14 Years Ago, Resident Evil Let Players Kill Leon – And Fans Still Argue About It

Debuting on March 20, 2012, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City was a fresh approach to the franchise that took more inspiration from squad-based action games like SOCOM than the survival-horror the series is best known for. Revisiting the events of the original games, Operation Raccoon City has two teams of commandos for players to choose from. While one of them can sort of fit into the established canon, the other offers players a chance to fully break away from established lore and outright kill one of the franchise’s most enduring characters.

Even more so than the shocking (but non-canon) death fans can experience, Operation Raccoon City stands out for the way it forces the player to be the one to go through with it. Fans have been torn about that decision for years, with some angry about the moment and others convinced it actually doesn’t go far enough. It’s a brutal way to make the spin-off game stand out from other entries in the franchise, and it still stands out as a controversial entry in the series fourteen years after it came out.

How A 14-Year-Old Resident Evil Spin-Off Let You Kill Leon And Claire

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City was an interesting diversion for the franchise, with a heavier action focus that was far more of a squad-based third-person shooter than the typical horror survival approach of the series. There are also two campaigns in the game set against the events of the original three entries in the series. In one of them, players take control of Echo Six, a Spec Ops team sent in to investigate the Raccoon City outbreak. Working alongside heroes like Jill Valentine, Leon Kennedy, and Claire Redfield, the Spec Ops Campsign largely fits into the established canon of the series.

In the USS Campaign, players take control of the Umbrella Security Service Delta Team. Led by HUNK — who many fans believe is the commando Leon duels in Resident Evil Requiem — the group is assigned to find Sherry Birkin and eliminate any connections between the outbreak and Umbrella. This campaign mode has two potential endings. In the first one, the squad can splinter over their orders, allowing Leon and Claire to escape. In the other, far more brutal finale, the players are forced to fight Leon Kennedy — and ultimately kill him and Claire Redfield before dragging Sherry Birkin back to Umbrella. The latter option is a particularly brutal ending for some of the franchise’s most beloved characters and the sort of beat that really underscores the appeal of a “What If” scenario like this.

Resident Evil’s Darkest Timeline Would Be Brutal

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City isn’t the first game to feature a villain campaign where the player slaughters the heroes. Games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Lord of the Rings: Conquest had a lot of fun with that underlying concept. Operation Raccoon City doesn’t jump straight into that concept, however. While the entire game offers an alternate perspective on a world where Umbrella responded to the initial outbreak with their own dedicated response to S.T.A.R.S., it’s largely a chance to revisit the chaos of the franchise history with a more action-driven edge.

That’s not the case with the USS campaign, though. Instead, that one affords the players far more agency in their canon-breaking decisions. The final decision to either kill or spare Leon and Claire is entirely in the players’ hands. Actually having to fight Leon leads to a tough boss battle, which makes the player naturally excited for a victory. However, the fallout is seeing Leon’s body discarded onto the ground, before a cutscene plays out where a defeated Claire is casually executed. It’s a genuinely downer moment, with the player characters effectively treating the act of killing two innocent people and kidnapping a scared girl just as another day on the job.

It makes the moment all the more harrowing, as it’s actually on the player to go through with it. Defeating Leon comes with a certain layer of grim satisfaction, especially if players have been itching for a chance to bring down the franchise hero since stepping into the roles of the villain. Fans have been torn about this development for a while, however. Some dislike the option at all, as it throws the established heroes to the wayside quickly. Others were frustrated that the game didn’t take the concept even further by having players kill Leon and Claire early on. This would have allowed the USS campaign to more fully explore a timeline where Umbrella was more successful in their efforts to contain fallout from the outbreak — leaving them open to become even more prevalent in the world, given the deaths of franchise mainstays.

With Leon’s latest non-canon death serving as the “bad” ending for Resident Evil Requiem, it makes sense that fans might be looking back at the last time players saw that outcome. A return to that grim timeline might be a compelling release for Capcom, especially as DLC that could utilize the more traditional gameplay mechanics to explore a setting where Umbrella won. It could be an interesting experiment, as well as a chance for players to really get a chance to understand the stakes of the games. Seeing what the worst-case scenario for the world could be might give them extra incentive to be the heroes the world needs them to be.