In response to a fan site, Netflix’s Brazilian press office reportedly replied with the official synopsis of the Resident Evil TV series. If true, the TV show is apparently set 26 years after the “discovery of the T-virus.” It also takes place in the town of Clearfield, MD, which apparently will “stand in the shadow” of the Umbrella Corporation, “the decommissioned Greenwood Asylum,” and Washington D.C.
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It can not yet be confirmed whether the Resident Evil TV show will be canon and fit the timeline and events of the video games, but assuming it is canon, there are a few possibilities for where the TV show can take place on the Resident Evil timeline. While there is no known inclusion or lore within the video games related to the town of Clearfield, MD, there is still plenty in its timeline based on this time frame of 26 years after the “discovery of the T-virus.”
Resident Evil - 1966 / 1992
Without a distinction between the original Progenitor virus which Umbrella’s founders discovered in West Africa in 1966 and the later T-Virus strains which were derived from the virus, then the show could take place in 1992. In essence, the T-Virus is really just a more fleshed out group of strains that are evolved or singled out from the Progenitor virus, which came from a special flower found in a cave in West Africa.
During 1992 in the Resident Evil timeline, Umbrella was likely hard at work with its bio-weaponry research and still fleshing projects out, and Albert Wesker was causing trouble, as usual. It was also around the time in which Umbrella was funding the Bright Raccoon 21 Plan, which was a development project in Raccoon City in the 1990s to modernize the city and a time in which Umbrella likely planted its seeds deep into the cities heart, including its NEST laboratory far below the city’s sewers.
The Raccoon General Hospital was also constructed in 1992 and may have been part of this project. Around this time period, in 1991 to be exact, Dr. William Birkin was also given approval to begin research on the G-Virus, and was given his laboratory below Raccoon City in order to proceed with the project.
This was also the year in which Umbrella Europe decided to create the infamous Nemesis monster by planting their own mysteriously engineered Nemesis parasite into a Tyrant. The following year, in 1993, a former hospital in the Arklay Mountains outside Raccoon City was shutdown following experiments by Umbrella, which utilized a dummy pharmaceutical company to carry out the trials. Perhaps Umbrella’s actions somehow link or demonstrate similarities towards the Greenwood Asylum mentioned in the TV show synopsis.
1970s / late 1990s - early 2000s
There is not a clear cut date in which Umbrella decided that the T-Virus was fully fleshed out and established, despite some break through events. Actually, the T-Virus represents a group of related strains derived from the Progenitor virus, and roughly during the 1970s, Umbrella began to refer to it viral experiments as T-Virus strains rather than Progenitor virus strains roughly in the 1970s.
In this scenario, it could perhaps represent a more loosely defined categorical term or change in trends, rather than an exact moment in which their research transitioned from the Progenitor virus to discovery of the T-Virus. However, the Tyrant project would have likely been well under way, or at its last breadth depending upon which year in the 1970s the “discovery” refers to. If the former, Umbrella would be needing many human hosts to experiment on in order to test the Tyrant strains upon, and they were known to utilize patients in both prisons and asylums.
Though this timeline does not give us an exact starting point, there are lots of possibilities for which it could entail, including the possibility that the TV show could take place in or around 1998, around the time of the infamous Raccoon City zombie outbreak.
This would also mean that the starting point for the “discovery of the T-Virus” would be 1972. Unfortunately, there is nothing significant in the timeline that takes place exactly during the year of 1972, other than the possibility that it could be the year in which Umbrella began calling its Progenitor viral strains as T-Virus strains.
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Resident Evil - 1978 / 2004
If there’s an exact moment in which a fully fleshed out T-Virus strain was invented or “discovered” by Umbrella, 1978 may just be the year. On January 13, 1978, Resident Evil 0’s Dr. James Marcus, one of Umbrella’s founders, made a particular breakthrough in developing a new strain utilizing leech test subjects, and when testing the leeches on humans, their effects were very different than the Progenitor virus at the time.
During the same year, the infamous Dr. William Birkin also made his own breakthroughs by combining the Progenitor virus with the Ebola virus, establishing his own T-Virus strain. These breakthroughs were enough of a difference that the T-Virus was no longer a loose name given to Progenitor experiments in the 1970s, but they became exclusively known as the T-Virus by and of itself. If 1978 is the true year in which the T-Virus was considered to be “discovered”, according to the TV show’s adaption of the series, then the Resident Evil TV would could take place in the year 2004.
This is the year in which both the events of Resident Evil 4 and some of the events that built up to the plot in Resident Evil: Revelations. For example, in 2004, the international terrorist organization known as Il Veltro utilized Bio-Weapons to attack the fictional floating city, Terragrigia, in the Mediterranean Sea, resulting in an outbreak there. The Federal Bioterrorism Commission (FBC) intervened, as well as the international entity of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA).
During the same year, in the events of Resident Evil 4, none other than the U.S. Presidents daughter was kidnapped and taken to Spain by the newly revived Los Iluminados terrorist cult which utilized the Las Plagas parasites. By 2004, Umbrella was also on its last legs, its last facilities shut down, and it was at the conclusion of a heated legal battle with the U.S. which ultimately led to it declaring bankruptcy the previous year. However, its Japanese branch was a subsidiary which remained operational, though for not too much longer.
Resident Evil - 1998 / 2024
Since the leaked synopsis does not necessarily state that the “discovery” of the T-Virus is made by Umbrella, it could also be interpreted as the year in which the public and world, by and large, discovered the existence of the T-Virus. Its horrific consequences came to light as a result of the outbreak caused by the 1998 Raccoon City incident, in which the city fell to hordes of infected zombies.
If this is the accurate timeframe of the show’s synopsis, then it would place the starting date of the TV show’s plot in the year 2024. This could potentially match some elements in regards to recent rumors suggesting that the TV show would star new characters Jade and Billie Wesker, the daughters of infamous Resident Evil villain Albert Wesker.
Though they are new characters, it would not be the first children Albert Wesker has had, considering the introduction of his son, Jake Muller, in Resident Evil 6. The TV show may not necessarily break canon with Resident Evil’s games even if this scenario is true. However, the rumors that have circulated around this particular likelihood of events also claim that the series will actually be set in the year 2036, well after the world has already fallen to the zombie apocalypse. Though the rumors also states that the narrative will switch between two points in time, so it is still a possible likelihood that past events in Clearfield, MD, as the synopsis mentions, can still be a focal point.
There is also the possibility that the show does not follow canon at all, and none of these dates could be relevant to the shows adoption of the series, which could very well be the case. With the negative stigma left by the Resident Evil movie’s adoption of the series, Netflix should tread carefully in establishing its own adoption of the series and ensure that it is either a faithful adoption of the games or presents something that can uniquely stand on its own in terms of presenting a stylish and immersive Resident Evil universe.
Resident Evil is rumored to be in development at Netflix
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