Spoilers for all Resident Evil entries preceding this one, including Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5 (as well its two DLC expansions) will be left unmarked ahead. You Have Been Warned!
"Our hiding places diminished ...we turned to hope... but she has fled..."
Resident Evil 6 — the ninth main installment of the Resident Evil franchise, released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012 and the PC in 2013 (as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2016, and Nintendo Switch in 2019) — features multiple campaigns with their own controllable characters, unique settings, gameplay styles, and tones. The partner system from Resident Evil 5 also returns, and Capcom included additional multiplayer options to boot.
Fifteen years after the Raccoon City Incident, President Adam Benford prepares to reveal everything about what happened on that day to the public. After Leon Kennedy arrives in Tall Oaks to discuss the reveal, he finds the President transformed into a zombie. Leon kills the President to save Helena Harper, a Secret Service agent with a few secrets to hide, and the two then team up to escape Tall Oaks and discover the source of this new viral outbreak.
Halfway around the world, BSAA agent Chris Redfield and his sidekick Piers Nivans arrive in the coastal Chinese city of Lanshiang to help suppress a bioterrorist threat. Along the way, they encounter the elusive Ada Wong — who still has an agenda of her own, natch — as well as a few new surprises. As the city becomes overrun with zombies and the global threat of the newly-discovered C-Virus becomes clearer, Chris has to decide who to trust in order to help save humanity.
Alongside Chris and Leon's stories, a third story follows mercenary-for-hire (and series newcomer) Jake Muller as he teams up with Sherry Birkin, who wants to find a cure for the C-Virus. As the illegitimate son of the late Albert Wesker, Jake's blood may hold the key to stopping this new threat to humanity, but Jake isn't exactly happy about having that responsibility thrust upon him.
All three stories converge together as Chris, Leon, and Jake try to stop the parties responsible for the C-Virus outbreak and save the world — but has the world already been lost?
After clearing all three main scenarios — or not, if you have a patch — players gain access to a special fourth scenario that follows Ada's story.
Resident Evil 6 contains the following tropes:
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- 11th-Hour Superpower: Leon finds a rocket launcher left by Ada to finish the battle. Piers mutates himself with the C-Virus, giving him an arm that shoots lightning, to aid Chris in the final battle. Inverted in Jake's campaign, where he loses all his equipment and is forced to fight the Ustanak hand-to-hand.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Ostensibly takes place in 2013 (released in 2012, and a portion of it does take place within the year), but holographic smartphones, laser robot mines, and Hollywood Genetics all feature in the campaigns.
- A.K.A.-47: The firearms are all based off of real guns, but several of them are frankenstein hybrids of various guns, and all of them are given generic or punny names. Which is weird, given that its immediate predecessor actually did use and name real firearms, besides a couple fictional ones and the "Lightning Hawk" stand-in for the Desert Eagle carried over to this game. This gets especially blatant with the BSAA standard rifle of the SIG-556 from the previous game suddenly being replaced with the "Assault Rifle for Special Tactics", a Bushmaster ACR hybridized with a G36.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Leon and Helena travel through Tall Oaks' sewer/underground subway on their way to the cathedral.
- Action Bomb: One of the J'avo mutations turns them into this. Some zombies have dynamite strapped to them, too.
- Action Girl: Sherry and Helena. Ada is a mix between this and Dark Action Girl given her moral ambiguity for much of the series though this game is her at her most heroic.
- Actionized Sequel: Even more action focused than the previous two main titles, with characters gaining an enormous freedom of movement (sprint, dodge roll, use stop-and-pop cover, move while shooting, and slide on the ground and fire a la Max Payne), and more melee attacks and counters than your average Beat 'em Up. Besides, like in Resident Evil 5, the smarter enemies (the J'avos in this case) often also wield guns themselves, creating straight Third-Person Shooter segments.
- Adaptive Ability: J'avo are supposed to mutate in response to how you've wounded them. They might grow a big nasty tentacle arm or two, a sickle-like arm, turn one arm into a bulletproof shield, fall flat on their back and start releasing poison gas, grow a thorax with multiple limbs that enables them to Wall Crawl, grow grasshopper-like legs that allow them to jump high and kick, grow moth-like wings under their abdomen, grow two caterpillar-like appendages that wrap themselves and explode, or grow a pincer-like head. That's if they don't cocoon themselves in ooze and pop out as a big nasty monster.
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Simmons's first form. While him catching up to you doesn't spell instant death, the narrow traintop/compartments where he's fought leaves little if any room to dodge, meaning you're pretty much guaranteed to take damage if he catches up to you. The trick to fighting him is to deal enough damage to force him into his human form again, then run past him and put as much distance as you can between him and you before he changes back. Rinse and repeat.
- Affably Evil: Derek C. Simmons. Though one of the major sources behind the C-Virus outbreak, in the past, he took care of the orphaned Sherry and allowed Claire Redfield to visit her regularly. Claire questions this facade and encourages Sherry to do so as well.
- Affirmative Action Girl: Inverted. Almost every Resident Evil game is about a male and a female teaming up (or, if split up, you have the option of choosing which to play as). Chris and Piers are the first-ever guy-and-guy team in the main numbered franchise.
- All There in the Manual: The explanation for most of what's really going on is in the files.
- You only get files for shooting hidden snake symbols, they're not in-universe documents your character finds lying around. You also have to quit out of the game entirely and read the documents from the main menu, so while you have very little to distract you from the action, you also don't know the whole story when you're running around.
- Even worse is the stuff on RE.net that tells even more of the story. Jake's opinion of his dad and his treatment of Chris makes a lot more sense with that information.
- All Your Powers Combined: C-Virus is basically a combination of the T, G, and T-Veronica virus. So we get zombies with insectoid features, multiple tumor-like eyes, and a Healing Factor that sometimes freaks out and turns them into a really icky version of the Hulk.
- Anachronic Order: The Prelude is just a Flash Forward to Leon Chapter 5 that is modified for tutorial purposes, while Chris Chapter 2 is a flashback set six months before the rest of his campaign.
- Ancient Conspiracy: This entry introduces a massively influential global conspiracy into the mythology, known as The Family. They apparently formed the modern world of the games, and have a history that stretches back to the Colonial Era at least.
- And the Adventure Continues: Every surviving character ends the game getting ready to enter the next battle.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Most of Chris's BSAA squad mutates into ooze-covered monsters, Piers becomes a J'avo, Simmons goes One-Winged Angel, and Carla Radames and Deborah Harper become humanoid abominations. Oh, and the friggin' President of the United States becomes a zombie, and Leon has to shoot him. RE6 has this in spades.
- And This Is for...: Said by Helena after she and Leon finally defeat Simmons, in revenge for her sister.
- Anti-Frustration Feature:
- The Quick Shot feature actually becomes this if used correctly. Given how easy it is in other games to try and raise your weapon to defend yourself only to get grabbed before you can do so and your face bit off, this actually can help enormously and only costs a small chunk of your stamina to use. In cramped situations, it even makes your sniper rifles, which you have to aim down the scope, instantly usable and can often enough wipe out an enemy or seriously damage them despite not aiming for a perfect headshot, in addition to knocking them down. Just be careful using it, as you can exhaust yourself if you're not careful, negating the ability to use it and melee attacks, as well as slowing you down until you recover.
- Messing up certain Quick Time Events enough times and the game will just silently accept whatever input the player makes so long as it was pressed at the right time. Amateur difficulty automatically completes every event without needing player input.
- The above is further remedied by the option to automatically complete all QTEs that are part of a cutscene or scripted event, allowing one to pass particularly difficult sections without even lifting a finger. Of course, this precludes the prompts to break out of an enemy's grasp during normal gameplay.
- The boss battle in the ship chapter of Ada's campaign requires a lot of ammunition, and would be unwinnable if you don't have enough. There are blobs on the walls which drop ammo if you shoot or kick them. There is no in-game explanation for this.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Only in Mercenaries mode though (a huge contrast from previous titles, which allowed the player to use alternate outfits in the main scenario). The Switch version, however, re-enable the option to play the main campaigns with alternate costumes.
- Another Side, Another Story: Although there are some story intersections in earlier chapters (specifically with Chris and Jake at Edonia and then Leon and Ada at Tall Oaks), all four campaigns begin to converge into a common outcome when everyone arrives at Langshiang. Ada's campaign was originally this, as it was only unlocked after completing the other three campaigns until a patch made it visible from the get-go.
- Anti-Air: Chris and Piers' campaign has them needing to take out anti-aircraft cannons before being able to get an airstrike on the Ogroman.
- An Arm and a Leg: Piers gets his arm heavily damaged in the final battle and forcibly amputates it to get to the C-Virus sample. The C-Virus injection gives him a new arm that shoots electricity.
- Artificial Stupidity: While the AI is substantially improved over RE5's, given that it has both infinite health and ammo (except in certain circumstances, such as an incoming ambulance which can kill the AI partner), your partner can still be found lacking. It sometimes takes much longer than necessary to reach gates with the player, sometimes outright ignores the player while they are in a downed state, and fails to reliably rescue the player during certain set-pieces.
- Artistic License – Biology:
- Of the genetics variety, and we don't mean the viruses found all over the series.
- The game plays Jake Muller up as Albert Wesker's son, and thus inheriting antibodies from him that allow him to resist the C-Virus. Antibodies come from the mother's side, not the father's. What's more, Wesker got his immunity boon after Jake, who's 20 years old, would have been born. This appears to be referenced with Jake inheriting Wesker's speed and strength just in time to pummel the Ustanak hand-to-hand despite previously being helpless against it, possibly helped along by the C-Virus he was injected with earlier in the year. Again, Wesker gained such powers as a result of biomutagenic tampering, after Jake would have been born.
- Worth noting about the above two, however, is that Albert Wesker was mentioned in RE5 as having been "manufactured" for compatibility with the Progenitor Virus as part of the Wesker Children, of which the C-Virus is a descendant of. In addition, the fact that he had been an associate of Umbrella since 1977 combined with the aforementioned Wesker Children means there's enough small details in existing canon that could be used as a handwave for any such inconsistencies with real world biology.
- Zigzagged with how the C-Virus works.
- Its method of aerosol transmission makes very little sense if you take into consideration the nature of virions. A virus is dependent on a living host's cells to reproduce or even exist at all, and will expire very quickly if exposed to the environments, since virions are not true live organisms.
- On the other hand, the viral clouds generated by Lepotitsa creatures seem to be short-lived. It's like taking a big sneeze when you're sick, only with a much more concentrated virus population.
- Of the genetics variety, and we don't mean the viruses found all over the series.
- Artistic License – Cars: A school bus that Leon and Helena are trying to use to escape the city is stopped by a large zombie that is lifting its front tires, which are spinning. This should not be happening, as all American school buses are rear wheel drive, meaning the bus could have just driven over him without a problem.
- Artistic License – Geography: The caverns and ruins that Leon and Helena go through beneath the Tall Oaks cathedral, nevermind the fact that the two of them go for miles through underwater tunnel currents fighting against a giant infected shark, the place is absolutely massive and makes not even a single lick of geographical sense. If that weren't bad enough, it keeps going lower, and lower, and lower, and yet when the duo have to escape, they pop up through the lake right outside of the city.
- Artistic License – Law: In real life, duress is a mitigating factor for severe crimes such as murder and treason, not a full excuse. Helena would almost certainly be facing serious jail time for taking part in a terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of 70,000 innocent civilians, including the sitting president (even if some clemency would be plausible due to her sister being threatened with murder if she didn't take part and then murdered anyway), and she would definitely not be reinstated into the Secret Service (since it's clear that her family is a weak point that could be used to force her to betray her country).
- Artistic License – Military: Helena Harper was reassigned to work in the Secret Service after bending the rules one too many times at the CIA. Why does that make no sense realistically speaking? The CIA and the Secret Service are two very different organizations with very different missions. The Secret Service is a law enforcement agency charged with protecting the current and former Presidents and their families; they also handle financial crimes such as counterfeiting. The CIA, meanwhile, is not a law enforcement agency, but an intelligence agency that collects intelligence on countries and entities that are hostile or potentially hostile to the United States; unlike the Secret Service, the CIA doesn’t have authority to arrest people. In real life, a CIA operative who breaks the rules would most likely be fired from the agency, not transferred to another agency with a completely different mission.
- Asshole Victim: One of the survivors in Tall Oaks is a sociopathic survival-focused Jerkass named Peter, who, after loudly and repeatedly demonstrating his lack of concern for his fellow survivors' lives (even his girlfriend's!), decides he'd have better odds escaping on his own and forcibly takes his girlfriend's gun (this despite them being holed up in a fully-stocked gun store) before running off. The only person remotely upset when he promptly gets eaten by a zombie is his now-ex girlfriend.
- An Asskicking Christmas: The Edonia chapters take place on December 24th and 25th. Doesn't get much attention because they're halfway across the globe and in a war zone.
- Asymmetric Multiplayer:
- Agent Hunt places one or two players in the role of the various enemies in the game, pitting them against other players going through the campaign. The campaign players get no indication that this is happening and have to figure out which enemies are actually players based on their actions.
- Siege is a Player Versus Player game mode where two teams of three face off, with one of the teams playing as normal and the other playing as infinitely-spawning enemies selected randomly.
- Predator is another Player Versus Player game mode, this time with one random player taking the role of Ustanak and the other five cooperating to take him down.
- Attack Its Weak Point:
- Unsurprisingly, the massive glowing tumor visible on the Shriekers are their weak points.
- See that big glowing red tumor-thing in the hollow between a Glava-Smech J'avo's mandibles? Shoot it!
- Napads have a huge chink in their armor under their shoulders; hitting them here, or making a new weakspot by blowing off their armor with a grenade, is the only way to efficiently hurt them.
- Killing Ogromen requires grabbing the mechanical pieces hanging of out its back to expose its beating heart, so you can then shoot it.
- You can only hurt Iluzija by shooting it in its mouth.
- Ustanek's only vulnerable point is its oversized heart. It takes a lot of damage for it to be vulnerable itself, though.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Ogromen. You face two of them in Edonia, but thankfully not at the same time, until later in the chapter.
- Attack on the Heart: Carla is initially killed by a sniper round to the heart.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Ada decides to help Sherry and Jake because she states she owes them for what she got from their dads. Of course, the way she emphasizes the word "kindness" shows that she was being sarcastic/ironic about the situation (considering Ada's past relationship with their parents) and that she was just giving herself an excuse (quite the convenient one at that) to help out.
Ada: I suppose I should return the kindness their parents showed to me. This is as good a time as any.
- Badass Bandolier: Some of the J'avo enemies wear them.
- Badass Bystander: While trying to escape Tall Oaks and reach the cathedral, Leon and Helena meet and temporarily join a small group of survivors who are pretty capable at gunning zombies down. Too bad they all die later.
- Badass Normal: Ada, Chris, Leon, and their respective partners, of course.
- Balkan Bastard: The J'avo play this straight, while Jake is a rare heroic example.
- Bar Brawl: Chris nearly ignites one in the beginning of his campaign before being stopped by Piers.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Ada Wong at the beginning of her campaign. And just as nippleless as the rest, though are somewhat excusable since the naughty bits are supposed to be covered up with shadows.
- Beard of Evil: Simmons is The Heavy and a Big Bad Wannabe, and he has well-groomed beard.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: The last part of Jake's second chapter involves hiding from the Ustanak's vision in case you are attacked by his drill arm. Jake and Sherry eventually find a mining drill to face him on even ground.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted; Helena, Ada, and Sherry all end up with visible smudges of dirt on their clothes and faces by the end of the game.
- Been There, Shaped History: Ada's campaign will shed light on the occurrences in key points of the game. Just how did that chainsaw-wielding maniac end up falling in front of Jake and Sherry? Why were the passcodes Chris and Piers had to collect found near dead soldiers? Also, if you look closely in the area fighting the chainsaw-wielding maniac, there is a gas-cloud freak stabbed with a pipe, from falling out of an airplane.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Jake and Sherry at times, with Jake being the master of snark and Sherry's responses to it.
- Berserk Button:
- Ada becomes this for Chris after she kills his entire team. Tellingly, one of the possible Non Standard Game Overs in Ada's campaign is to get caught by Chris and Piers.
- Hurting Deborah is a good way to push Helena's button, although it's not very explicit from the game.
- Better Partner Assertion: The third fight against Simmons has a moment where he argues that Leon isn't worthy of Ada and offers himself as the better, more worthy candidate — ignoring that she's already told him no multiple times.
- Big Bad:
- Carla Radames is a clone of Ada Wong who is responsible for starting the B.O.W. incident in Edonia, and as well as Lanshiang and is the founder of Neo-Umbrella and has plans of razing much of the world so that she can rule in the midst of chaos.
- Simmons is initally this; it was his obsession with Ada, as well as his independent experiments with Carla's C-Virus, that directly led to Carla's Start of Darkness and the game's entire plot. However, he has largely lost his importance by the time the game begins, being relevant to the plot ''only'' in Leon's campaign — and even then, it ends up leading just to him falling right into Carla's trap as she planned.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: J'avo halfway mutate into insectoid things. They might turn half of their body into a giant moth, their arm might become a huge centipede arm, they might grow big spider legs out of their back to crawl around at high speed, and so on.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- Ada shows up to provide vital aid to Leon and Helena during their fight with both Helena's mutated sister and Simmons, and also aids Jake and Sherry against the Ubistvo, even personally swooping in, saving Sherry, and depositing her in Jake's arms. In the end, she even leaves Leon and Helena the evidence they need to clear their names and prove Simmons was behind everything.
- A BSAA soldier attempts to have one in the second Simmons fight, by bringing in a Humvee with turrets to aid in the fight. While helpful for a moment, the Humvee is destroyed and the soldier is killed soon after, setting Leon and Helena back to square one.
- Big Brother Instinct: Helena's files reveal that she is/was intensely protective of her younger sister Deborah, to the extent that she actually lost her temper and shot the latter's boyfriend when he started to abuse her.
- Big "NO!": If you or your partner dies in Mercenaries, they'll shout "NO!!!" instead of their names like in the main game. If Ada is playing with Agent, if one of them dies, they'll scream this, too. So does Jake in the earliest sections of his campaign if Sherry dies.
- Big "OMG!": Sherry's reaction when the Ustanak attacks their chopper, and Helena's reaction when the girl they're sharing an elevator with becomes a zombie.
- Bilingual Bonus:
- The J'avo at the beginning of chapter three in Jake and Sherry's campaign says "Hey, what are you doing?" in Cantonese, not what the subtitle translates to.
- After Leon and Helena arrive in China, an easily missed news broadcast can be heard over the radio reporting events such as the biological attacks in the US and China, as well as the death of President Benford. All in correct, proper-sounding Cantonese.
- The names of each of the C-type monsters are all Serbian.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Family in general. According to one file found in-game, they claim to want to preserve global stability by any means necessary, but in reality, they only mean to manipulate events for their own benefit.
- Bittersweet Ending: The outcome of Leon and Chris's campaigns:
- In Leon's ending, he and Helena are successful in thwarting Simmons' plot, clearing their name, and uncovering the Anti-C vaccine. However, President Benford and Helena's sister Deborah are dead, millions of people were infected by C-Virus or killed, and both the United States and China have suffered heavy casualties.
- In Chris's ending, he succeeds in rescuing Sherry and Jake, destroying the Haos B.O.W., and bringing Carla to justice (sort of), but at the cost of all of his subordinates in Edonia, as well as most of his secondary team (including Piers).
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands:
- You can shoot off the weapons that some enemies hold to weaken them. For zombies, it's better to just stun them so you can pry it out of their hands for an extremely damaging melee attack.
- When Carla taunts Chris over the deaths of his men, Chris loses his temper and shoots her C-Virus dart gun out of her hand in retaliation.
- Blob Monster: Carla turns herself into one via the C-Virus to fight the real Ada.
- Bodyguarding a Badass:
- Sherry's "protective detail" for Jake Muller, a mercenary with far more field experience than her, among other advantages.
- Ada comments that she's starting to think she's Leon's bodyguard when she helps him and Helena with a helicopter.
- Bond One-Liner: Ada to Carla after beating her:
Ada: "You tried so hard to destroy the world. Now you've destroyed your body. Hope this is what you wanted."
- Book Ends:
- Jake's campaign begins with him tossing an apple in the air before eating it. He does the same thing in the secret ending that plays after beating Ada's campaign.
- Ustanek is both the first and the last boss faced in Jake's campaign.
- In the beginning of Chris's campaign, Piers makes a comment about getting a better steak dinner back home. In the end, Chris is eating a steak before being approached by a BSAA member.
- Boom, Headshot!: Actually... it's not as much of an instant kill as you'd hope (at least not until you unlock some firepower upgrades). It is certainly the quickest way to kill a zombie, but you're just as likely to only blow off part of the top of their skull instead of their whole head, so you need to shoot them in the head multiple times without missing. Some zombies wear helmets, too! J'avo also like to mutate their heads into horrible things if you headshot them too much, so this trope is really messed with.
- Boring, but Practical: There is a standard single player setup that you can use to make the game a whole lot easier: Defense up (if possible grind out mercenaries first in the HD remakes to get it to level 3), Breakout, Field Medic.
- Defense up will reduce damage from attacks, although the initial grab of a zombie seems immune, which can make it easier to preserve your life bars in general.
- Field Medic will cause your A.I. Partner to revive you by using health tablets instead of the adrenaline injection. This will cause you get health back upon dying, instead of being left in a vulnerable state. In addition the A.I. partner will use their own limitless supply each and every revival, meaning if your partner is close you can reliably keep going without using any of your own tablets.
- Breakout not only makes commands easier in case your character gets grabbed, but it also applies this same benefit to all QTEs while you have it equipped, so long as said QTE event is also used for a zombie grab, which is about 80-90% of all QTEs in the game. Having it constantly on makes the random QTEs a lot easier, and if the game surprises you with one, then this skill means you can still complete them no problem.
- Boss Rush: Leon and Helena's final parts of the China chapter are pretty much one long fight against Simmons. Starting with his T-Rex form, another battle in his Chimera form on the roof of a bridge walkway, and finally him mutating into a gigantic fly monstrosity on the helipad of the building.
- Bottomless Magazines: Some skills unlocked after beating the game once allow infinite ammo for a specific weapon type.
- Brick Joke: Playing the other campaigns can make one realize how you were helped, how something happened, and who just made your life that much harder.
- Bring It: Jake does a two-finger version to the two J'avo who were supposed to "escort" him at the beginning of chapter three in his/Sherry's campaign.
- The Bus Came Back: 26 year old Sherry Birkin, after disappearing off the face of the earth following Resident Evil 2.
- C-List Fodder: Almost every single survivor and BSAA officer you encounter throughout the game will inevitably die no matter what.
- Most of the survivors in Tall Oaks seen in Leon and Helena's campaign will die shortly after they're encountered, and the player doesn't have a say in that. There are exceptions, but it's very rare. Then there are also the people on board the plane to China.
- Pretty much every single BSAA officer that goes alongside Chris and Piers die. As of the end of Chris's campaign, so does Piers.
- It is averted on at least two occasions. Chris, Piers, and their team manage to rescue three survivors and escort them to safety early in the campaign. Ada also aids one BSAA officer and four civilians in two separate rooftops by shooting down the zombies that attack them, though we are not shown if those survivors manage to make it out alive in the long run or not.
- Gets to an almost ridiculous level in Leon's last chapter. You can aid two BSAA soldiers in killing a whole hallway full of zombies, down to the last zombie. The hall will magically fill up just so one soldier has to commit a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Call-Back:
- The game kicks off with the President about to announce new information regarding the "Raccoon City Incident", Sherry discusses how she got the G-Virus and what happened to her father, and everyone compares what happens in Tall Oaks and Lanshiang to the events of Raccoon City. Take a drink every time someone says "Raccoon City".
- Chris and Jake discuss Chris killing Jake's father.
- The ending of Chris' campaign is similar to ending of the lesser known spinoff Resident Evil: Dead Aim except only him as the lone survivor.
- Captain Obvious:
- Finn, who pulls double duty as The New Guy.
- Sherry also displays shades of this with the Ubistvo and while escaping Neo-Umbrella via motorcycle, which Jake even lampshades.
- Car Chase Shoot-Out:
- In Chris and Piers campaign, they chase down who they think is Ada through the streets of China with some of her goons trying to stop you. Depending on who you play as, you'll either be driving or shooting at first, then switch at the halfway point.
- In Jake and Sherry campaign, the pair manage to escape the Family compound they were being held in by grabbing a motorcycle and fleeing through the streets of China with the Family's forces in pursuit. If you're playing as Jake, you have to manually steer the motorcycle through the chaos, while as Sherry you just have to shoot the pursuers coming after them.
- Car Fu: Played straight when the bus driver runs over the Whopper zombie Leon and Helena weaken when it blocks the bus, then subverted when the bus driver runs over a zombie on the road, causing it to spin out of control and eventually crash. A BSAA soldier late in Leon's campaign also runs over a couple of zombies while driving through the infected city.
- Cassandra Truth: After distracting the President's security detail in Tall Oaks, Helena suffered a crisis of conscience and attempted to get them to go back before Simmons made his move, but they all dismissed her due to her reputation as "the CIA's problem child." Leon was the only one willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but by then, it was too late.
- Casting Gag: This isn't the first time Laura Bailey plays a character who is forced to kill a loved one, and a sibling at that. In a Resident Evil production as well.
- Casual Danger Dialog: Leon dishes these out regularly. Jake is even worse; he barely registers surprise at all when everyone else on his team turns into mutants trying to kill him.
- Chainsaw Good: The Ubistvo has some sort of organic chainsaw arm.
- Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Ada repeatedly appears wearing different clothes than we last saw her in, even though she shouldn't plausibly have been able to get changed in that time, especially since she visibly wasn't carrying a spare outfit. It's actually a hint that one of them isn't actually Ada but her Evil Twin — something that, for one reason or another, Chris and Piers never pick up on.
- Chaos Is Evil: In direct contrast to Wesker's Social Darwinist agenda with Uroboros, Carla simply plans on using the C-Virus to wipe out civilization completely and rule over the chaos that remains.Carla: "Hell will rise and chaos will reign!!"
- Charged Attack: Sherry and Jake can charge their stun rod/kung fu to unleash more damage. Piers can do this as well with his C-Virus infected arm.
- Checkpoint Starvation: Chapters can take one to two hours to complete, which is REALLY long. There are plenty of quick, automatic checkpoints, but you can't manually save and go back to specific points in a chapter if you wanted to replay just one part of it, which makes emblem-hunting a tooth-grinder.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The C-Virus injector Piers finds. He uses it later to get Chris out of there and kill the B.O.W. they were facing.
- A few things in the other campaigns play a more important role in Ada's campaign. The lost submarine and locked cemetery door in Leon's campaign and the fact that the C-Virus sample falls down the same place as Carla in Chris's.
- Chemistry Can Do Anything: It's revealed in Carla Radames' file that she created the C-Virus by combining an enhanced version of the T-Veronica virus with the G-Virus in Sherry's blood.
- Chess Motifs: Skill Points are obtained by collecting chess pieces. Higher value pieces are worth more points.
- Clone by Conversion: Simmons created a clone of Ada Wong (who he was obsessed with) by testing out the C-Virus on Carla Radames. When she got her memories back, she was not amused.
- Color Me Black: Kicks off the plot. Derek Simmons's obsessions with Ada Wong causes him to transform his white girlfriend Carla Radames into a physical and mental copy of Ada. Unfortunately, Carla's memories and true personality re-emerge and she decides to take revenge on Simmons by causing a viral outbreak and framing the real Ada for her crimes.
- Compilation Re-release: On October 2nd, 2012, a compilation package of Resident Evil 6 was released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, although the content differs from each other. Resident Evil 6 Anthology on the PlayStation 3 includes downloadable versions of every previous numbered installments of the main series — Resident Evil: Director's Cut, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Resident Evil 4 HD, and Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition. Resident Evil 6 Archives for the Xbox 360 lacks the first three installments of the Resident Evil, but in their place are Resident Evil: Code Veronica X HD and Resident Evil: Degeneration on DVD. Either way, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners are getting RE4 HD and RE5: Gold Edition along with RE6.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Invoked, in the player's favor. A single-player-only Skill (Field Medic) allows your partner to give you free health pills when they revive you. It's pricey, and doesn't fully compensate for a human partner, but is still incredibly helpful.
- Continuity Nod:
- The zombified President's slow head turn after feasting on a body mirrors the first zombie encounter scene in the original Resident Evil, and dying to a zombie usually gives you that classic shot of the zombie eating your guts, and then turning its head to look at the camera, a la RE 1.
- When Chris and Leon meet one another in China, they both recognize one another, having previously met offscreen during the events of Resident Evil – Code: Veronica.
- Furthermore, in the beginning of Chris's campaign, he is shown smoking, which he has not been seen doing since the uncut live action intro of the original Resident Evil.
- Leon and Helena escape from the college in Tall Oaks by commandeering an abandoned police cruiser, a nod to a similar scene in Resident Evil 2.
- Additionally, one Tall Oaks survivor complains about it being his first day on the job as a cop, which was Leon's own situation in Resident Evil 2. He's not as lucky as Leon, though.
- A subtle one during Jake's third chapter. Jake and Sherry have different songs when playing the piano. Jake plays Chopin's Revolutionary Etude expertly while Sherry plays a rather poor rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This references Billy being the better player in RE0 and that Sherry has been in captivity since she was 12.
- Sherry and Jake find a magnum to deliver the killing blow to their final boss, very similar to how Rebecca and Billy find a magnum to take down the Queen Leech in Resident Evil 0. Also, earlier in the same sequence, they attempt to knock the Ustanak off their escape shuttle by launching a crate at it, much like Claire did to defeat the Tyrant in Resident Evil – Code: Veronica.
- As mentioned below under UST, Ada mentions continuing what happened "that night", which doubles as both a reference to both Resident Evil 4 and Damnation.
- The C-Virus mutations have effects similar to the viruses that it was derived from: Regeneration and appendage generation from the G-Virus, and insectile appearances and flammable blood from T-Veronica, not to mention the fact that Simmons' second form has all sorts of eye-like growths, a trademark of the G-Virus.
- As mentioned below, Jake and Sherry's face-off with the Ustanak in the steel factory in the underwater facility seems to have a strong resemblance to another boss fight against the series' most famous antagonist. The boss theme even borrows a few notes to make it more notable.
- The fighter jet Chris flies is a Harrier, the same kind he flew in Code: Veronica.
- In the finale of Leon's scenario, you get a rocket launcher from Ada, which has happened for a couple of final bosses in previous games. No Pre-Mortem One-Liner, though.
- Once again at the end of Leon's scenario. When Simmons dies via impalement on a pillar, his blood flows down into the floor and forms the Umbrella Corporation logo.
- Near the end of Leon/Helena's and Jake/Sherry's battle with Ustanak, the two teams are separated by an exploding tower which crushes the relentless B.O.W. The scene of Leon and Sherry calling out to one another over the flames plays much the same to how Leon and Claire were separated by the exploding tanker truck in Raccoon City.
- We are introduced to another undersea facility similar to the one in Resident Evil: Dead Aim. Plus, the fact of simultaneous zombie outbreaks in the U.S. and China with the use of virus-tipped nuclear missiles was originally the plot for Dead Aim.
- In actuality, many enemies in the game that weren't directly brought back from a previous game can be seen as analogous to an enemy from earlier in the series. To name just a few:
- Bloodshot: Crimson Heads and arguably, Licker
- Brzak: Neptune
- Ilusija: Yawn
- J'avo: Ganados and Majini. The armored J'avo Neo-Umbrella uses are a direct reference to Resident Evil: Gun Survivor's Under-takers, who are humanoid BOWs wielding weapons and wearing armor and gas masks, used by Umbrella.
- Ogroman: El Gigante and Ndesu
- Rasklapanje: Regenerators, as well as Ooze, at least appearance and movement-wise.
- Ubistvo: Dr. Salvador, Chainsaw Majini, and Scagdead
- Ustanak: Nemesis
- Controllable Helplessness: If you take enough damage, you'll drop into a danger state where the character cannot do anything but crawl and shoot their currently equipped weapon (if it has loaded ammunition). Players can choose to crawl to their partner for help or, if not possible, crawl away or try and fight until they recover. This state is timed, if you take one more hit, you die, but if the bar runs out you will recover on your own (albeit with extremely low health).
- Convection, Schmonvection: Jake and Sherry face the Ustanak directly over a lava pit with little to no breathing problems, though all three are Transhuman.
- Conveniently Empty Roads:
- The car chase between Chris, Piers, and Ada takes place on a nearly empty freeway despite the city being mid-evacuation at the moment.
- During Jake and Sherry's escape from The Family compound, the roads have very little of the Post-Apocalyptic Traffic Jam that would be expected for a large city (and is shown in other characters' campaigns).
- Crazy-Prepared:
- Carla seems to be prepared for literally anything and has numerous contingency plans in place, including for her own death.
- Ada correctly anticipates that Simmons will keep coming back and leaves behind a rocket launcher for Leon in the event he does. It could just as easily be a nod to their shared past, though.
- Creator Thumbprint: Variation: This game had many different scenario designers and it really shows, as many campaigns and individual levels feel nothing at all like others. So it's not one specific creator's thumbprint on the game, just that it's covered in many different thumbprints getting it all messy. As a general rule of thumb:
- Leon and Helena's campaign is more of a throwback to the more horror-inspired entries in the series, such as Leon's previous adventures in 2 and 4. The biggest sticking point here is the emphasis on zombies as the regular enemies instead of the J'avo.
- Chris and Piers' campaign takes more from the action-packed campaign of 5, with many fights that take place with wide-open areas and a larger ammo pool.
- Jake and Sherry's campaign has is also action-oriented, but has shades of 3 with the Ustanak, which pursues the duo ala Nemesis.
- Ada's campaign continues the throwback to the earlier games pre-RE4, with a solo-focused story, emphasis on stealth and non-confrontation and puzzle solving.
- To add on to the thumbprints, the silhouettes in the campaign select screen (before the character select) show the enemies that have the main focus in a particular campaign - Leon has zombies, Chris has J'avo and Jake has Ustanak. Ada's doesn't have any, only showing her crossbow lying on a window.
- Crisis Crossover: Of a sort. It's a global threat, and the first game that includes both Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy, alongside Ada Wong and a returned Sherry Birkin, all in stories that interconnect at different points. There is also mention of Claire Redfield, though she does not appear.note
- Crossover: The PC port recieved Left 4 Dead 2 characters as DLC.
- Crosshair Aware: Enemies with Sniper Rifles can be spotted and avoided by the purple laser pointers they use.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: In one cutscene, Sherry was stabbed in the back by a large chunk of metal shrapnel, but quickly recovers because of the G-Virus within her. She doesn't display this ability during the gameplay, however.
D - H
- Dark Action Girl: Though Ada is one somewhat in a morally ambiguous way, the real Dark Action Girl here is her doppelganger Carla.
- Darker and Edgier: The game has a noticeably more bleaker atmosphere compared to previous installments. In addition to featuring several monster infested settings, the kill count in this game is bigger than usual; the characters, primarily in Chris' and Leon's campaigns, have to witness countless lives get unjustifiably slaughtered despite their best efforts, and it clearly affects them emotionally. There's also slightly less humor and the villains are more openly ruthless.
- Data Drive MacGuffin: Jake and Sherry must traverse a snowy mountain during a snowstorm to retrieve 3 data chips containing the former's DNA after their plane crashes.
- Dead Weight: The Whoppers. They shrug off bullets and attack by lifting and throwing survivors, and they are so fat (and so strong) that it's a major disaster whenever one shows up; the first one nearly brings the building down when it bursts in.
- Deadly Lunge: A signature move of the average zombie and Bloodshot is to suddenly leap at the player.
- Deadly Rotary Fan:
- In Leon and Helena's campaign, when they enter the catacombs, they accidentally trigger a trap that activates the blades, prompting the player to crawl. Get near it, you lose your head. For Ada's scenario, she or Agent just get hit by it and die.
- A quick-time event in Leon's Chapter 4 involves a Rasklapanje grabbing and holding one of the characters dangerously close to a large meat grinder in a butcher's shop. Failing causes both to get chopped, while succeeding will only have the Rasklapanje being blended.
- Deadpan Snarker:
- All four of the main protagonists exhibit this trait, with Jake on the high end, Chris on the low end, and Leon and Ada in the middle. Their respective partners also get in on the fun.
- Carla's just a cruel example, mocking Chris about the casualties of his team.
- Death Faked for You:
- Leon asks Hunnigan to declare Helena and himself as dead in order to travel to China without interference.
- Ada has her death faked for her when Carla dies in front of Chris and Piers, as they believe her to be Ada. They end up reporting her death to their superiors and Ada destroys all evidence of Carla and her identity theft so that it sticks, as being presumed dead is beneficial to her career as a mercenary/spy. Only her employer(s), Leon, and Helena know Ada is still alive.
- Detachment Combat: The Rasklapanje enemies, and they can regenerate.
- Diegetic Interface: The in-game HUDs are implied to be extensions/abstractions of the character's smartphone-esque equipment. Sherry, Leon, and Helena, all US government agents, use (or start with, in Sherry's case) the same white, rectangular HUD. Chris and Piers, BSAA agents, use a curved HUD based off their flashlight projector thingies. Jake, a presumably self-equipped mercenary, starts with a unique green HUD, but loses that when captured and replaces it with the same blue cubephone Ada uses.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Counters in this game can deal impressive damage, kill weaker enemies outright, and set up stronger enemies for further attacks. Compared to 4 and 5, though, you can't be doing something beforehand, must be directly facing your enemy and if attacked by other enemies, you're set up for more damage yourself.
- Disappeared Dad: Wesker abandoned Jake's mother before Jake was even born, and Jake grew up believing him to be nothing but a deadbeat.
- Distress Ball: The game repeatedly hands Sherry the ball, always leading another character to help her and reminding us that they're alright people. Jake gets to save her at least once a chapter, Leon gets a few moments of brotherly protectiveness when they meet, and even Ada saves her — twice.
- Damsel in Distress: Cutscene Incompetence means Sherry is going to need saving at least once per chapter in Jake's Campaign. She walks a fine line between Action Girl and Damsel in Distress, bordering on Faux Action Girl, but this is only in cutscenes. In gameplay, she's just as capable as the other playable characters.
- Distressed Dude: Despite his superhuman abilities, Jake is gonna need saving at least once over the game.
- Domestic Abuser: Leon and Helena's campaign has one, who constantly complains about his girlfriend supposedly slowing them down and wanting to leave her to the zombies. Helena angrily calls him out of this, understandably so given her past.
- Don't Make Me Destroy You: Leon frantically tries to talk the zombified President Benford down. In the end, he can't stop the inevitable.
- Doppelgänger: Carla Radames was turned into one of Ada Wong by Simmons.
- The Dragon:
- Carla Radames pretended to be this to Simmons, using him as an Unwitting Pawn for her own ends
- The Ustanak serves as this to Carla who fulfills his directive under her orders.
- Dragon Their Feet: Ustanak and the J'avo continue to follow Carla's orders after she dies.
- Dull Surprise:
- Helena, an ex-cop turned Secret Service agent with no biohazard experience whatsoever and a history of emotional overreaction, is seemingly impassive to the horrors all around her, like mutating B.O.Ws, uncannily intelligent zombies, and mass slaughter. However, when alone for a short sequence, she's heard muttering "Come on, Helena, keep it together," and her voice acting suggests complete emotional exhaustion rather than indifference. Frequent hints suggest she's suffering from shock and possible PTSD the entire game, particularly since she starts the game as an unwilling pawn in a scheme to assassinate the President.
- Ada's reaction to seeing the videotape of Carla being reborn as her clone is a simple "Huh, looks just like me." However, considering how many outbreaks she's been through, she could be a case of Seen It All at this point.
- When one of his teammates becomes a J'avo and attacks him, Jake simply takes it in stride and dishes out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
- Dying as Yourself: Piers chooses to die with Neo-Umbrella's underwater base rather than get in the escape pod with Chris, because he knows the C-Virus mutation will soon overtake him and transform him into a mindless drone just like all other C-Virus BOWs.
- Dystopia Justifies the Means: Carla freely admits that this is her endgame; once the C-Virus outbreaks have completely destroyed global civilization, she will Take Over the World and rule over the resulting chaos.
- Elite Zombie: A meta example: The standard C-virus zombie is hella smart, aggressive, and quick compared to the T version, albeit the tradeoff is being Made of Plasticine in comparison. In the game proper, we have Brute-type Whoppers who are fat enough to be nearly bulletproof, Shriekers who use their mutant lungs to stun player characters and summon regular zombies, and Hunter-type Bloodshots who are even faster and more aggressive than their regular zombie bretheren. Rasklapanje (disassembled) fit the Regenerator type, since they attack by tossing animated body parts at you and then growing them back. J'avo (demon) zombies are Person and Mutating zombies, they're at human-level intellect, can use guns, and even drive cars. Their real advantage is their Shapeshifter Weapons and Evolution Powerups that turn them into horrific mutants.
- Enemy Mine: Discussed and defied, after Ada walks to where Carla fell down and "died", she said she would have helped her in her revenge against Simmons had Carla not also wanted to destroy the world. Carla suddenly regains consciousness and scorns the idea before going One-Winged Angel.
- The End of the World as We Know It: Carla's plan, starting with an attack on the US, then China, and then major cities in the rest of the world.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Jake's obsession with money and mercenary lifestyle stem from wanting to support his mother. That said, she's dead, and he's mostly doing this at this point because he has pretty much nothing better to do.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Simmons has no qualms against infecting the entire population of Tall Oaks with the C-Virus, as well as killing the President and mutating Helena's captive sister even after Helena plays her part in his plan, but he draws the line at Carla's plan to infect and destroy the whole world. Of course, this is more out of his obsession with preserving global stability than any real standards of his own.
- Every Car Is a Pinto:
- The bus and turret Humvee in Leon and Helena's campaign.
- According to the gargantuan, escalating explosion in the prelude and midway through Leon's fifth chapter, Every Car Is a Pinto With An Onboard Nuclear Warhead.
- Everything Is an iPod in the Future: Played straight in several ways; the smartphones most "regular" characters carry are very smooth and round and exclusively use holographic touch screens. The Neo-Umbrella lab in one campaign looks straight out of an Apple store and is almost exclusively white and round. Averted by Chris and Piers' flashlight/GPS devices, which are cylindrical and utilitarian. Ada's cellphone/PDA that she receives from her employer is a translucent cube that flips open into a blocky, triangular, distinctly non-ergonomic phone.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: One of the game's files reveals that Simmons finds Sherry's kind and benevolent personality disgusting.
- Evil Makes You Monstrous: Carla infects Simmons with the C-Virus with this trope in mind:
Carla: "At first, you'll be afraid. But don't worry. You're just becoming the monster you always were."
- Evil Vizier: Simmons. He is the President's most trusted advisor, is part of a nebulous conspiracy which undermines his authority, lusts for power, and even has a sinister goatee! Also, he has a thoroughly disturbing obsession with Ada Wong.
- Evil vs. Evil:
- The Umbrella corporation was mired in an espionage war with The Family, a cabal of aristocrats who have been secretly controlling America since colonial times. They both wanted control of the entire world through biotechnology and The Family has been stealing science from Umbrella, which explains why Umbrella performed public mass-genocide to hide its secrets.
- In the game itself, most of the plot concerns Simmons and Carla/Fake Ada going against each other to either control or destroy the world, not caring who gets in their way or how many people die in the crossfire so long as the other dies. Ironically, in the end, they're destroyed by the people they screwed over.
- Exposed to the Elements:
- Carla/Ada walks around a war zone in December with only a revealing dress and high heels to ward off the cold. This is the first clue that something isn't normal about her.
- Can also be invoked by the player by choosing Sherry's fairly skimpy alternate costume and playing through the snow-covered mountain stage.
- Extreme Mêlée Revenge:
- When Simmons downshifts back into human(ish) form and is vulnerable to melee attacks, Leon, Ada, and Helena will all drop the flashy choreography and just run up, knock him down, and beat the living shit out of his face with their bare hands, each of which ends with a windup punch that knocks him flat. You can practically taste the rage they put into each blow.
- During the final portion of his own final boss, Jake jumps at the Ustanak and just starts beating the tar out of him in much the same way while screaming profanities at him, ending it with a Megaton Punch that knocks him flying and into the Lava Pit below them.
- Eye Scream:
- It's unclear if the Iluzija eyes melted or were just grown over. Still, that's not natural.
- Over the course of the battle with Brzak, Leon and Helena will gouge out its eyes.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: The J'avo have two eyes in the standard places, as well as several eyes of various sizes all over their foreheads.
- Failed a Spot Check: A great deal of the tension about Ada during the China campaigns depends on nobody noticing that she's suddenly wearing different clothes, or at least not making the leap to there being an Evil Twin running around.
- Fake Difficulty: Often used on the levels where you have to run away from an enemy, or an environmental hazard such as an explosion, largely thanks to
Event-Obscuring Camera being in effect during those moments. - Fanservice:
- The first part of Jake's third chapter has Jake and Sherry running around barely half-clothed, and Sherry briefly gets completely naked, though all we see are her back, her legs, and Jake's startled reaction. Just to emphasize how stripperiffic Sherry's hospital gown is, it's practically just four-quarters of a shirt barely kept together with knots.
- There's also Carla and Ada's Navel-Deep Neckline tops, and both have a brief nude scene. Helena's sister Deborah counts, though it may be more Fan Disservice.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Sherry's Lanshiang outfit apparently takes cues from Nathan Drake's infamous "half-tuck."
- Fictional Currency: Chess pieces provide Skill Points to use to buy skills.
- Final Boss: Each scenario has a different final boss.
- Leon and Helena have to fight a mutated Simmons.
- Chris and Piers have to fight Haos, Carla's ultimate B.O.W. designed to infect the world.
- Jake and Sherry have to fight the Ustanak.
- Ada has to fight a mutated Carla Radames. She also fights the mutated Simmons alongside Leon and Helena.
- Finishing Stomp:
- At the end of the second chapter of Jake's campaign, the Ustanak K.O.'s Jake this way.
- The Whopper will pull this off on a player in a dying state if given the chance.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: The BSAA use flamethrowers to dispose of Chrysalids.
- First Day from Hell: One of the Tall Oaks survivors is a rookie cop on his first day on the job. He's less lucky than Leon was.
- First-Name Basis:
- Leon is on such good terms with President Adam Benford that he addresses him by name.
- Likewise, Piers is the only member of Chris's squad to address him by name rather than simply "Captain," though he only does so a few times.
- Fisticuffs Boss: Jake and Sherry lose their weapons during the final part of their last boss. It's notably the first time a boss is fought this way in the series.
- Fixed Camera: Makes its brief return after two games worth avoiding it (with the exception of 5's DLC campaign Lost In Nightmares as an Easter Egg). Both Leon and Chris's chapters involved chasing after Carla, and running upstairs will cause the camera to be fixed in place if you fail to reach the elevator in time. Ada also has a stealth-based one where she must sneak away from a spotlight. If she fails to avoid the light, the camera returns to normal.
- Flunky Boss: Sort of, in Leon and Helena's campaign. The flunkies for the boss in question are just some of the thousands of Chinese zombies wandering into the area. The boss takes advantage of them by consuming them to regenerate itself. To defeat it, you have to turn this advantage against it by spearing one of the zombies with a lightning rod.
- Forced to Watch: Chris and Piers watch their unit turn into Nepads by Carla. Chris has to get dragged by Piers to leave them but it also results in Chris passing out due to being beaten hard by a Nepad.
- Foreshadowing:
- When he first meets Jake, Chris briefly wonders if the two of them have met before. Turns out Jake is Wesker's son.
- Piers' BSAA emblem on his left arm gets a lot of closeups. It's the only thing that Chris has left of him in the ending.
- Even through a single campaign, there is a lot of evidence that there are two Adas, and one's with you and one's against you. It's most obvious in Chris and Piers's campaign, where you stumble across both of them. Then Ada's campaign spells it out.
- Four Lines, All Waiting: The game has four separate story campaigns of equal length. The way the game is meant to be played is Leon first, Chris second, Jake third, Ada fourthnote . Playing the game in this order, though it doesn't match chronologically, sets up and pays off the various mysteries, questions and reveals in the most appropriate dramatic order. Each campaign intersects with the other three at various points, all of which converge to fully flesh out the game's story.
- Frame-Up:
- Leon gets framed for killing the President.
- Ada Wong gets framed as a bioterrorist by her Doppelgänger, Carla Radames.
- Friendship Moment: When Leon asks Hunnigan to fake his and Helena's deaths so they can chase Simmons to China, she barely hesitates. In fact, the reason they know where he's going is because she already put a tail on him. They're accusing a respected superior of a crime they're the prime suspects in, without any evidence to back them up, and she believes them immediately.
- From Bad to Worse: Leon mentions this at one point in his campaign. In-game, things do continue to get worse for every character as they progress through the plot.
- Funny Background Event: When Leon and Helena are on the plane heading to China, a TV in the background shows Chris and Piers pushing the news crew out of the way, which was seen in the first level of Chris's campaign.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- Sherry can heal fatal injuries in seconds during cutscenes, but has a normal health bar like everyone else during gameplay. Funnily, her cry for help during her "knocked over and about to die" state is "I... can't... regenerate... fast enough!" Her ability has no effect on how long she stays knocked down, though.
- Actually averted at the end of Chris and Piers' campaign: Once Piers injects himself with the upgraded C-virus and gets his lightning-arm, he actually does have reasonably fast health regeneration during gameplay. Doesn't help too much, though, as it's an 11th-Hour Superpower, and the health regeneration is mostly there to compensate for his lightning-shooting arm being Cast from Hit Points.
- You acquire weapons in the next level regardless of whether you got them in the last. Especially noticeable with the hidden Bear Commander. The weirdest case of this has to be in Chris and Piers's campaign; the second chapter is a flashback to six months prior to the main timeline, and not only does your inventory from the first chapter carry over there, your inventory here then carries over back to six months later.
- The second J'avo with a passcode can't be killed in the same room that Chris and Piers find it.
- The prelude that serves as an introduction and tutorial is actually based on a portion of Leon and Helena's campaign. While the prelude shows the two of them as exhausted and low on ammo and supplies, the actual chapter it takes place in won't deplete anything they possess in their inventory. The cutscenes that occur in the prelude don't appear in the chapter itself, and Ada as the helicopter pilot is kept secret. Oddly, it would seem that cutscenes were canon, as they are in the timeline. Interestingly, the zombie BSAA soldier that attacks Leon still appears in the same spot, and performing a melee after a head or arm stun does a special kill animation using the zombie's knife. And of course, Helena doesn't have to be injured at this point.
- Gang Up on the Human:
- J'avo are in command of most of their mental facilities, but for some reason, during Jake's campaign, they instinctively attack him despite most of them being from his same mercenary outfit, instead of going, "Hey, buddy! Where's your extra eyeballs, man?"
- The implication is that the particular strain of the C-Virus given to them by Carla drove them insane and berserk. Same thing happens when Chris' men and Deborah were transformed. The C-Virus can be modified to turn people into zombies, so it may be modified to affect mental faculties or not.
- Given the general theme of this games virus, insects, it is possible that most J'avo share a hive mind, so they probably know on instinct that Jake is not "One of Them"
- Gas Mask Mooks: Neo-Umbrella soldiers.
- Generation Xerox: Inverted. While the children of Umbrella Big Bads Wesker and Birkin do team up, Jake and Sherry are nothing like their fathers.
- The Generic Guy: "Agent", a generic spec-ops trooper, teams up with Ada Wong as her Co-op partner. Though he's more of a typical player 2 than a partner, as he cannot interact with key moments in the game (including puzzles), and has to rely on Ada to do everything. Despite lacking any characteristics, he does make combat much easier, and is completely optional (as in if you want choose to play alone, he will not show up at all). He also appears in other game modes as a playable character.
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Bioterrorism is explicitly a nuke as of this game, particularly now that the bad guys have missiles full of zombie gas they can launch into target cities. City of 70,000 people? Boom, 65,000 of them are now zombies chewing on the remainder.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: An invisible boss in Chris and Piers's campaign, which flees each time you inflict enough damage.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: One of Jake's weapon choices.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: 6 continues 4's trend of naming every enemy after a tangentially related word in the monster's country of origin, in this case Serbian. Just like in 4 and 5, no monster other than the generic mooks are named in-game, and you have to trawl supplemental data to find the official names for them.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Family, a secret group of government officials that called the shots by nuking Raccoon City. Derek Simmons himself is part of this organization until they leave him after his infection by the C-Virus.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Chris can lift stunned enemies over his head and toss them across the room, possibly at other enemies, stunning them as well and killing the "projectile". This is also true for other characters, stunning an enemy by shooting them in the head and meleeing them from the front will always cause the attack to be some kind of throw or slam, and the body will still be deadly during that attack. Also, Jake can grab a prone body's legs and toss them to similar effect.
- Gun Kata: An absolute, positive must for getting anywhere in this game, especially Leon's and Jake's. Scarcity of ammo combined with the wicked-ass melee attacks the characters can pull off means that you'll be kicking, pummeling, and countering your way through the zombie/J'avo hordes, while judiciously stunning enemies with headshots to pull off the aforementioned melee moves. Chris involves this to a far lesser extent, as J'avo have firearms to level the playing field, but it's still a perfectly viable, if not recommended method of dispatching them.
- Guns Akimbo: Leon can switch between wielding one or two handguns on the fly.
- Gunship Rescue: Ada often assists Leon and Helena in a helicopter in China against zombies and Derek Simmons. Heck, she even saves some survivors on the roofs of skyscrapers from zombies as she goes to find a helicopter pad.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Not strictly enforced as every member of the playable female cast are all very physically capable, but encouraged in a sense during Jake's campaign where his greatest assets are Good Old Fisticuffs, whereas his partner Sherry seems more comfortable using firearms.
- Hannibal Lecture: Simmons attempts one on Leon and Helena, to no avail:
Simmons: You... have no idea... what would happen if I die!!
Leon: The world would be a better place!
Leon: The world would be a better place!
- Harder Than Hard: The recently released "ultra-hard mode" level of difficulty for the campaigns, No Hope. The subtitle for said mode is "will quickly rob you of any hope for survival." So welcome to having no skills active whatsoever, along with the values on damage and enemy health about the same or harder than Professional mode, meaning that larger scale enemies and bosses kinda give out the illusion of being totally invincible.
- Hassle-Free Hotwire: Ever-so-briefly discussed by Leon as he and Helena attempt to flee in a commandeered police cruiser and ultimately averted once he secures the hidden car key.
- He's Back!: After spending a decent portion of the game as a Revenge Before Reason Berserker, Chris returns to his more likable heroic self after his confrontation with Leon.
- Healing Factor: Sherry has one from the G-Virus. C-Virus infected can recover from a decent amount of damage.
- Heavily Armored Mook: Leon and Helena encounter some armored zombies, which resist their gunfire on certain body parts.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Ada seems to do this frequently, unless you notice that Good!Ada wears a red shirt and black pants and gloves, while Evil!"Ada", aka Carla, wears a blue dress and red scarf.
- Hellish Copter: The BSAA transport helicopter Sherry and Jake rode on gets destroyed by Neo-Umbrella gunships pursuing them.
- Hero-Worshipper: A tragic example. Finn Macauley is the New Meat in Chris' team where he's actually nice to him (and being the most important, since he's a demolition expert). Near the end of Chapter 2, Finn becomes mutated by Carla, and puts a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on him. In Chapter 3 of Chris's Campaign, Piers gives a What the Hell, Hero? to Chris and reminds him of Finn's hero worship of him.
Finn: (to Piers, with Chris out of earshot) Is he always this awesome?
- Heroic BSoD:
- Leon gets this quiet a few times through the game, the most notable one being after Chris tells him Ada was dead, not knowing it was actually her Evil Twin that died. It takes a long moment for him to snap out of it and he doesn't really recover until he sees Ada alive, piloting a helicopter.
- Chris has acquired a drinking problem ever since the deaths of several BSAA agents during a biological attack allegedly caused by Ada Wong.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- A few Red Shirt BSAA agents will hold off the monsters while the heroes go on.
- More importantly, Piers also injects himself with the C-Virus laced with Jake's blood and then fries Haos underwater with an electric shock to save Chris.
- High-Voltage Death: Iluzija finally meets its end being shocked by a downed power line.
- Hired Guns: Mercenary Jake makes a point of demanding payment before and after his assignment — and that fighting B.O.W.s will cost Sherry extra. When he discovers just how valuable his blood is to the world, he raises his price to $50 million. In the ending, he reduces his price all the way down to just 50 dollars.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In Jake's or Chris' campaigns, you can finish off Ogroman by pulling a spike/rib out of his back and plunging it into his exposed heart.
- Homage: When you reach Tall Oaks cathedral, the crazy guy inside refuses to open the door and then starts ringing the church bells, prompting a Hold the Line segment.
- Humanoid Abomination: Whatever comes out of a C Virus cocoon, or anything related, is purely and simply a mockery against man and nature. And that's if they don't take the shape of animals or something completely grotesque.
- Hypocrite: Carla describes the late Albert Wesker as a "colossal imbecile" for his attempts to destroy the world with bioterrorism, yet she is doing the exact same thing, right down to using airburst missiles as a means of spreading the virus.
I - N
- Ironic Echo: Both Simmons and Carla say almost the exact same line when they're shot by their opposing side, before falling over a ledge and then mutating from a injection of the enhanced C-virus.Simmons/Carla: She/You got me. Well played.
- I Gave My Word: Jake is this in regards to being a mercenary; if he accepts the job, he expects to be paid and vice-versa. 50 million dollars, an apple… a deal's a deal.
- I Lied:
- As it turns out, Simmons had no intention of handing Deborah back over to Helena after she played her part in the Tall Oaks outbreak, having intended instead to use Helena as a scapegoat and then be killed in the subsequent nuking of the city while Deborah was used in C-Virus experiments. When Helena realizes this, it only further fuels her desire for revenge.
- A rare positive example, Sherry makes Jake promise that if everything goes to shit, he'll leave her so he can save the world from the C-Virus. When they're eventually cornered, Jake refuses to leave, saying the trope name word for word when Sherry says he promised.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Sherry is skewered through the back by a piece of shrapnel, but recovers within seconds after it is removed. And Piers gets his arm impaled and crushed, forcing him to amputate it to get the C-Virus sample. Also, Simmons meets his end by being impaled on a pillar.
- Implacable Man:
- The Ustanak that relentlessly chases Jake and Sherry Nemesis-style throughout their campaign. When Jake and Sherry briefly team up with Leon and Helena, Jake complains about how hard it is to kill the thing. Leon, who's fought several implacable men himself, says, "You get used to it, kid."
- Derek Simmons relentlessly goes after Leon and Helena after Carla injects him with the C-Virus using a J'avo. He finally goes down after five boss battles involving him. He just refuses to die.
- Besides the Ustanak, Jake, Sherry, and Ada deal with the Ubistvo, a chainsaw-armed B.O.W. that survives being pumped full of bullets, hit by a train, incineration, drowning, getting a building collapsed on top of it, and an explosion. The only thing that finally does it in is introducing it to a Helicopter Blender. At least it only lasts one chapter, unlike the other aforementioned bosses.
- Impairment Shot: Whenever the player gets knocked down hard enough and waits to get up (if they aren’t healed right away by a partner), their vision becomes red tinged and slightly blurred and remains that way until the player consumes a herb.
- Improbable Falling Save: While climbing up the rope of a broken elevator shaft, an explosion knocks both Leon and Helena off the rope. Not only is Leon able to grab the rope and secure himself, but also grabs Helena without slipping down the rope further. Helena can also fall multiple times if the player tries to overtake her, resulting in Leon catching her without losing their climbing progress.
- Improvised Weapon User: Some zombies carry things like hammers, axes, and knives (whether on hand or lodged in their bodies), which you can steal and use against them in a finishing blow.
- In Medias Res: The Prelude shows Leon and Helena trying to survive the catastrophe in China just before the final battle, with the actual campaign showing how they got up to that point.
- Indy Ploy: Jake's decision to take out the Neo-Umbrella chopper that's hounding him and Chris. He even admits to Sherry that he's making it up as he goes.
- Informed Ability: Haos, Carla's ultimate B.O.W. that will apparently spread infection across the world, has no infection-based powers. Justified since it was only two-thirds into its growth. It's more like a humongous Rasklapanje.
- Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Particularly noticeable in Leon's campaign, where random chairs and debris can block him from moving forward, despite being able to slide over tables and dodge roll like a maniac.
- Interface Spoiler: The game makes no surprise that there is a fourth campaign. Or that there is a DLC difficulty.
- Invisibility: The giant snake in Chris and Piers' campaign.
- Involuntary Group Split: Happens approximately once per chapter — the group is split by an explosion, collapsing bridge, rockfall, and so on. Ada's campaign is an exception because it's single player, but it still happens twice during co-op.
- Irony: During the final chapter of Chris' campaign, he and Piers must rescue Jake Muller, the son of the late Albert Wesker who was killed by Chris a few years prior, as he carries the blood that can stop the C-Virus. Lampshaded by Piers.
- It Can Think: One of the gimmicks of the new virus this time is the ability to retain intelligence and mental functions post-infection, ranging from Zombies that can wield melee weapons and firearms against you (very shoddily, but still) to the J'avo, which retain almost all their mental faculties except for a nasty case of Ax-Crazy.
- It's All My Fault: Helena Harper holds herself responsible for the death of the President and the C-Virus outbreak in Tall Oaks. She even invokes the trope regarding her sister.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Despite being Leon's new partner and having grown to like, trust, and rely on him, Helena encourages him to leave her to chase after Ada when she runs off again. How platonic this is may vary on viewer, but Leon declines and insists they stick together, which pays off when they need to work together to kill Simmons one more time.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jake has some aspects of this, particularly when it comes to Sherry.
- Juggle Fu: If Leon dual wields the Wing Shooter and Quick-Shoots an enemy, rapidly tapping the trigger lets Leon juggle the enemy for a little while. Doesn't work for armored enemies, though.
- Kick the Dog:
- Simmons holds Deborah hostage to force Helena to help him in the Tall Oaks outbreak, but as soon as Helena does her part, he decides to use Deborah in C-Virus experiments anyway.
- When Chris and Piers finally corner Carla aboard her freighter, she takes the time to taunt them over how she caused the mutations and deaths of their squad. Chris just barely manages to control his temper enough to not gun her down on the spot, instead just shooting her dart gun out of her hand.
- The warehouse sequence in Leon's campaign is a more subtle example, thanks to Carla releasing Death Trap after trap on Leon and Helena while mocking his attempts to reason with her. She tricks him into thinking that Ada is trying to kill him, then uses Leon as a distraction to escape from the BSAA.
- Kill the Ones You Love:
- Leon kills the President — Leon's former military recruiter and personal friend — after he fully turns into a zombie.
- Helena is forced to drop her mutated sister to her death after realizing she cannot save her, and vows revenge on Derek Simmons.
- Knight Templar: Chris heads into this direction with his overwhelming desire for revenge against Carla after she wiped out his squad in Edonia.
- Lack of Empathy:
- Let's just say that Ada's sense of compassion when it comes to Helena being forced to fight and kill her infected sister leaves something to be desired.
Ada: You should put her down. If you have any sympathy left for her.- And later:
Helena: Just stop it, Deborah! This isn't you!
Ada: Don't tell me you're still crying. She's trying to kill you.
Helena: You don't think I know that!? - Lamprey Mouth: The Rasklapanje.
- Laser Hallway: While pursuing Carla, Chris, Leon, and their partners have to make it through a laser hallway trap.
- Last Breath Bullet: With the last of his humanity and life, Piers finishes off the B.O.W. attacking Chris's escape pod.
- Leeroy Jenkins:
- During the prelude and midway through Leon's fifth chapter, a gigantic explosion pursues Leon and Helena up a stretch of highway. As a helicopter lowers in to pick them up, the door gunner valiantly jumps out to open fire on the oncoming explosion, desperately buying the two time to escape by keeping the oncoming explosion at bay with gunfire.
- Chris does this a few times in his campaign. Piers calls him out on this.
Piers: What the hell were you thinking, pulling a kamikaze stunt like that?
Chris: These are my men. You follow my lead or I'll find someone else who will.
Piers: Do you even hear yourself?
Chris: Fall in line, soldier. - Less Embarrassing Term: The Trophy/Achievement for collecting three figures is titled "They're ACTION Figures!"
- Let's You and Him Fight: At one point, Leon and Chris end up fighting over Carla.
- Lightning Reveal: In Leon and Helena's campaign, lightning will reveal zombies in the cemetery they are traveling through.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Jake Muller is the son of former Big Bad Albert Wesker.
- MacGyvering: Helena's Hydra shotgun has a flashlight duct-taped on it.
- Made of Iron:
- Leon and Helena both survive incidents that would normally kill or disable someone with relatively minor injuries, including a roll-over car crash, a plane crash, being trapped in a bus that falls off a cliff, and being bodily thrown into a car by an explosion.
- The other campaigns aren't much better. Being thrown across the room by an explosion is the least of the things that happen.
- The Many Deaths of You: For every unique monster in this game, there's a corresponding death scene. Deaths from zombies or J'avos may even vary depending on the weapon they're wielding, if any. Annoyingly, some death scenes are gratuitously long; falling victim to a Rasklapanje, for example, treats you to a nice minute-long scene where you find out exactly just how they reproduce.
- Menu Time Lockout: Staunchly averted with this game, where all menus are opened in real time while making the player character a sitting duck as they slowly interact with the options on them. So this time, there's no pausing, and quickly reloading checkpoints to get out of a bind is much more difficult to do than previously. This is only if you play online, though: you can pause the game entirely if you go offline, but opening the actual menu to restart/exit/access settings/what have you still takes place in real-time.
- Metal Detector Checkpoint: Leon and Helena have to go through one with their guns on hand, sounding the alarm and alerting zombies nearby. Made all the more BS by the fact that there is a table next to it that you cannot vault over; however, a metal detector not five meters away has a table that you can vault over with no trouble. Thanks for that. "Should have known better" indeed, Leon.
- Mexican Standoff: Between Leon and Chris. See Let's You and Him Fight.
- A Million Is a Statistic: Averted. When Chris is about to get revenge on Carla for the deaths of his men, Leon is quick to remind him of the big picture.
Chris: "I lost all my men because of her!!"
Leon: "And I lost over 70,000 people, including the President, because of Simmons!"
Leon: "And I lost over 70,000 people, including the President, because of Simmons!"
- Mission Control: Ingrid Hunnigan, returning from 4, Degeneration, and Damnation, is serving as Leon's source of intel once more.
- Moment Killer: A few happen between Jake and Sherry.
- Money Multiplier: Some skills will increase the chance of item drops, some for more specific items.
- Mook Maker: The Lepotitsa is a C-Virus monster that looks like a walking gasbag. It constantly produces zombie gas, so any fight with it and a bunch of civilians in the area means that you're going to be facing a lot of zombies if you don't stop it fast enough. And if you're knocked down by its gas, you will immediately die from the C-Virus. For additional horror, the Lepotitsa's outline looks vaguely feminine, and was apparently named because it's something of a "mother" to its undead spawn. Its name is, ironically, taken from the Serbian word for "beautiful".
- Moveset Clone: For the No Mercy DLC, the Left 4 Dead characters are reskinned from several characters of the main game. Coach is Chris, Nick is Leon, Ellis is Piers and Rochelle is Helena.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Mutated Simmons vs Leon and Ada is this in a nutshell. The player will probably be as grossed-out as Leon and Ada are by the end of the boss fight.
- Muscles Are Meaningless:
- Most Action Commands are the same regardless of character, but averted in at least two ways. The male characters can stop Nepads through brute force, while female characters will simply dodge. In the Leon vs. Chris cinematic, it's made pretty clear Chris has the advantage in raw physical strength. The rear melee attack (performed when you press the melee button with the camera pointed behind you) is different, however: male characters perform an elbow jab, which drops basic enemies into their "heavy stun" stance while female characters perform a version of Sherry's high kick move, which causes enemies to be dropped to the ground for the instant-kill ground finisher.
- Played straight during the last fight against Ustanak, in which Jake faces him in fisticuffs. Despite Ustanak being a mountain of muscle that's about three times as wide as Jake, Jake can beat the ever-loving crap out of him. He can even punch Ustanak hard enough to launch him into a pit of lava.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: Carla's chest-baring dress with its plunging neckline.
- Near-Villain Victory: Out of all of the series' villains, Carla, using the C-Virus, comes very close to achieving her goal and wiping out civilization. If Ada hadn't gotten involved, it would've been a clear-cut case of The Bad Guy Wins.
- Neck Lift: Simmons can perform one on Leon and/or Ada during the third stage of his boss fight; he performs this, then slams them to the ground and kicks them away.
- Neck Snap: One of Chris's melee finishers/stealth kills.
- The Neidermeyer: Chris' fixation on getting revenge on Carla for the deaths of his squad ends with the deaths of everyone in his new squad except for Piers. Piers even calls him out on it, pointing out that they could have prevented some of said deaths had Chris not let his desire for vengeance blind him.
- Nerves of Steel: Like the real Ada, Carla remains cool, calm, and collected in any situation. This is taken up to eleven during her confrontation with Chris and Piers in China, during which she mocks them over the deaths of their comrades and barely reacts when Chris shoots her dart gun out of her hand.
- New Game Plus: As with every game. You can start a new game after finishing each campaign with every character with the items you had before.
- New Meat: Finn, the rookie in Chris's squad during the second mission of his campaign, is the demolitions expert on the team. He gets turned into a Chrysalid by Carla at the end of the chapter during her test, all while Chris and Piers look on helplessly.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: While the viruses in Resident Evil have always been prime examples of Artistic License – Biology, they always had consistent limitations and abilities. In comparison, the C-Virus has only a few restraints.
- When dispersed as a gas, it kills, period; living victims (and exposed corpses) who are exposed to a lethal concentration turn into zombies of several different types, some capable of mutation.
- When injected directly into the bloodstream of a living host, the virus turns said host into J'avo, violent sapient humanoids with a number of extra eyes, freakish strength, and the ability to mutate in horrific and unpredictable ways (from the growth of new appendages to a chrysalis that spawns monsters) in response to damage. Carla also uses bombs that convert BSAA troops directly into the chrysalis — justified because, as can be seen in the cutscene, the "bomb" is a ball of syringe-tipped vials of the stuff that are scattered in a Flechette Storm when it's detonated.
- The upgraded C-Virus is even more unpredictable; Piers mutates his arm into a trident-like appendage, and the capability of releasing massive quantities of bio-electricity, but Simmons and Carla become full-fledged protean BOWs.
- This change is somewhat justified in that the C-Virus is a combination of the G-Virus and T-Veronica Virus from previous games. This allows the infected to control their transformations without becoming mindless… at least most of the time. The game implies that this combination can be modified into many different strains, each with some particular effect, such as turning people into zombies, J'avo/Chrysalids (with or without any self-control), or an Eldritch Abomination, such as what happens when Simmons and Carla. The C-Virus operates on nearly the same principle as the Uroboros Virus, only the C-Virus is more controlled.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Leon and Helena unlock the secret entrance in the Tall Oaks cathedral, which inadvertently releases a Lepotitsa and turns most of the survivors in the building into zombies. The first victim is the guy who vouched for them and let them in.
- N.G.O. Superpower: Much like the original Umbrella Corporation, Neo-Umbrella somehow has the resources and capabilities to hijack and run both an aircraft carrier and a U.S. Navy submarine, as well as arm the Edonian Liberation Army with both an army of BOWs and enough tanks and helicopters to fight their country's government to a stand-still. Let's not forget their ridiculously massive undersea lair, which they built and operated directly under the noses of the Chinese government. Jake even lampshades it. Of course, Neo-Umbrella's leader is an associate of an Ancient Conspiracy who is secretly controlling the United States from the Shadows:Jake: "Did you even see the kind of helicopter they sent after us? A bird like that costs around fifteen million dollars. Man, terrorism is lucrative."
- No Body Left Behind: The method depends on the enemy. Bog-standard zombies melt into black goo, while J'avo (and the creatures they sometimes mutate into) start visibly burning up from the inside-out as a byproduct of their overactive healing, leaving only ashes.
- No Communities Were Harmed: Lanshiang is clearly based on post-British Hong Kong, and several fictionalized versions of local landmarks appear as gameplay locations, including Exchange Squarenote (the Quad Tower), Chungking Mansionsnote (Point Ace of Spades), the Kowloon Walled Citynote (the Poisawan district), and the Jumbo Kingdom Floating Restaurantnote (the unnamed floating restaurant seen in Chris, Jake and Ada's campaigns). Even the vehicles drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheels are on the right. Although in the history files on Lanshiang, it's said that the Chinese had previously driven off British forces from trying to claim it as a colony, which failed to work since they came back and took it as their own before handing it back to the PRC.
- No-Gear Level: Jake and Sherry are reduced to their hand and melee weapons in the first part of their third chapter.
- Non-Standard Game Over:
- Fail an important mission objective (like the car chase in Chris and Piers' campaign) and the characters simply give up without anywhere to go.
- In her fourth chapter, if Ada fails to initially run away from Chris and Piers or gets attacked by the J'avo in the airvents and knocked to the floor, Chris apprehends her immediately.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Though he was born and raised in Eastern Europe and claims to have never been to America, Jake has an American-sounding name and speaks with a distinct American accent.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Simmons and the Family want to preserve global stability by any means necessary. Simmons himself gave the order to nuke Raccoon City. He also unleashed the outbreak in Tall Oaks (which infected President Benford and at least 70,000 others in the process) because he believed that Benford's plans to reveal the government's involvement in the Raccoon City Incident would destabilize the world. The game prevents Simmons from becoming sympathetic by showing us his sick obsession with Ada; his actions in pursuit of said obsession led to Carla's Start of Darkness — and, thus, the entire plot of the game. Helena even calls him out by remarking that, to avoid one possible disaster, he caused another (and killed tens of thousands of innocent people in the process).
- Not Using the "Z" Word: Averted in two cases: Leon calls the first incoming train "Zombie Express", and one survivor refers to a set of incoming zombies as "zombie freaks". One of the unlockable files explains the convenience of the word in detail.
O - S
- Obligatory Earpiece Touch: Every character that has an earpiece equipped regularly touches it when communicating with someone over the air.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Helena only aided Neo-Umbrella in the Tall Oaks outbreak because Simmons was holding her little sister hostage. Unfortunately for her, Simmons has no intention of making good on their deal and uses said little sister for C-Virus experiments.
- Offhand Backhand: One of the new melee options is an elbow strike that connects before the character so much as turns around halfway.
- Offscreen Teleportation: J'avo and zombies can suddenly appear right behind you when you do the next checkpoint. The Ustanak does some impressive movement in Jake's second chapter as well.
- Oh, Crap!: The side characters are prone to reacting this way when the next problem presents itself. Sherry actually says this when a tank shows up.
- Once More, with Clarity: The game runs extensively on this. Each campaign has intersections with the other three campaigns featuring the other playable characters that clarify the context of the interactions. Since Ada's campaign was originally designed to be played last, it means that her campaign is chock-full of them.
- When Ada meets up with Leon and Helena, she leaves them in the mines when receiving a call on her cubephone that she doesn't answer in their presence while giving them an ominous speech about being up against the people who really run the US in a dangerous game. She's later revealed to be taking a call from someone claiming to be Derek Clifford Simmons, the national security advisor, and she knows him well enough to know how dangerous he is.
- Leon and Helena come across the tape titled "Happy Birthday Ada Wong" witnessing a C-virus chrysalid hatching a woman identical to Ada Wong. Ada herself comes across it later, but pauses the tape at just the right moment to focus on a man wearing a gold ring on his thumb that she recognizes as Simmons', revealing who was responsible for cloning Ada.
- Leon and Helena fight the mutated Simmons using a piece of a lightning rod impaling a zombie to draw lightning to strike his mutated form. Ada's campaign shows that she accidentally blew up a lightning rod on the roof, causing it to fall and impale the zombie.
- The moment when Sherry learns of Simmons' involvement in the chaos is treated differently depending on the campaign. In Jake's (her companion), there's some dramatic music as it's treated as a big reveal to her. It's not given the same treatment in Leon's campaign which lacks the same music.
- Chris and Piers come across Ada Wong in Edonia, where she kills all his men. They encounter her on a ship in the ocean outside of China where she constantly seems to be toying with them as she evades them, specifically escaping them as they get off an elevator and again when they see her using her hookshot to grapple to another part of the ship. Ada's campaign reveals there is an evil clone of her on the run, and the Ada Wong at the elevator and grappling across the ship was the real one, while the villainous one is the one they were actually after.
- Chris reports to Leon at one point that Ada is dead, only for Ada to turn up later piloting a helicopter, much to Leon and Helena's understandable confusion. Chris's campaign shows that he wasn't lying, as he saw Ada get sniped in the chest by someone from a helicopter. Ada's campaign reveals that the person shot was a woman named Carla Radames who was turned into a clone of Ada, and she is the person who has been antagonizing Chris and Piers.
- One-Hit Kill:
- The Gava-Smech J'avo will bite you in half in a single shot if you let it get too close.
- Most of the Ubistvo's attacks will put a character into dying status (or skip it entirely and kill them) if they land.
- One-Winged Angel: J'avo zombies can form Shapeshifter Weapons or mutate into completely inhuman creatures depending where and how much they get shot.
- Only in It for the Money: Jake initially is only traveling with Sherry to get a sample of the C-Virus antibodies in his blood for $50 million. In the end, he drops his fee to $50.
- "Open!" Says Me:
- The main method to opening doors that require both characters to open is for them to just kick down the door.
- Subverted in one instance where Leon, Helena, Chris, and Piers are trapped in rooms with explosive robots. Someone in both rooms will try to force the door open with their shoulder, but it doesn't budge.
- Our Clones Are Different: One of the properties of the C-Virus is that it completely changes the infected individual's DNA. If mixed with donor DNA, it was found that the virus, instead of transforming the infectee into a monster, transforms them into an exact clone of the donor. However, this method of cloning was extremely costly and largely ineffective. The only known success was a woman named Carla Radames being turned into a clone of Ada Wong, after 12,234 previous failed attempts. While the clone was "born" with the donor's memories up to the point of the sample collectionnote and further conditioned to act and speak in the same manner as the donor, the clone also retained her previous memories and life experiences, albeit buried in her subconscious.
- Our Zombies Are Different: C-Virus zombies are a little different from T-Virus zombies. They're just barely smart enough to hold onto a weapon (bad news for you if you face one holding an axe or a machine gun), sometimes they mutate right in the middle of battle into horrible skinless berserkers, and they have a few sub-variants like the Dead Weight "Whoppers" or the "Shriekers" that puff up their throats to unleash a deafening scream. Spitting zombies that puke projectile acid show up from time to time too, though these are a classic of the series.
- Out of the Inferno: Getting dunked in lava and being in an exploding base just slows down the Ustanak. Notably, it does this from the flames Jake and Sherry are outrunning.
- Outrun the Fireball:
- Leon and Helena run away from a street-engulfing explosion to a rescue helicopter in the intro.
- Jake and Sherry use a lift to escape an exploding base in their ending.
- Oxygen Meter: Displayed in Leon Chapter 3 and Ada Chapter 1.
- Perma-Stubble: Chris and Leon now sport these reflective their now gruff demeanor.
- Pistol Whip: Some characters have this as a melee option when wielding a handgun. Rifle-wielders seem to butt-strike instead.
- Plea of Personal Necessity: Derek Simmons tries this during his boss battle... fruitlessly.
Simmons: You... have no idea... what would happen if I DIE!!!
Leon: The world would be a better place!
Leon: The world would be a better place!
- Plot Armor: Three notable examples:
- As usual, the protagonists are in no real danger of contracting infection, though this time it's because the C-Virus turns people to zombies if exposed to it in gas form, not bites. Whether it's because they've developed a resistance (having mostly worked in anti-bioterrorism fields for some time) or naturally (for Jake and Sherry), they can take concentrations of the stuff that turns civilians into the shambling undead almost immediately, though sufficiently high concentrations, such as a heavy blast full in the face or a massive, highly-concentrated bank of the stuff deployed via missile, will still be fatal.
- Leon and Helena survive the horrific crash of almost every single vehicle they ever get into. They always emerge battered and bruised, but otherwise comically unscathed. Averted, however, if you get caught in the blue mist emitted by one of the BOWs or stick around in the blue fog too long late in Leon's chapter.
- The Ustanak can go from a One-Hit Kill machine that can take a full minute of fire without slowing down that even going into melee range is suicide to just a strong boss with the same weapon. Notably, failing the Action Command in the lava fight gives the same outcome, just Sherry is knocked onto a platform instead of into a lava pit.
- Police Are Useless: The Tall Oaks and Lanshiang police forces are clearly overwhelmed by the C-Virus zombies (and other monsters) that most of their ranks turn into. A few others aren't going to survive any longer with their facilities being overrun by the monsters themselves or destroyed by the American/Chinese governments to prevent further viral outbreaks.
- The Power of Friendship: Very likely saved the world. It was because of the friendships between the main characters that they were able to trust each other over official information, share their own information readily, and make helping each other a priority. Most notably, if Sherry didn't make contact with Leon against orders and tell him where she was meeting Simmons, or if Leon didn't send Chris and Piers to go rescue Jake and Sherry despite being the BSAA's official top suspect in the Tall Oaks attack, things could have gone very differently. To say nothing of how many times they all would have been killed if their partners weren't watching their backs.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Leon gives one to Simmons as he mutates further.
Leon: "Hope you've got friends on the other side… 'cause no one's gonna miss you here."
- Precision F-Strike: Leon fires one off in one of his later boss fights.
- Press X to Not Die: Returns, almost excessively so. Not only do you have ones that test your reaction time, you also have ones that test your timing.
- Racial Transformation: Carla Radames is a white woman who was transformed into an exact doppelganger of Ada Wong, an Asian woman her boyfriend Derek Simmons was obsessed with. Simmons even implanted false memories into Carla to make her believe she was really Ada Wong. When Carla discovered the truth, she formed the terrorist organization Neo-Umbrella and sought to tear down the world as revenge against both Simmons and Ada.
- Raising the Steaks: Zombie dogs return, as well some sort of zombie shark and zombie moths.
- Ramp-rovisation: Jake and Sherry use an auto transport truck as a ramp as they ride on a motorcycle.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: In an utterly bizarre example, Helena's backstory has her get in trouble with her CIA superiors for excessive force, so they punish her… by assigning her to the President's Secret Service detail, possibly the most exclusive and elite job in US law enforcement. It's quite possible that Simmons arranged it in order to plant a weak link in the Secret Service that he could later exploit, but that doesn't explain how nobody found it fishy that the "CIA's problem child" was being sent to guard the President.
- Recurring Boss:
- The game goes absolutely hog-wild with this trope. If a character has to be occupied at any given part of the plot, another Recurring Boss will be introduced to occupy them until the next Intersecting Event occurs. There's the Ogroman, Ubistvo, and Simmons.
- The Ustanak hounds Jake and Sherry from beginning to end and has a round with Leon and Helena.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni:
- Most of the playable duos with Chris, Jake, and Helena as red, and Piers, Sherry, and Leon as blue. Leon and Helena have those colors as their outfits in China to boot.
- Ada Wong and Carla Radames are these at first, then switch around when Carla has her breakdown.
- Red Shirt Army: The BSAA, full stop. The number of SOU guys they lose is almost at Running Gag heights.
- Regenerating Health: Featured in a limited capacity: Health is divided into 6 blocks, and your regeneration will only recover health up to the end of the current block, similar to the system of regenerating health found in Far Cry 2 and Mass Effect 3. However, during the final battle of Chris' campaign, Piers' health constantly regenerates back to full after he infects himself with the C-Virus, but his attack is Cast from Hit Points.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Simmons family crest has snakes on it. Also the giant invisible snake in Chris and Piers' campaign.
- Retraux: All seven characters have an alternate outfit in Mercenaries mode where they resemble a low-polygonal model from a PS1-era game. Chris, Leon, Ada, and Sherry in particular are redone to resemble their past selves as they appeared in the first two games in the series.
- Retirony: Chris says he wants to retire when this is all over and have Piers take over. Inverted, Piers is the one who dies instead.
- Rewrite: The prologue shows Leon dragging a severely wounded Helena. When the same scene is revisited in Leon's and Ada's campaign, Helena is combat-ready. This change is based around the Forced Tutorial nature of the prologue and the cooperative gameplay of the campaign.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Chris believes that Ada Wong wiped out his team and is the one responsible for causing the viral outbreak in China. Leon insists that Simmons is the true villain, even after being told by Chris that Ada is the head of Neo-Umbrella. As it turns, out, they are both wrong; the Ada Wong that killed Chris's team and is heading Neo-Umbrella is actually a woman who was transformed into Ada's clone by Simmons and the real Ada is more or less on the heroes' side. But Chris's belief in Ada's guilt is pretty understandable given he's actually interacted with the fake Ada and has no reason to believe she was anyone other than who she said she was. Indeed, Carla's plan involved making the entire world believe that all her crimes were committed by Ada.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Chris spirals into this after regaining his memories, and remains that way until he meets up with Leon. Helena also slips into one after she is forced to kill her infected sister.
- Rule of Symbolism: At the end of Leon's campaign, when Simmons is Impaled with Extreme Prejudice on the monument in the Quad Tower, his blood floods the floor of the courtyard and ends up forming the Umbrella Corporation logo, symbolizing that Simmons was just as bad as Umbrella.
- Running Gag: Vehicles tend not to make it out in one piece during Leon's campaign, especially if he is the one operating it. Granted, he ends up operating them while zombies are trying to kill him, which would make focusing on the task at hand difficult. This seemed to be acknowledged slyly at the end when Helena pilots the helicopter at the end of Chapter 5.
- Ruritania: The Republic of Edonia is in the background material explicitly stated to be a former Soviet bloc country, and what we see of it is in the middle of a civil war. Also, at least one language spoken there is Serbian.
- Say My Name: When you or your partner dies, the character who's alive will shout their name. If Chris dies, sometimes Piers will shout "Captain!" instead.
Helena: LEOOOOOOOOON!
Leon: HELEEENAAAAA!
Chris: PIEEEEEEEERS!
Piers: CHRIIIIIIIIS!
Sherry: JAAAAAAAAAKE!
Jake: SHEEEEERRYYY!
Leon: HELEEENAAAAA!
Chris: PIEEEEEEEERS!
Piers: CHRIIIIIIIIS!
Sherry: JAAAAAAAAAKE!
Jake: SHEEEEERRYYY!
- Scenery Gorn: For all its faults, the game manages to have a number of impressive, decimated environments.
- Scenery Porn: The mansion that Jake and Sherry find themselves in is as opulent as other mansions in the series. Also, the floating restaurant present in both Chris' and Jake's campaign. However, it quickly turns to...
- Schizo Tech: It's the year 2013, perhaps not the 2013 as we knew it, where people have holographic smart phones, medicinal tablets that instantly rejuvenate a person inches away from dying, and biotechnology so advanced it makes even present-day pharmaceutical giants absolutely leery with envy. And yet, Derek Simmons still records lab sessions onto VHS tapes.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!:
- Near the end of his first battle with Leon, Simmons' subordinates in the Family pull this on him and promptly ditch him to be killed, having deemed him unfit to lead, and for good reason.
- During the gunshop fight, one of the survivors, Peter, steals a gun and escapes into the street. It doesn't go over well for him.
- Sequel Hook: The game ends stating that the battle isn't over yet as the characters go to the next assignment. The achievement for finishing Ada's campaign is "What's Next" just to make it clear.
- Sequential Boss: Every boss has multiple forms and stages. The final bosses have at least 3.
- Shapeshifter Baggage:
- Leon's recurring boss transforms from something man-sized to something car-sized, then something house-sized, and can fold itself back up into something man-sized, while completely ignoring the laws of conservation of mass!
- Notably averted in the last case with Leon's boss. Simmons disintegrates down into a single man from a form the size of a cathedral, displacing all his mass into gory debris as he descends the skyscraper from the outside.
- J'avo also regularly employ this when they pop out something like a big heavy tentacle arm.
- Shapeshifter Weapon: As mentioned above, the J'avo's schtick is randomly mutating when shot. This can range from turning into highly mobile, heavily armored bug-monster to turning into a giant tumor that sits there and farts tear gas at you.
- Shirtless Scene: Jake, after he and Sherry are captured by Neo-Umbrella. Derek Simmons after being injected with the C-Virus. Thankfully, he has Magic Pants as he goes through constant transformations.
- Shock and Awe: Piers during the final boss. After injecting himself with the C-Virus, Piers gets an organic lightning cannon for a right arm.
- Shot to the Heart: Your partner will give you an adrenaline shot when your health is fully depleted, provided they can get to you before any nearby monsters rip you apart.
- Shown Their Work: When Sherry is impaled on a piece of wreckage, Jake tries to warn her that pulling out the debris will likely cause her to bleed to death. Mind, her Healing Factor keeps this from being a problem, but Jake's logic is perfectly sound; an impaled object should be left in place until the victim can get proper medical treatment, for exactly that reason.
- Signed with a Kiss: Ada leaves a rocket launcher for Leon on the roof alongside a helicopter to escape. The RPG has a kiss on the warhead so that he knows it's from her.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Played with in Jake's case. Jake takes flak for his father's actions, although the most important part of Wesker's legacy in this case is his viral immunity.
- Smokescreen Crime: Neo-Umbrella launches a bio-terror attack on Lanshiang as a diversion while they prepare to launch another, even more deadly attack on Tatchi, with the goal of spreading the C-Virus across the globe.
- Snow Means Love: When Jake and Sherry take shelter from a massive snow storm in a cozy little cabin, there's have an intimate moment, that ends with Jake on top of her. Granted, this is because his superhuman abilities allowed him to hear the enemies coming and he was just pushing her out of the way to protect her. Still, it was quite romantic.
- Socialization Bonus: There are several moments where four of the player characters meet up and have to work together to take down a huge monster. Since the game is co-op, you could have a group of two players meet another group of two for a temporary four player co-op mission. Since the player count for the game has all but died off, finding other players for the four player scenarios is downright impossible. Luckily, recruiting more players is optional and you can do the events by yourself or with your own friend instead of waiting on a few strangers.
- Speak Ill of the Dead: Twice in regards to Albert Wesker.
- When she first meets Jake in Edonia, Carla has absolutely zero qualms against referring to Wesker as a "colossal imbecile" and a "fool." While talking to Wesker's own son, no less.
- Later, after Chris and Jake's confrontation (see You Killed My Father below), Piers insists that Chris didn't have to confess to Jake because Wesker deserved to die and Chris did what he had to do to keep the world safe. Chris is quick to point out that, even after everything Wesker had done, he was still Jake's father and Jake had every right to know what happened to him.
- Spent Shells Shower: In Ada's ending.
- Stalker with a Crush: Simmons's obsession with Ada arguably kick-started the whole plot of the game.
- Start X to Stop X: Simmons' idea of preventing a disaster that could possibly happen should President Benford expose the truth about the Raccoon City Incident was to cause an actual disaster by infecting the entire city of Tall Oaks, where Benford was going to reveal the truth, with the C-Virus. Helena even lampshades this:
Helena: So to avoid one possible disaster, you create another?!
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Sherry mentions this happened to her when she was taken into government custody due to possessing the G-Virus after the events of Resident Evil 2. Later, Sherry and Jake are subjected to this when they are captured and taken to China.
- Strong as They Need to Be: The Ustanak's strength fluctuates depending on how much of a threat the plot needs him to be. He can go from a Nigh-Invulnerable One-Hit Kill machine to being weak enough that Jake can trade punches with him in close quarters.
- The Stinger: Each campaign has a ending shown after the credits.
- Leon’s campaign ending has Helena visiting Deborah’s grave. Helena initially thinks that she would be arrested, only for Leon to give her back a gun. Hunnigun tells Helena that she wouldn’t be charged for Simmons’ crimes. Despite Helena’s reluctance, she accepts going with Leon and Hunnigan. Helena then gives Leon Ada’s makeup mirror back, for “the next time” he sees her. Leon remarks “Women.” then goes to the car with Helena and Hunnigan.
- Chris’ campaign ending has him eating steak at a bar, looking wistful. As Chris takes a bite of the steak, a BSAA operative walks over to his table, reporting about new orders. Chris decides to get to the new orders and gets up to leave with the operative.
- Jake’s campaign ending has Sherry on a plane reporting about Jake Muller’s data being in the hands of the UN. After finishing her report, Sherry gets a text from Jake about lowering his price to 50 dollars instead. Jake watches Sherry’s airplane fly away then he starts up his motorcycle. As it idles, Jake dons a pair of sunglasses that look similar to his father’s. Jake then rides off.
- After Ada's campaign ends, the final "secret ending" shows a young girl, looking out through a window slit, looking at a number of mutated creatures headed in her direction, and asks a hooded figure to "keep a promise" and hands him an apple. Said hooded individual turns out to be Jake, who eats the apple before drawing his gun and preparing to fire on them. Said promise appears to be "protect me and in exchange I will give you this apple."
- Stuff Blowing Up: Grenades and remote bombs, useful when dealing with stronger B.O.W.s and is important for crowd control.
- Stupidity Is the Only Option: Leon, who normally has no trouble sliding over desks with ease, can't hop over a small table placed between him and the university's exit, forcing him to walk through the metal detector while holding his gun, setting off an alarm and attracting zombies. He even has an animation for approaching the table and starting to hop over it, only to decide not to, and lampshades it as well. Annoyingly, he can vault the table at the opposite end of the hallway, flanking an identical metal detector, just fine.
- Suicide Mission: The BSAA trooper who drive Leon and Helena to safety after the entire Tatchi area was saturated with a Fog of Doom practically goes on one, where he comes back into the virus cloud to try and look for survivors of his team, who by then are likely dead or zombified. But he still tries, anyway, and his fate is left ambiguous.
- Super Drowning Skills: All seven (eight if you include Agent) playable characters in the campaign are highly-trained, combat-seasoned veterans, but if rushing water so much as touch their pinky toes during an Advancing Wall of Doom segment, they drown instantly (except on certain occasions). It's a considerable hassle during Chris Chapter 3, where him and Piers are pursued by an enemy chopper. Should they linger too long on a platform, the chopper will blow that up with rockets, dropping them into perfectly-swimmable water where they sink like a stone.
- Super Serum: The C-Virus was advertised to be this In-Universe, but the side effects were not mentioned to the rebel soldiers who took them.
- The Swarm: Gnezdo enemies are essentially a swarm of hornet-like insects taking the shape of a human.
- Swiss-Army Appendage: Ustanak's cybernetic arm has many different weapon modes, including a telescopic claw, a high-calibur gun, a 3-pronged drill, and a flail.
T - Z
- Take Me Instead: Helena tries to save her sister this way, but her sister is taken anyways.
- Taken for Granite: J'avo and other victims of the C-virus can find themselves encased in a cocoon formed from ooze coming straight out of their own bodies, freezing them in place as a gooey-looking statue with an agonized expression on it. A monster pops out of the cocoon later, but by this point there's nothing left of whoever was inside the cocoon.
- Tank Goodness: Present in Chris and Jake and Sherry's campaigns respectively, used by the J'avo.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!:
Chris: How many of our men are dead because of that bitch?!
- Threatening Shark: The Brzak, which looks like a super-sized cross between a mako shark and a lungfish, threaten Leon and Helena in the underwater caves beneath the cathedral.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Zombies that are carrying items may throw them.
- Time Skip: In Jake and Chris' timelines, there's a mission in Edonia during December 2012, then Chris's mission fails and he pulls out (and Jake and Sherry are captured by Neo-Umbrella for six months). They all meet back up in China six months later along with Leon and Helena.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Carla flips out when she discovers that Simmons turned her into an Ada Wong clone.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- Two hapless victims in the first chapter of Leon and Helena's campaign reek of this trope. A bit of advice for a zombie apocalypse: if you and a buddy need to call for help by waving and hollering in front of a security camera, only one (1) of you needs to do that; your buddy should turn around and look around for zombies that might be approaching from behind.
- As Leon and Helena are leaving the train station, they help a woman stuck in a train, who immediately runs to open up a door zombies are outside of pounding against, despite warnings from Leon and Helena. The door slowly opens, during which time she could have noticed the zombies under the door and backed up to let Leon and Helena deal with them, but she remains close to it until one pulls her to the ground and kills her.
- During Leon and Helena's escape from Tall Oaks, they find a survivor named Peter. After the ammo in his rifle runs out, Peter steals his girlfriend's handgun and goes outside to the streets by himself — and all because he thought he had a better chance of survival on his own instead of with a group of survivors inside a gun shop.
- During the "hide from Ustanak" portions of Jake and Sherry's campaign, one potential hiding spot is the dumpsters scattered around. Should both characters hide in the same dumpster, they'll randomly start bickering over who is touching whom. Mildly amusing, unless Ustanak is nearby, in which case he'll hear them talking and promptly kill them.
- Took a Level in Badass: Former Tagalong Kid Sherry Birkin is now a federal agent sent to protect Jake Muller 15 years after RE2.
- Tragic Monster: The President, Helena's sister Deborah, and Piers Nivans. Let's not forget the majority of Chris's squad in both Edonia and Lanshiang.
- Trailers Always Lie:
- Trailers and ads implied global catastrophies were occurring and that the protagonists were trying to save the world from global infections. In-game, only three cities at the most are made uninhabitable by the end and the worldwide infection is stopped before it began.
- Edited cutscenes in trailers made it appear that Jake, Sherry, Leon, and Helena were all in the city as it was hit by a virus-laden missile while Chris tries to get them out. However, in the first chapter, Sherry explicitly tells Jake that global bioterror attacks are happening and they "needed a vaccine yesterday."
- Trailers Always Spoil: The trailers reveal from the start that Jake is Wesker's son, which the game itself treats as The Reveal.
- Tranquil Fury: Chris for a brief period after regaining his memories. The cutscene is even titled "Quiet Anger."
- Transparent Tech: Characters' personal electronics are transparent. The game largely takes place in 2013, one year after its release.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: When Carla infects Chris' entire squad in Edonia, Chris himself falls unconscious. When he wakes up, he has PTSD-triggered amnesia and remembers nothing about the incident or his life except the guilt of letting his team die.
- Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Chris and Leon's campaign has a ridiculous case on this. After Chris and Leon meet, both hear two sides of a phone conversation sometime later. Chris has a jeep chase, fights his way through a hangar, blasts open a door, gets across the hangar again, and hears the talk. Leon walks down the street, has a talk, goes through a shootout, gets on a train, and moves to the front to hear his. Then Leon and Chris have a cell talk after a while. During this Chris finds three passcodes, gets a jet, disables an aircraft carrier's defenses, and fights another Ogroman. Leon has a boss fight and (an admittedly exhausted) swim. Ada's campaign is even worse about things.
- Trick Arrow: Pipe Bomb Bolts for the Crossbow.
- Two-Keyed Lock: Many doors throughout the game require you and your partner to hold down buttons on either side of the frames to get them to open. Not forgetting all the levers that need to be pulled at the same time to get batteries in place, elevators to activate, traps to deactivate, etc....
- Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: As the first game in the series to feature Chris and Leon together note , the trailers and promotional screenshots played around this fact by showing our two heroes in a standoff (which was actually the first scene envisioned by the designers
). In the actual game, there's no real antagonism between the two. Chris and Leon resolve their issues without incident and Leon even helps Chris resolve some of his revenge issues thanks to their brief chat at gunpoint. - Underestimating Badassery: In Jake's backstory, the first group of mercenaries he joined ended up being sold out by their leader and almost completely wiped out, until only Jake and one badly injured witness were left. Their assailants decided an injured and out-of-ammo teenager wasn't worth the bullets and came at him with knives. Jake survives to be a series protagonist.
- Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: Done to a fault, according to many problems players had with the game. For example, in reality, laser-sightings on guns don't stay steady on a target like in most video games. Resident Evil 6 deciding to simulate a real laser-sighting met with backlash. Also, the powerful impact of a bullet can knock someone down in reality, even if they wore a vest. However, many complained about the bullet knockdowns during the gameplay. Also people complained about the surprise deaths, like the infamous ambulance scene during Leon's campaign. However, in reality, during a city-wide panic, random speeding vehicles can cause accidents and deaths.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension:
- The amount between Leon and Ada after three games and a movie is almost unbearable at this point. Ada even mentions finishing what they started that one night.
- Jake and Sherry seem to have a decent amount of tension between them. Hilarious if you think about their fathers' relationship.
- Helena possibly has some with Leon. She tells him to pursue Ada, though.
- The Virus: In this case, the C-Virus. There's also the G-Virus in Sherry, which gives Sherry her Healing Factor and later becomes a component of an enhanced C-Virus.
- Walking Spoiler: Carla, full stop. Even looking at this character provides a huge spoiler, provided you know who you are looking at. Also Simmons.
- Weakened by the Light: Enemies that spawn out of Chrysalids are especially vulnerable to flash grenades.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: Some skills give damage bonuses against a certain enemy type.
- Weather of War: The lightning storm in the background of Derek Simmons's final boss fight plays an important role.
- Wham Shot: Sherry getting impaled and asking Jake to remove the piece of metal from her torso, only to show how her wound closes itself within seconds. Even Jake was shocked at the sight.
Jake: What the hell?!
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite having been shown to be alive and well in the previous game, Jill Valentine is not seen or mentioned at any point in the game — not even in any of the game's various unlockable documents.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Piers gives one to Chris for getting drunk in a bar and then nearly hospitalizing a local in a fight when the bar owner tells Chris to go home.
- Chris gives this to Leon for protecting Ada Wong as, unbeknownst to him, Ada's doppelganger Carla Radames commits a bioterrorist attack that kills most of Chris' unit.
- Leon (and Piers, later on) gives one of these to Chris when he says it's more important to deal with Simmons than let Chris just kill Carla out of his desire for revenge.
- With This Herring: The game plays this straight with Jake (a mercenary trying to make a buck), Sherry (who expected a simple snatch-and-leave mission), and Leon (security detail) to justify why they have only handguns. Chris, Piers, Helena, and Ada avert this trope; since they expect to face heavy combat, they come somewhat better equipped.
- Why Won't You Die?: Ada about Ubistvo, the C-Virus-chainsaw wielding creature she encountered near the beginning of her third chapter, wondering why nothing stays dead anymore after Sherry and Jake's second encounter with him.
- Woman Scorned: RE6 is the story of how this trope nearly screwed the entire planet. Everything comes down to how Simmons, feeling he'd been "left" by the woman he was obsessed with, tried to recreate her using the C-Virus and a female researcher of his who had strong feelings for him. Carla found out what he'd done to her, snapped, and tried to destroy him and — because he'd helped shape it — the world.
- The Worm That Walks: One Chrysalid-product is nothing but a bunch of bees that walk in the shape of a man. You can only hurt it when the control insect is forced out of the cloud of smaller insects.
- Worst Aid: Subverted. When Sherry is impaled by a large piece of metal, Jake initially refuses to pull it out, knowing she would bleed out in seconds. She insists that he do it anyway and then demonstrates her healing factor, courtesy of the G-Virus strain in her.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Each character has at least one melee that would not look out of place in a wrestling match. Leon bulldogs zombies, Jake takes down Javo with DDTs and suplexes, and both Ada and Helena have a few lucha libre-inspired moves. Piers and Sherry are possible exceptions to this (Piers can do a headlock throw that is not depicted often, and it seems rarer to see anyone put off a jumping facebuster by vaulting over them like Sherry can).
- You Killed My Father: Jake subverts this trope — he nearly shoots Chris in the head after learning that Chris killed his father, but averts his shot at the last second and barely misses. He decides that given the situation, he'll figure out how to deal with Chris later.
- You Look Like You've Seen a Ghost: This is the very first thing Ada says to Leon when they meet face to face in the catacombs under Tall Oaks Cathedral.
- Was Once a Man: All C-Virus B.O.W.s, including the otherwise animalistic Illuzija and Brzak, used to be a poor human who was unlucky enough to have the C-Virus run rampant with their genes.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Finally brought back, but in Leon's portion (Ada also fights zombies in her second, third, and final chapters). Tall Oaks and an entire city of China is heavily infected. Luckily, it's implied that Jake's blood managed to avert the apocalypse from spreading further.
- Zombie Infectee: At the start of their campaign, Leon and Helena find a man with telltale signs of infection, but they blindly let him follow them around and even help him look for his daughter. Once the man finds her, the infected daughter turns first and kills him before he has a chance to become a threat.