[Pride 2022] "Was It Good For you, Too?" Queer Desire in Resident Evil: Revelations 2

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I’ll be the first to admit I don’t always pick up on queer subtext in media, but even with that confession out of the way it is outrageous to me I’ve only recently realized how profoundly queer the Resident Evil series is. Even the very first game in 1996 featured a potential line of dialogue where the outwardly macho yet increasingly melodramatic villain Albert Wesker tells protagonist Chris Redfield, “I’m sorry for my lack of manners, but I’m not used to escorting men!” as he swivels his pixelated hips.

Sure, there are queer-coded characters throughout the series and fanfiction writers have delighted in filling in the blanks brimming with what one could easily interpret as queer desire and identity. Even if you haven’t played Resident Evil, you might be familiar with a certain big-bosomed, giant vampire named Lady Dimitrescu who took the internet by storm for a hot minute last year. Her assertive, vampy (literally and figuratively) personality as she curses the game’s protagonist as the sour-tasting “man-thing” who has infiltrated her matricarchal castle pretty much speaks for its queerness itself, even if it doesn’t say the quiet part out loud. 

There are also the non-mainline games. These forays into different side plots and experimental gameplay mechanics offer the most overtly queer-coded characters. When one thinks of queer-coding in the Resident Evil series, most peoples’ minds will go to Alfred Ashford, one of the utterly unhinged villains in Resident Evil: Code Veronica. Alfred spends a fair amount of the game giving dramatic monologues complete with maniacal laughs when he is not busy assuming the identity of his beloved twin sister Alexia. Although Alfred’s forays into cross-dressing seem to be due to having a dissociative identity disorder and not being trans, analyzing the problematic queer subtext of Code Veronica would be a whole other essay in and of itself.

Another brief if not regressive queer storyline appears in the even lesser known Resident Evil: Dead Aim. The main villain, Morpheus D. Duval, is characterized by being obsessed with beauty. Severely injured by an explosion, Morpheus injects himself with an experimental new virus which ends up transforming him into a female tyrant monster complete with high heels. There are also some post-game reveals of characters being queer (although this is never made explicit in the games themselves) including soldier Crispin Jettingham in Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and Tyrone Henry in Resident Evil: Resistence. 

So even though all these things sound mind-boggingly queer when I write them out, I never truly paid them any mind till I played Resident Evil: Revelations 2 and witnessed the queer subtext between returning heroine Claire Redfield and young newcomer Moira Burton. With some rare exceptions like Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong, Resident Evil typically only hints at romance between its characters. Otherwise, the series leaves it to the player to decide if romance is in bloom amidst the virus outbreaks, devastation, and villains who slowly transform into gelatinous eyeball cubes. The games also have a tendency to not pair characters of the same gender, leaving little canonical storyline between these characters. So when we do finally get storylines like hunky soldiers Chris Redfield and Piers Nivan working together in Resident Evil 6 or Claire and Moira in Revelations 2, it is delightfully easy to read into these relationships if you want to. 

Claire Redfield made her series debut as one of the protagonists in Resident Evil 2 where she is introduced as a college student looking for her missing brother Chris. She rides a motorcycle, kills zombies with relative ease, and isn’t afraid to mouth off. She also has a strong moral compass, leading her to continue to fight the villainous Umbrella Corporation by eventually joining the humanitarian organization TerraSave. 

Moira Burton is reminiscent of a young Claire dialed up to eleven. She is the rebellious twenty year old daughter of old school fan favorite and returning hero Barry Burton. If you've ever heard one of the infamously cheesy bits of dialogue from the original Resident Evil 1, there's a 99% chance it was a Barry line. Moira is very resentful of Barry, who she feels is overbearing and controlling. Barry is distrustful of Moira due to an incident where she found one of his guns and shot her younger sister when she was a child. As a result, Moira refuses to use guns even when confronted with the horrors awaiting her in Revelations 2. She seems to be written by someone who was instructed to make sure she seemed edgy and interpreted that as cursing like a sailor, having a pixie haircut, and wears mostly black and gray. 

The Claire Redfield we meet in Revelations 2 is markedly different from previous iterations. She was 19 in Resident Evil 2, making her about 32 at the start of Revelations 2. She comes across as more guarded and weary even at the start of the story. Moira comes across as the excited albeit naive new member of TerraSave. It is clear from her excitement to work with Claire she at the very least admires and respects the older woman. Or, if you have an ounce of queerness, obviously has a huge crush on Claire. Moira is set to be Claire’s new partner at TerraSave, and their partnership is quickly put to a brutal test when they are kidnapped by a bioterrorist group. Along with other members of TerraSave including Claire’s supervisor and possible boyfriend Neil (once again this is left to player interpretation), they are imprisoned on a remote island (the second time this happens to Claire in the series) where a mysterious woman known only as the Overseer puts them through a fear-based experiment. 

Revelations 2 stays true to the gameplay of Resident Evil while pulling in influences and grotesque imagery from more psychological horror like Silent Hill and The Evil Within. As a longtime fan of the Resident Evil series, I loved that this game felt familiar while also trying new things with the monsters and mechanics.

As I mentioned earlier, it seems evident right from the start that Moira is infatuated with Claire. I was really picking up a queer vibe, but trying to dismiss it as wishful thinking till about midway through the game. After a particularly intense scenario where Moira and Claire have to work together to escape a room full of monsters and traps as a timer counts down to an impending explosion, they dramatically leap into a body of water to escape the building just as the explosives go off. As the two women emerge from the water together, Moira turns to Claire and asks in a low voice, “was it good for you too?” Excuse me? At this point, the game had to be mocking me and my suspicions. 

Later, Moira sarcastically refers to their supervisor Neil as Claire’s boyfriend. Claire is quick to insist he is not her boyfriend. Moira then reluctantly mentions that she is suspicious of Neil’s behavior on the island, but Claire refuses to accept any insinuation that Neil is not a heroic member of TerraSave. Soon enough Claire finds out that Neil did indeed betray TerraSave to a bioterrorist organization, and that he’s been infected with the Uroboros virus. The Neil-Monster and Claire fight, and in the resulting struggle Claire’s gun gets knocked out of her reach.

In the one decision-based moment of the storyline, you have to decide if Claire or Moira uses the gun to defeat the Neil-Monster which in turn determines if you get the good or bad ending to the game. To get the good ending, Moira has to pick up the gun and shoot the Neil-Monster in order to save Claire while simultaneously flashing back to the trauma of accidentally shooting her little sister as a child. So basically, the storyline hinges on Moira overcoming a huge childhood trauma because of her desire to rescue Claire. Also, as Moira shoots the Neil-Monster to death she specifically yells, “go jump on a dildo!”. So there’s that. 

If that wasn’t enough, later on in yet another countdown to an impending explosion (no Resident Evil is complete without one), Moira pushes Claire out of the way of falling debris, seemingly sacrificing her own chance to escape to ensure Claire makes it out alive. When Claire returns with Barry to help rescue Moira months later, she has cut her hair and is no longer sporting her signature ponytail for the first time in the franchise’s history. She starts to apologize for leaving Moira behind and Moira cuts her off, noting that she’s come to her rescue now. They exchange a small smile. Come on people! Capcom knows exactly what they are doing. 

Even though the queer subtext between Moira and Claire is never made explicit, it felt oddly groundbreaking to be able to interpret that way if I wanted to. I have been a fan of Resident Evil since an older cousin of mine thought it would be hilarious to let a 12-year-old girl play such a gory, terrifying game. The first one I played was Resident Evil 2, and I remember both hating and loving every anxiety-inducing second. Resident Evil has its share of jump scares, but those early games excelled at using sound design to imply that ghastly monsters were lurking just around the fixed angle corridor. There’s a reason one of the original taglines was “if the suspense doesn’t kill you, something else will.”

As the series has grown and changed, so have I. While I always used to think of Resident Evil as something I as a queer person happened to like, it no longer escapes me that there’s always been room to see it as queer. And with its mostly ambiguous romantic storylines, it gives us ample space for queer interpretations of its iconic characters. Resident Evil may not be made by queer people, but it certainly feels made for queer people and it is worthy of celebration along with our other queer horror favorites this month. 

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