The history of video games is filled with brief eras of “clone” titles. In the early ’90s, there were various “Doom clones” that are now known as revolutionary first-person shooters. In the ’80s, Dragon Questcloneseventually contributed to the global rise of the JRPG genre.
Even now, you still have incredible games trying to free themselves of the “Dark Souls clone” label. Yet, there are few clones that have historically received less respect than resident Evilclones.
Even though it borrowed quite a few ideas from titles that came before (most notably sweet HomeandAlone in the Dark), 1996’sResident Evilreally did change the horror gaming landscape pretty much overnight. Naturally, Resident Evil‘s success led to a number of similar titles that borrowed some of that game’s best ideas.
While we eventually began referring to such games as survival horror titles rather than simple clones, it seems like there’s always been an unusual amount of disdain for some of those games that followed closest resident Evil‘s footsteps. Perhaps there was a time when the market was flooded with such games for a little too long, but it’s a lot easier to appreciate those same games these days when we’re starved for such titles. Besides, a lot of those games were actually pretty great (or at least interesting) in their own right.
As always, let’s look at a few rules used to assemble this list before we dive into the games themselves.
- A game doesn’t need to be an exact copy of Resident Evil to be considered a clone for the purposes of this list. Any title that featured a combination of trademark Resident Evil elements (such as tank controls and fixed camera perspectives, etc.) was likely in consideration.
- This list includes both Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4 clones.
- Finally, the use of the word “clone” isn’t meant to be derogatory. The point of this article is to make the argument that these so-called clones deserve a legacy of their own.
With that out of the way, let’s hop into the lab and dissect some of the greatest resident Evilclones you probably never played.
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