at Umbrella after graduating!
Her brother Alfred was also intelligent but barely registered next to his sister. CODE Veronica’s influence on the pair made one utterly exceptional and the other understandably bitter. They turned against their father when they learned the truth of their birth and Alexia used her expertise on the t-Veronica virus against him. As Dr. Alexander Ashford discovered (before he transformed into the hideous Nosferatu), you don’t mess with the most exceptional mind the Resident Evil series has ever seen.