Netflix Drops First Teasers For Its Resident Evil Original Series

The "Resident Evil" series has been somewhat hit-and-miss throughout its history — particularly when it comes to film — but it's taking another shot at non-interactive storytelling with a live-action series on Netflix due later this year. The upcoming series does not seem to have a direct connection to the Infinite Darkness animation that debuted in July 2021, however.

"Resident Evil" first released on the original PlayStation back in 1996, performing well enough to spawn a franchise that's still going strong (despite a few rough patches) more than 25 years later, following and expanding on the story of the Umbrella Corporation pharmaceutical company's development of biological weapons and the people who are trying to stop it. What began as a small story of horror and intrigue in a remote mountain mansion-cum-secret laboratory soon spread to the nearby (and similarly remote) Racoon City, and eventually the whole world.

Paul W.S. Anderson's live-action films took a slightly different approach at first, putting a spin on Umbrella's hidden lab and supplying entirely new characters, eventually going so far as to turn the series' main protagonist, Alice, into a virus-powered supersoldier with occasional telekinesis. Plus, there was an army of clones at one point, and approximations of characters from the games made appearances.

As for this new live-action "Resident Evil," the details are still a bit sparse. NetflixGeeked shared a brief synopsis on Twitter back in August 2020, revealing the first season is comprised of eight hour-long episodes and is helmed by former "Supernatural" executive producer Andrew Dabb. The account went on to state the story will follow "the Wesker kids" as they move to New Racoon City and begin to uncover a number of deadly secrets. Whether they're related to (or possibly cloned from) long-time game series antagonist Albert Wesker hasn't been explicitly stated, but it is possible given how fast and loose the games play with science.

Looking at the new teaser images the official Netflix Twitter account has shared today, it appears the T-Virus could be making a return in some capacity, along with a drug manufactured by Umbrella called "Joy." There's still no official word on the return of specific familiar characters from either the games or the films, though. And while the basic plot description may not inspire confidence with many "Resident Evil" fans, the consensus seems to be that, compared to its other live-action counterparts, this new series has nowhere to go but up.

Though the images don't show much, we won't have to wait too long to watch the show ourselves, as Netflix's "Resident Evil" is scheduled to launch on July 14, 2022.