Resident Evil 1 has two campaigns: one for Chris Redfield and one for Jill Valentine.
Both have unique plotlines and characters, but the basic structure, bosses and puzzles included,
remains the same between both. This can make it difficult to figure out which character
engages with which story events, beyond the basic understanding that Chris meets Rebecca,
Jill works with Barry, Barry is blackmailed by Wesker,
the mansion self-destructs, and both leads and their partners escape the mansion alive.
But thanks to the many callbacks and tributes to the first game's events across the series,
we can piece together at least some of what canonically happened in the game. So, let's go
back to the beginning and see if we can untangle this yarn ball of a canon. Welcome to Canon Ball.
We can use Umbrella Chronicles' retelling of RE1 to figure out the broad strokes,
but with Chris and Jill being together there,
while other sources make clear they stayed separated until at least the lab,
it doesn't help much. Generally, we can assume events that lack a parallel in the other campaign,
like most times Jill and Barry meet up, do happen, since there's nothing to contradict those.
Some events flat-out can't be considered canonical, due to the split in characters.
Chris goes missing somehow at the start of Jill's campaign and Rebecca never appears.
In Chris' campaign, Barry disappears and is never heard from again. Canonically,
all four of them make it out, which isn't a possible ending in any version of the game,
unless you imagine that Barry or Rebecca walked back. We have to assume that the surviving
Alpha Team members arrive together and split up, remaining that way until the lab, or that Chris
does get separated from the others and only gets inside once the others have left the main hall.
There's room to at least theorise when it comes to events with more going on in one scenario than the
other, such as Rebecca helping Chris to make the V-Jolt to kill Plant 42, or Jill finding
Forest because she gets a weapon while Chris doesn't, but those are tentative at best, since
that's not a consistent rule. But there are a few details with firm canonical evidence backing them.
Jill's near crushing after obtaining the shotgun, leading to the infamous
Barry: "You were almost a Jill sandwich."
is also referenced in Revelations 2 with this exchange:
Claire: "I was almost a Claire Sandwich." Moira: "Does Barry tell everyone that story?"
So, this event definitely took place,
but the callback raises the question of which version of RE1 is canonical,
given that the line was changed in the remake, but the original line is referenced in Rev 2.
Barry: "A second late, you would've fit nicely into a sandwich."
Meanwhile, Lisa Trevor from the remake appears in Umbrella Chronicles' Rebirth scenario,
suggesting (alongside the design of the mansion) that the remake is canonical.
It's possible that Claire is just misquoting Barry, or the inside joke among the surviving
S.T.A.R.S. and their families has been corrupted and simplified into this "X Sandwich" line in the
near decade and a half since the incident occurred. Since I'm more familiar with the
remake than the original, I'm going to go on the assumption that the remake is canonical.
Similar callbacks are made by Barry in the same game, such as
Barry: "Who's the Master of Unlocking now, huh?"
and Barry: "I have this!"
The "Master of Unlocking" is a direct callback, even though, again, the line was changed in the
remake, while "I have this" doesn't feel like an intentional callback on the part of Barry.
So it's difficult to say with those two, but I think it's worth making note of, at least.
Richard is encountered alone by Jill or alongside Rebecca by Chris. Since this
is the only way for Chris to meet Rebecca in the remake, and given how Umbrella Chronicles
reveals that Richard was wounded saving her, making her very unlikely to leave him,
it's clearly Chris who encounters him. This also means that Richard dies to either the poison,
or saving Chris from Neptune, possibly making Chris the one who kills the shark.
In RE5's Lost in Nightmares DLC, Jill references having to play
Moonlight Sonata in the first game, meaning she does that, not Rebecca.
Lost in Nightmares also has some dialogue where Chris comments on Spencer's "obsession
with cranks", seemingly suggesting that he had to make use of at least one of the two
cranks in the first game. One could take this further to conclude that Chris is the one who
encountered Enrico in the mines, since one of the cranks is obtained from him. Of course,
Jill also had to go down there anyway to be betrayed by Barry in the remake.
For the confrontation with Wesker, it's difficult to say. Your first assumption is obviously Chris,
given how deep Wesker's hatred of Chris is in Code Veronica, suggesting that Chris is the one who
foiled his plans. Plus, Umbrella Chronicles uses his death from Chris' campaign for its depiction,
so if nothing else, Wesker was killed by the Tyrant. However, this confrontation is
also the culmination of Barry's arc, where he betrays Wesker and embarrasses him enough for
him to refuse to mention Barry's name in Umbrella Chronicles. And Barry's arc does play out because
it's refenced in other games. Without flat-out making up new plot points to make it work,
we can only assume that either both confronted Wesker here and Chris did most of the work,
or only Chris did, and Barry betrayed Wesker some other way,
regardless. Maybe Barry shot Wesker, who was then impaled by the Tyrant?
As for who kills the Tyrant, I don't think there's any evidence from any of the games,
except in the trailer for the REmake pachinko machine,
there is a sequence where the survivors are fighting the Tyrant on the rooftop,
and Jill is shown getting the rocket launcher. It probably doesn't mean anything, but it's the
closest thing to any kind of confirmation we've got, so I'm gonna make note of it.
From what I can tell, this is all of the evidence the series has provided.
Do you know of any more pieces of evidence to suggest what really went
down on that dark July night? Let me know in the comments. If we can come up with enough,
maybe I'll release a Director's Cut of this video with a horrifically butchered soundtrack.
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Today's recommended series is Road to the Rocket Launcher by The Gaming Brit.
It's series that dissects each mainline Resi game's campaign structure.
Kinda surprised I've not shilled this one before, to be honest.