What’s the Best Selling Resident Evil of All Time?

The Resident Evil 2 remake has gone quadruple platinum. Earlier in the week, Capcom updated its website with new sales totals on its Platinum Titles page — an investor relations site tracking its best-selling individual titles — and the Resident Evil 2 remake easily made the cut. Platinum Titles are Capcom games that have sold a minimum of 1 million copies, and since releasing in early 2019 to critical acclaim and pants wetting terror, the Resident Evil 2 remake has sold 4.2 million copies. The sales data is accurate up to March 31, 2019.

RE2’s astounding success shows that Capcom may be getting its old swagger back. The company has been on a roll with other recent multi-platinum sellers like the wonderful Devil May Cry 5 (2.1 million) and 2018’s blockbuster Monster Hunter: World (12.4 million). RE2 proves that single player survival horror is still lucrative in the modern game market even with the caveat of Resident Evil being among the most iconic video game series within its genre.

RE2’s sales totals are especially impressive when comparing it to other games within the Resident Evil franchise. In fact, RE2’s 4.2 million sold is remarkably close to matching the original Resident Evil 2’s 4.96 million lifetime sales numbers, an impressive feat considering that RE2 released on the original PlayStation in 1998 as well as Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Gamecube, and PC over the following years, bolstering its sales over a long period. The game also isn’t too far behind the last main entry title Resident Evil 7 Biohazard which has sold 6.4 million since it soft-rebooted the series with a claustrophobic first person perspective in 2017.

The rest of the RE sales data on Capcom’s Platinum Titles page is misleading. The company loves reselling classic RE games via ports — Resident Evil Remake, Resident Evil 0, and Resident Evil 4 were just rereleased on the Nintendo Switch in fact — and unfortunately, these ports are counted separately from the initial release.

Thankfully, Resetera poster Cyberpunk calculated the lifetime sales of every Capcom platinum seller along with some other interesting statistics. In terms of the RE franchise, RE2 is already the 7th best selling RE game of all time. The top 3 best sellers are 2009’s Resident Evil 5 (11.2 million), 2012’s Resident Evil 6 (9 million), and 2005’s Resident Evil 4 (7 million). But again, the Resident Evil 2 remake is nipping at those previous releases’ heels after just a few months, when those titles have been available for a decade or more.

Resident Evil is Capcom’s best selling franchise at 91 million copies sold with the next closest being Monster Hunter (54 Million) and Street Fighter (42 million).

With RE2R’s numbers hitting the stratosphere, it’s probably only a matter of time before Resident Evil 3: Nemesis receives a horrifying make over as well.